Don’t be an ass: credit the artist.
Yes x1000, and I would add another reason, beyond it just being the moral (and legal) thing to do for the artist you admire: do it for future knowledge. Do it for future curious creative people like yourself. Tools like Google Image and TinEye would be so much more effective if everyone who published an image would post the credits with it, so that it could be properly indexed. Not some vague emotional poem-line about how the image makes you feel, the actual artist’s name and their title for the piece. In the art (and adult) world, provenance is key, so do your part and preserve the chain of custody, the praise for the things you love, or even the shame for the things you hate.
This counts for everyone, but triply so if you’re a young artist/designer yourself.
If you’re posting someone else’s work, credit them. Don’t deliberately remove the name of the artist. That’s just wrong. If your reasoning is that it’s own personal scrapbook — then keep it personal, not public. If it’s public, the least you can do is credit the artist and link back to their site, or at least their Wikipedia entry.
When I see something I like not credited — I try to track down the source, if for no other reason than to find more art by the same person. Consider this a small payback to the artist whose art you liked enough to post on your Tumblr. Use Tineye to track down original visual art — it’s easy to use, and takes no more than 10 seconds to do a search.
And that was your PSA for today. In the next episode: public shaming.
PLEASE RE-BLOG THIS.
CORRECTION: DON’T JUST “LIKE” IT. RE-BLOG THE FUCK OUT OF IT.
