Kate Harper's Blog: 7/11/10

Artists Who Twist your Mind

Evan Roth is one of them. Here are some things from his website:

How to build a fake google street car:

How to build a fake Google Street View car

Intellectual Property Donor.
In event of death, donate all intellectual property to the public domain.

Public Domain Countdown until the death of an artist.

michael, jackson, public, domain, countdown

About Evan:

Evan Roth is an artist and researcher whose work focuses on technology, open source and popular culture.

Roth has exhibited widely in the Americas, Europe and Asia, including the Sundance Film Festival, the MoMA, the Tate, the Fondation Cartier and te front page of YouTube.

Roth's work explores the overlap between free culture and popular culture.

Naming Image File: Do's and Don'ts

Why does it matter what you name your image jpg? A good image file name can: 1) Be processed by a variety of different computer operating systems and 2) Help art directors will know who the art belongs to, even if it gets mixed with other artists.

What I've found from doing web design coding, is that in general, it's always a good practice to:

Put the file name in lower case letters.

It's a good habit to limit characters to letters, numbers, and underscores.

Don't use blank spaces when you name a file. Instead use underscores to_separate_words.

Try to include your own name on the file, so art directors remember who the image belongs to, such as: kateharper_catcard.jpg or kharper_cat_card.jpg

Some art directors want the date or special words included in the image filename. For excample, a greeting cards publisher might want a separate image file for front and inside text. You might consider using front_harper_cat_1.jpg and inside_harper_cat_1.jpg

Keep it under 56 characters, the shorter the better. I've found 10-20 characters is usually enough room to squeeze in my name and a description.

Reference Article

Here's more detailed information I found in this great article from Controlled Vocabulary Website on How to name image files. Read complete article and see all 8 tips...

1. Be careful with using special characters.

When creating file and folder names, limit your filenames to the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore ( _ ), period ( . ), and hyphen ( - ). (But avoid using hyphens and periods since some older systems can't handle it.)

2. Do not use more than one period in a file name.

Save it for your extensions (.jpg .gif .png) Why? Because doing so will ensure full backwards compatibility for some operating systems. Also, some mail filtering programs will consider a file with two periods to be a "virus" or "worm."

3. Do not assume names are case sensitive - or - not case sensitive

Do not expect a directory to be able to hold separate elements named "Lifestyle" and "lifestyle", and , do not expect a file created with the name of "AN18256R.JPG" to be opened or found successfully using "an18256r.jpg". Read complete article and see all 8 tips...

Ten Questions to ask Before Licensing You Art

Here's a helpful article by Maria Brophy :
Ten Questions to ask Before Hooking Up Your Art With a License"

Excerpt:

1.) What are your distribution channels? (Translated: where are your products sold?)

Distribution Channels can be broken down in this way:

Specialty: Includes boutiques and specific shops that cater to a particular lifestyle such as surf, skate, snow, fishing, dive, etc.

Upper Tier: High end department stores (i.e. Saks)

Mid tier: Middle end department stores (i.e. Penney’s)

Lower Tier: Target

Mass Market: Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Costco

Other: Catalogs, direct mail, online, televised shopping

You want to know where they sell their stuff because if it’s to Wal-Mart and you don’t want your art sold there, then cancel the engagement!

2.) Who are your top 5 retail accounts?

Read entire article...

Also See:

ART LICENSING

Booklet on 20 Steps to Art Licensing that is a list of suggested steps to to take for getting into art licensing. How to license your art to companies that publish greeting cards, and manufacture coffee mugs, magnets, wall hangings, kitchen items, and dozens of other gift items. This booklet covers 20 basic steps from how to prepare your art, to what companies to contact. It includes topics on: How to find agents, classes and what trade shows to attend. There are extensive resources on social media, licensing community groups, and lists of interviews with professional designers (5,200 words).

Art Licensing Class this Friday, San Clemente

I've always liked all the priceless art licensing information that Maria Brophy has offered on her blog , so I wanted to let people know about a class she is teaching this Friday. What a deal for only $10!

