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Who We Help — Artists & Designers

You made it. Now own it legally.

Flat-fee copyright and trademark services for visual artists, graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, and creative professionals who need to protect the work and brand they have built their career on.

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Flat-Fee Transparent pricing
USCO Copyright filings
USPTO Trademark filings
Direct Attorney access, no middlemen
A visual artist reviewing creative work at a studio desk surrounded by design materials
USCO Registered & enforced

Why It Matters

Your work is protected by default.
Registration is what lets you enforce it.

Copyright attaches automatically when you create original visual work. But without a USCO registration, your legal remedies are severely limited. You cannot sue for statutory damages or attorney fees when someone screenshots your art, uses your designs without credit, or sells prints of your work without permission. Most artists discover this after the infringement is already happening and the window for maximum recovery has closed.

Madison Trademark Solutions handles both sides of creative IP. Copyright registration gives you enforceable rights in federal court. Trademark registration for your studio name, artist brand, or signature logo gives you exclusive nationwide rights to the identity your clients and collectors associate with your work. Both services, flat-fee, handled directly by the attorney.

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What Brings Artists Here

Your creative practice raises real legal questions.

Whether you are a working illustrator, a brand identity designer, a fine art photographer, or a studio owner, these are the IP situations creative professionals bring to us most often.

Register My Artwork or Photography

I want to register my original artwork, illustrations, or photography with the U.S. Copyright Office so I have full legal standing to enforce my rights in court.

Creative Work Protection Copyright Registration

Remove My Work from an Unauthorized Site

Someone is using my artwork, designs, or photos online without permission and I need it removed from their site, store, or social media immediately.

DMCA Takedown Infringement Response

Register a Body of Work at Once

I have a body of work, a photo series, or a collection of designs I want to register together rather than filing each piece individually.

Group Registration Creative Work Protection

Trademark My Studio Name

I have built a recognizable studio name or artist brand and want to trademark it before a competing creative business uses a confusingly similar identity.

Studio Name Clearance Standard Filing

Trademark My Signature Logo

My signature logo or visual mark has become synonymous with my work and I need to trademark it so no one else can use the same visual brand in my market.

Logo Clearance Logo Trademark

Stop Someone Profiting from My Work

A company or individual is profiting from my creative work — selling prints, using my designs in merchandise, or licensing my images without a contract.

Infringement Response DMCA Takedown

Clarify Who Owns a Collaboration

I collaborated with another artist or hired a freelancer to contribute to a project. I need to clarify who legally owns the work that was created.

Work for Hire Advisory Creative Work Protection

Monitor My Studio Brand

My studio or artist name is registered and I want ongoing monitoring to catch anyone filing a confusingly similar mark in design, art, or creative services.

Trademark Monitoring Premium + Monitoring

Not sure which service fits your situation? Let's talk it through.

A free 1-on-1 consultation with Armani. No hourly billing, no commitment required.

Book a Free Consultation

Why Artists Choose Us

Serious IP protection for serious creatives.

Visual artists and designers deserve the same legal quality that agencies and corporations receive. Flat-fee pricing and direct attorney access put real protection within reach without big-firm billing.

Flat-Fee Pricing

Copyright registration, group registration, and trademark filings are all priced upfront. No hourly billing, no invoice surprises. You know exactly what legal protection costs before committing to it.

Both Sides of Creative IP

Armani handles copyright registration with the USCO and trademark filings with the USPTO. Artists and designers get a single attorney for their complete protection strategy rather than two separate engagements.

Direct Attorney Access

You work directly with Armani, not a paralegal or a web form. When your work shows up on an unauthorized print shop and you need to move fast, there is a real attorney on the other end of the call.

IP Concentration

Trademark and copyright is all we do. A J.D. concentration in Intellectual Property means your artwork, studio brand, and visual identity get focused expert attention, not general practice treatment.

Services for Artists & Designers

Copyright and trademark protection built for creatives.

From registering your first body of work to trademarking your studio name and removing infringing content, every service is flat-fee and handled directly by the attorney.

Filed with the USCO

Copyright Services

Registration and enforcement for your artwork, illustrations, photography, and design work. Single works and group collections.

View all copyright services →
Filed with the USPTO

Trademark Services

Studio name, artist brand, and logo protection. Federal registration that gives you exclusive rights to your commercial identity as a creative professional.

View all trademark services →

Not sure whether you need copyright, a trademark, or both? Book a free consultation and we will figure it out together.

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How It Works

From first call to protected work.

A clear, four-step process so you can focus on creating while we handle the legal side of protecting what you produce.

1

Book a Free Consultation

Schedule a 1-on-1 call with Armani. We will talk through your creative practice, what you have built, and which combination of copyright and trademark protection makes sense for where you are today.

2

Strategy & Clearance

For copyright, we identify what to register and how. For trademark, we run a comprehensive clearance search on your studio name or logo mark and deliver a written legal opinion before any money is committed to filing.

3

Filing & Prosecution

We prepare and file with the USCO or USPTO, handle all correspondence with the examining office, and respond to any questions or office actions that come back from the examiner.

4

Registration & Enforcement

Your registration is confirmed and your certificate delivered. From that point, if anyone copies, sells, or infringes, you have the legal standing and the attorney to act on it immediately.

