A Version of a Work. The inherent character or underlying conception of a Work, the idea or ideas upon which a Work is based, or the plan for action for the development of a Work. Designs may be shaped into Proposals and Drafts. Design always remains as the inherent or distinguishing attribute of a Work. It begins with the conceptualisation of a would-be Work by a Creator, which is subsequently realised in the various incomplete and unfinished Drafts of the emerging Work, and then the completed and Published Work itself, as well as the various Products in which the Work is packaged and made available. In this sense, Design can refer both to a plan of action in the development of a Work, and the morphology of that Work, even when it is completed as a Published Work or Edition. In terms of Rights, there can be no copyright on a Design; only on the manifestations of that Design in the form of a Work.
Design is the creative source of a Work, the underlying conception which finds expression in a Work. In the process of Design, available resources for Meaning are drawn upon and transformed by the Creator. A Design may be expressed, developed or recorded using any Meaning Mode: Linguistic Mode, Visual Mode, Audio Mode, Gestural Mode, Spatial Mode or in Multimodal combinations of modes. Although the Creators' application of effort to a Design is ‘work’ in commonsense parlance, and although working on a Design is the first stage in the development of a Work, a Design is not itself, in a publishing sense, become a Work until it begins to take a tangible form as a particular arrangement of elements of Meaning, such as concrete arrangements of words or images. In working on a Design, a Creator conceives the shape and form of a would-be Work and possibly also develops and negotiates a publishing Proposal. The Work only begins to emerge when the Creator starts producing Drafts, or progressively more complete and finalised Versions of the Work. However modified or transformed through the process of Collaboration, the Design always remains immanent within subsequent manifestations as a Work.