Privacy & cookies

Who we are

4thecreatives.com is operated by 4 The Creatives LLC, based in Vancouver, Washington, United States.

For questions or requests concerning privacy, email support@4thecreatives.com.

Summary

• The public 4thecreatives.com website does not provide user accounts. Design Radar offers an optional weekly email (confirmed by email before we keep anything) and optional forms for sending us experiences, corrections and suggestions.
• Votes and community-poll answers are linked to a random identifier, not to your name or email.
• Student Login leads to a separate learning platform hosted by Thinkific.
• Optional analytics and advertising tools, including our own page-interaction counts, remain off unless you allow them.
• YouTube videos and the Ko-fi contribution form load only after you choose to load them or allow embedded content.
• We do not exchange personal information for money.
• You can change or withdraw your cookie choices at any time.

Information we use

Website delivery and security

Vercel hosts this website and runs its server functions. Vercel processes technical information needed to deliver and protect the site, including IP addresses, requested pages, dates and times, browser information, referring pages, and server responses.

We use this information to provide the website, maintain security, diagnose technical problems, and prevent misuse.

Where a lawful basis is required, we rely on our legitimate interests in operating and securing the website.

Choices and progress stored on your device

The website stores your privacy choices, whether you chose to hide the floating support button, any Learning Path progress you save, and any Design Radar entries you save.

Learning Path progress and saved Design Radar entries remain in your browser and are not sent to us.

We use this storage to provide features and remember choices that you requested.

Emails

If you email us, Microsoft 365 processes your email address, message, and related technical information so that we can respond.

Where a lawful basis is required, we rely on our legitimate interests in answering messages and managing requests.

Design Radar, community poll and page measurement

Votes

Design Radar asks whether an entry was useful. When you vote, we store the vote, the time and a random identifier so that you can change or remove your vote and each browser votes once per entry. The identifier is kept in a cookie called tools_vid, which is created only when you vote or answer a poll. It is not linked to your name or email address.

Submissions

If you send us an experience, case study, correction or suggestion, we store what you write, any links you include, and your name and email address if you give them. A person reviews every submission. We publish an experience only if you agreed to that in the form, and we never publish your email address.

Weekly email

If you sign up for the weekly design brief, we send one email asking you to confirm. Until you confirm, we keep nothing; the confirmation link is encrypted, so your address does not appear in it. When you confirm, your email address and the place where you signed up are stored with our email provider, Resend, so that we can send the brief. Every email has an unsubscribe link. If an email to you bounces permanently or is marked as spam, we stop sending to that address. Emails come from hello@4thecreatives.com; replies go to support@4thecreatives.com.

Community poll

We sometimes ask a short question on a few pages. If you answer, we store your answer, the page where you answered, the time, and the random identifier in the tools_vid cookie, so that you can change your answer on any page without being counted twice. This works per browser, not per person. If you allow Analytics, we also count, without identifying you, how many browsing sessions saw the question on each page.

Page interaction measurement

If you allow Analytics, some visits to selected pages also send us anonymous counts of where people click or tap, how far they scroll, which sections they reach, and how often key buttons are used. We use these counts to improve the layout. They contain no identifiers, nothing you type, no recordings and no mouse movements. Withdrawing Analytics permission stops this immediately.

Abuse prevention

To limit spam and repeated voting, we briefly keep counters based on the random identifier and on a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address that changes daily. We do not store your IP address itself.

We store votes, poll answers, page-interaction counts and submissions in a database provided by Upstash in Washington, D.C., United States. Where a lawful basis is required, we rely on our legitimate interests in running and improving Design Radar for votes, poll answers, submissions and abuse prevention, on your consent for page-interaction measurement and the weekly email, and on your consent for publishing an experience you send us.

Analytics and advertising

Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics loads only if you allow Analytics in cookie settings.

We use it to understand how visitors use our pages and learning resources. We may also record which support link was used and when the support panel was opened. We do not treat these actions as completed contributions. On Design Radar we also record actions such as views of the signup form, votes, saves, shares, source-link clicks, and searches (their length, not the words).

Our website code:

• Keeps Analytics off before consent.
• Denies advertising storage, advertising user data, and advertising personalization.
• Disables Google Signals and advertising-personalization signals in the website tag.
• Removes accessible Google Analytics cookies when Analytics permission is withdrawn.

Google states that Google Analytics 4 does not log or store individual IP addresses.

Google Analytics cookies may remain for up to two years. User-level and event-level Analytics data is retained for no longer than 14 months. Google’s standard aggregated reports may remain available for longer.

See Google’s privacy policy.

Meta Pixel

Meta Pixel loads only if you allow Advertising in cookie settings.

We use it to measure advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Meta may use information received through the Pixel for advertising measurement and targeted advertising under its own policies.

Meta Pixel remains off when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal. If Advertising permission is withdrawn, we stop loading Meta Pixel and remove its cookies that this website can access.

See Meta’s privacy policy.

Cookies and browser storage

Necessary and user-requested functional storage does not activate Analytics or Advertising.

You can change or withdraw your choices at any time through cookie settings, which is linked in every page footer.

YouTube and Ko-fi

YouTube

Course trailers use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced embedded player.

The player loads only when you select Play video or allow embedded content in cookie settings. Once loaded, YouTube can receive technical and usage information and store data under Google’s policies.

Privacy-enhanced mode limits how embedded views are used for personalization, but it does not make the YouTube player data-free.