Ready to protect your creative work? Start with a conversation.

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Armani Madison Estriplet, Esq.
Armani Madison Estriplet, Esq.
Founder & Trademark Attorney

The Attorney

The attorney who handles both copyright and trademark.

Armani Madison Estriplet founded Madison Trademark Solutions to bring elite IP protection within reach of individual creators — not just the brands that commission them. With a J.D. concentration in Intellectual Property, she handles the full scope of creative IP: from registering a body of artwork with the USCO to clearing and trademarking a studio name with the USPTO, all under one roof, at a flat fee, with direct attorney access throughout.

Education J.D., New England Law | Boston, IP Concentration
Bar Admission State Bar of Minnesota
Practice Focus Copyright Registration, Studio & Logo Trademark, Infringement Response
Files With USPTO & USCO, Federal, Nationwide

"The creative work comes first. The legal protection should follow immediately behind it, not years later when someone else is already profiting from what you made."

Armani Madison Estriplet, Esq.
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Client Testimonials

Creatives who trusted us to protect their work.

Real clients across visual art, design, and photography who needed IP protection done right without a big-firm price tag.

"

I found my illustrations being sold on a third-party print site without my permission. Armani handled the DMCA takedowns and had everything removed. She also helped me register my work so I am covered going forward. Incredibly responsive and knowledgeable.

KR
[Client Name] Illustrator · Los Angeles, CA
"

I run a small brand identity studio and had been putting off trademarking our name for years. Armani handled the clearance search and filing, walked me through every step, and made the whole process feel completely manageable. Our studio name is ours now.

MP
[Client Name] Brand Identity Designer · Nashville, TN
"

As a photographer, I had always assumed my images were automatically protected and that was enough. Armani explained exactly why registration matters for enforcement and helped me register an entire portfolio in one filing. Efficient, clear, and genuinely helpful.

DL
[Client Name] Photographer · Atlanta, GA

Artist IP FAQ

Questions creatives actually ask.

Straight answers to the copyright and trademark questions that come up most in conversations with visual artists, designers, illustrators, and photographers.

Automatic copyright protection gives you the right in theory. Registration gives you the ability to enforce it in practice. Without a USCO registration, you cannot file a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court. More importantly, if you register before infringement occurs — or within three months of first publication — you are eligible to recover statutory damages up to $150,000 per willful infringement, plus attorney's fees. Without registration, you are limited to actual damages, which are often impossible to prove and rarely worth the cost of litigation. Most infringers know this. Registration is what changes the calculation for them.
If the infringing products are being sold through a platform — print-on-demand sites, marketplaces, social media shops — a DMCA takedown notice is the fastest first move. Platforms are legally required to respond, and most remove content quickly when a properly formatted notice is submitted. If the infringement is more extensive, or if the infringer ignores the takedown, a formal infringement response may be the next step. Your strongest position in either case is having a registered copyright. Registration filed before the infringement occurred — or within three months of when you first published the work — unlocks statutory damages that make enforcement worth pursuing. Without it, your options narrow considerably.
Yes. The Copyright Office allows group registration for certain categories of works, which lets you register multiple related pieces under a single application at a fraction of the cost of filing each individually. For photographers, illustrators, and designers with large bodies of work, this is often the most practical path to comprehensive coverage. The specific rules around eligibility, publication dates, and what qualifies as a group vary depending on the type of work. We advise on the right filing strategy for your specific body of work and handle the submission so nothing is missed that could limit your coverage.
Copyright and trademark protect different things and you may need both. Copyright protects the original works you create — your illustrations, photography, designs, and visual art. Trademark protects your commercial identity — your studio name, logo, or brand that clients and customers associate with your services. If another designer set up a studio under a name confusingly similar to yours, copyright would not help you stop them. A federal trademark registration would. For creative professionals building a client-facing business, trademarking the studio name is the legal step that makes your commercial identity exclusively yours. A clearance search before filing tells you whether the name is available before any fees are spent.
It depends entirely on what your contract says. As an independent contractor, you retain copyright in the work you create unless the contract explicitly assigns those rights to the client or designates the work as a work made for hire. Many client contracts — especially those drafted by larger companies — include broad IP assignment clauses that transfer all rights to the client the moment the work is delivered. If you signed such an agreement, the client owns the work. If your contract is silent on IP ownership, or if there was no formal contract, you likely retain the rights. Before signing any new client agreement, it is worth understanding exactly what you are giving up.
Yes, and for studios with a distinctive visual identity, a logo trademark is often just as important as a word mark for the studio name. A logo trademark covers the specific design as submitted — the visual mark your clients see on your website, proposals, and deliverables. A word mark covers the text of your name in any format. Many studios file for both. The trademark protects the commercial identity you present to the market, while your copyright in the original artwork remains with you regardless. A clearance search on the logo design before filing confirms it does not conflict with existing marks in the design and creative services categories.

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Your brand deserves real protection.

Book a free 1-on-1 consultation with Armani. We'll talk through your brand, your goals, and exactly what it takes to protect what you've built.

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Flat-fee pricing No hourly billing Direct attorney access Federal filings nationwide