Maria Brophy is teaching a class called: ART LICENSING 101, and is being held Friday from 6-7:30 at San Clemente Arts in San Clemente, CA. Their website for details and registration is http://www.scartsupply.com. Cost is $10.00!

ART LICENSING 101: Artists can earn money over and over again from the same images through art licensing. It’s what I call “working smarter, not harder.” In this lecture, I cover the basics of art licensing, how it works, how to get ready for it, resources, and realistically what you can expect to gain, earn and get from licensing your art. I’m bringing the last 3 years of our profit loss reports to show exactly how much money we’ve made from licensing Drew Brophy’s art!

Maria Brophy, is CEO of Son of the Sea, Inc., Marketing & Licensing Drew Brophy Properties
www.sonofthesea.com and also has a blog that helps creative people design the career.

BOOKS FOR THE CARD DESIGN

These are books I own and recommend. Some may be out of print, but used copies may be available. Check link.

Start & Run a Greeting Cards Business Book covers starting a card business in the UK. Good basic info, but financial/measurement info is in different monetary units.

Greeting Card Design Book that shows examples of professional card design.

Publishing Your Art as Cards How to make and sell your own cards for an extra income.

Pushing the Envelope How to work with greeting card sales reps.

Complete Guide to Greeting Card Design and Illustration Great Book on understanding the greeting card profession and how to develop a style.

1000 Handmade Greetings: creative cards and clever correspondence This is not a simple craft book for hobbyists,instead it is a picture book of professionally handmade cards by leading companies and designers.

By the Batch: Creative Cards, Postcards, Envelopes & More Book that addresses how to "manufacture" handmade greeting cards.

How to Write and Sell Greeting Cards, Bumper Stickers, Tshirts and Other Fun Stuff

Sell the Fun Stuff: Writers' and Artists' Market Guidelines for Greeting Cards, Posters, Rubber Stamps, T-Shirts, Aprons, Bumper Stickers, and More!

Writing Card Sentiments

Freelance Writing for Greeting Cards Another good book on how to write for cards professionally.

You Can Write Your Own Greeting Cards Clear guidelines on how to write card sentiments professionally.

Finding the Right Words One of many basic books of this series that tells you how to add words products, cards, etc.

Licensing Your Art to Companies

Licensing Art and Design

Licensing Art 101 Good beginners guide on the art licensing business.

2011 Artist's and Graphic Designer's Market List of greeting card companies, art licensees and agents.Detailed information on submission guidelines.

Gift and Product Design

Start with a Scan One of a kind book that tells you how to transform your art into a scan and what to do with it from there.

Design Your Own Repeat Patterns Simple book on learning repeats.

Twentieth-Century Pattern Design Great book for inspiration and creative approaches to designing patterns.

How to Break into Product Design Overview of product design in all industries.

Designing a Digital Portfolio Shows you how to put a digital portfolio together for the modern era.

Mary Engelbreit: The Art And The Artist Amazing story of how Mary ended up doing licensing.

Principles of Pattern Design Good info on pattern design

Imagery on Fabric Basic info on putting images onto fabric.

Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing Yearly updated guidelines for pricing for people in art careers.

5,000 Years of Textiles Far East, Americas, Africa, Scandinavia, and Egyptian. Good for studying fabric design.

Abstract Design and How to Create It Over 380 illustrations, diagrams, designs, border patterns and textile patterns.

Creative Illustration Workshop Exercises for integrating illustration with other mixed-media techniques, and scan and layer your illustrations using a computer.

Print Workshop Hand-Printing Techniques for low budgets. Interesting ways to put imagery on products. Perhaps a good technique for putting our designs on model items to show what they would look like on real products.

Digital Alchemy Printmaking techniques for fine art and how to transfer images to a variety of surfaces. It includes decals and skins.

Critical Mass Cutting-edge developments in international printmaking. Since printmaking is fundamental in most surface design concepts, this book's goal is a modern approach on a traditional printmaking.

Tradeshows and Booth Design