Ko-fi

The contribution form is provided by Ko-fi. It loads only when you choose to load it or allow embedded content.

Once loaded, Ko-fi and services used by Ko-fi may process information and use their own cookies. These services can include Google Analytics, Google advertising services, Cloudflare, Stripe, and PayPal.

Ko-fi’s embedded page may send activity to the Google Analytics measurement ID associated with 4 The Creatives. This occurs within Ko-fi’s service and is separate from the Analytics and Advertising choices controlling scripts on 4thecreatives.com.

You can use the external 4 The Creatives Ko-fi page without loading the embedded form.

See Ko-fi’s privacy policy.

Contributions

Ko-fi and its payment providers process contributions. We do not receive or store complete card details.

Depending on the payment method and information provided, we may receive:

• Your display name.
• Your email address.
• Your message.
• The amount and date of the contribution.
• Transaction or payment-status information.
• Your name and email address from PayPal when PayPal is used.

We use this information to record contributions, answer questions, manage refunds or disputes, prevent fraud, and maintain required financial records.

Ko-fi, PayPal, and Stripe process information under their own terms and privacy policies.

Student Login

Student Login leads to courses.4thecreatives.com, a separate learning platform hosted by Thinkific.

When you create or use a student account, Thinkific may process information such as your name, email address, account information, course enrollments, course progress, activity, and transaction information. Thinkific provides this information to us as the course owner so that we can operate the learning platform and support students.

Thinkific processes platform information under its own privacy practices and its agreements with course owners. The cookie settings on 4thecreatives.com do not control cookies or storage on the Thinkific platform.

See Thinkific’s privacy policy.

Sharing and advertising

We disclose information to the service providers described in this notice, including Vercel (hosting), Upstash (database) and Resend (email), when needed to operate the website, provide requested features, process contributions, communicate with visitors, or measure optional analytics and advertising.

We do not exchange personal information for money.

If you allow Advertising, Meta Pixel sends information about your visit to Meta for advertising measurement and targeted advertising. Some privacy laws may define this type of disclosure as “sharing” or “sale,” even when no money changes hands.

Advertising is off unless you allow it. You can turn it off at any time through cookie settings. We also honor Global Privacy Control as an opt-out of this advertising disclosure.

How long we keep information

• Consent choices are kept for six months.
• The support-button preference lasts for a browser session, although browser session-restoration features may preserve it.
• Learning Path progress remains on your device until you clear it.
• Vercel keeps website request and function logs for one day.
• Design Radar votes are kept while the entry is published and deleted 30 days after it is removed.
• Individual community-poll answers are deleted 90 days after the poll closes; only the totals are kept.
• Page-interaction counts are deleted after 90 days.
• Submissions we don’t use are deleted six months after you send them. Submissions we use are kept as long as the related published entry or correction needs them, or until you ask us to delete them.
• Weekly-email subscriber records are kept until you unsubscribe. Afterwards we keep only your address and its unsubscribed status, so that we don’t email you again. Counts of bounced or undelivered emails (without addresses) are kept for up to 400 days.
• Abuse-prevention counters are kept for up to 24 hours.
• Google Analytics user-level and event-level data is retained for no longer than 14 months. Standard aggregated reports may remain available longer.
• Support emails are normally kept for up to 24 months after the last communication. They may be kept longer when needed for an unresolved request, security issue, legal obligation, or necessary business record.
• Financial and contribution records are kept for as long as reasonably necessary to meet accounting, tax, fraud-prevention, dispute, and legal obligations.
• Nonfinancial supporter messages and related correspondence are normally kept for up to 24 months.
• Student account and course information is kept while the account or course relationship remains active and afterward only as reasonably necessary for support, recordkeeping, security, and legal obligations.

We may delete information earlier when it is no longer needed.

Your choices and rights

You can:

• Accept or reject optional cookies.
• Change or withdraw your consent through cookie settings.
• Load YouTube or Ko-fi content once without granting continuing permission for other optional tools.
• Use your browser to block or delete cookies and browser storage.
• Send a Global Privacy Control signal to opt out of Advertising.
• Remove a Design Radar vote by selecting it again, and change a poll answer while the poll is open.
• Unsubscribe from any email using the link it contains.
• Contact us to request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal information we hold about you, including a submission or your email subscription.

Depending on where you live and which laws apply, you may also have rights to receive a copy of your information, restrict or object to its use, withdraw consent, or opt out of certain disclosures used for targeted advertising.

To make a privacy request, email support@4thecreatives.com. We may need to verify the request before acting on it. We will respond within the period required by applicable law.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the privacy regulator or attorney general responsible for your location.

International processing

4 The Creatives LLC is based in the United States. Our service providers, including Vercel, Upstash (Washington, D.C.) and Resend, may process information in the United States and other countries.

Where required, international transfers are handled through the safeguards and contractual arrangements offered by the relevant provider and required by applicable law.

Children

4 The Creatives provides general graphic design education and is not directed specifically to children under 13.

The public 4thecreatives.com website does not ask anyone to create an account. Design Radar’s optional forms and weekly email are not directed to children under 13. Some educational content may be viewed by younger learners with the involvement of a parent, guardian, or school.

Student Login is a separate account-based platform. A parent or guardian who believes a child has provided personal information through that platform can contact us at support@4thecreatives.com.

Changes and contact

We may update this notice when our website, providers, or practices change. When we do, we will update the date at the top of this page.

Questions and privacy requests can be sent to support@4thecreatives.com.