Art Licensing Resource: Using Vinyl Banners for Booths

Check out this article on Joan Beiriger's Art Licensing Blog. This is only an excerpt...to read entire article go to her blog post.

There are many ways to display art at licensing shows such as with posters and banners on the walls of a booth. View the Surtex 2010 video above to see a variety of booths and how surface designers, artists and art licensing agents display art.

Placing individual posters on the walls tend to be time intensive so more and more artists and art licensing agents are using banners to shorten the time in booth set-up. Vinyl banners rolled and placed into a shipping tube are light weight and easy to transport to a show. Note: Long paper posters can also be used. The artists that I exhibited with at the 2010 Atlanta Gift show used 2' by 5' posters printed by imagekind.com. They were printed on Epson enhanced matte paper and were "dropped-dead gorgeous." The only draw back was that the paper curled even with weighs placed on the bottom edge of the posters.

...to read entire article go to her blog post.

New Wall Art about Martinis

On Fridays, I like to display samples of my products. Here is a new piece of wall art for the Potpourri Catalog.



















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Different Image Formats – And When to Use Them

Article Worth Reading. Here is an excerpt. To read complete article go to original blog post at 1stwebdesign Blog. Different Image Formats – And When to Use Them

Are you familiar with the extensions after your images? There are so many image formats that it’s so easy to get confused! File extensions like .jpeg, .bmp, .gif, and more can be seen after an image’s file name. Most of us disregard it, thinking there is no significance regarding these image formats.

These are all different and incompatible, though. These image formats have their own pros and cons. They were created for specific, yet different, purposes. What’s the difference, and when is each format appropriate to use?

Let us tackle the five most common image formats for the web and computer graphics: JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF and PNG.

To read complete article go to original blog post at 1stwebdesign Blog.

Why Mailed Art Submissions Just Don't Work

Article Worth Reading. Here is an excerpt. To read complete article go to blog post.
-Kate


Why Mailed Art Submissions Just Don't Work
Lance Klass

Before the rise of the internet, if an artist wanted to submit artwork to a publisher, agent or manufacturer, the artist either had to do it personally in a face-to-face meeting or else send the art submission through the mail. Back then, artists were told that mailed submissions had to have a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) inside to make sure the recipient was able easily to return your submission. That lead artists to assume that they could expect to receive a response – positive or negative – to their mailed submission. The sad fact is that more often than not, they never heard anything at all.

Many large companies used to have lower-level employees on staff whose job it was to receive, open, cull through, and either pass along or file art submissions as they came in. And companies might receive literally hundreds of such art submissions each and every month. I receive an average of three a day, every single day of the year. Do the math, and that’s just over a thousand art submissions a year.

Once artists and business really took to the internet, the number of mailed submissions tended to drop off, yet they’re still a significant proportion of the total art submissions received by art licensing agencies, as well as companies that manufacture products for sale at retail. But mailed submissions really don’t work anymore, and I’ll tell you why.

1 – Manufacturers are devoting less time and fewer personnel to handling mailed submissions. Staff who once had the job of processing new art submissions have either been laid off or reassigned to other jobs, and time is at a premium. Responding to your submission, repackaging it, sealing it, and getting it through outgoing mail can be quite time-consuming. No wonder many companies consider them a nuisance.

2 – Partly as a result of this, it’s increasingly likely that even with a SASE enclosed in your mailed package, you’ll never receive your materials back and will probably get no response at all. Why? In this tight market, time equals money, and many companies don’t have the staff or the time to devote to processing mailed submissions. A quick look is the most you’re going to get, and if the artwork – not the presentation, however elaborate you make it, but the artwork itself – isn’t what the company is seeking, the package and it’s contents often go right in the trash.

....To read complete article go to blog post.

Do You Want to be a Children’s Book Illustrator?

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Great Post by Artsy shark. To read entire article, go to blog post at Artsy shark. Here's an excerpt:

• Break the manuscript into a storyboard layout, creating a thumbnail sketch of what happens on each page spread. The focus of this step is to make sure the story flows visually.


• Get the publisher’s approval of the preliminary work.

• Research and acquire photo reference to create final line drawings for each illustration.

• Develop character model sheets.

• Work on black and white value studies. This adds drama to the illustrations and carries the concepts throughout the story.

• Color versions are created for each page. Working with the publisher, they show the finished set and consult on any changes that will be needed.

• After any modifications are made, the final illustrations are produced.

• Scanning of the illustrations is done by digital image capture. A color press proof is made and final files are delivered to the publisher on disc or FTP.

• Cherish and Ben may design covers and packaging for the book as well, taking the project from concept to final product.

...continued. To read entire article, go to blog post at Artsy shark.

My New Calendars

On Fridays, I like to display samples of my new products. Here are two new calendars available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.


Wall Calendar



Engagement Calendar

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Book on How to Run a Greeting Card Business

Finally! This book is back in print! I did a book review of it in 2009. Its the only book I know of on the greeting card business.-Kate

Here is my review from 2009:

Years ago, when I taught seminars on the business of making and marketing greeting cards, I wish this book had existed: Start and Run a Greeting Cards Business: Lots of Practical Advice for Help You Build an Exciting and Profitable Business. I would have handed it out to my students to use as a textbook, instead of taking the time to create hundreds of pages of handouts for my them.

When I opened up the first page of this book, the author had made a fundamental statement about the card business:"[the card] business is the type of business that can be started at the kitchen table and end up in the global market."

From my years of experience in this business, this statement is absolutely true. I am one of those people she is talking about: I started on a table in my living room, and in a short period of time acquired a national account with Barnes and Noble. That’s what makes this business so accessible and approachable.

The book covers the gamut of the greeting card business, from the beginner to the professional, and it includes a variety of topics such as: handmade cards vs. printed cards, pricing, presentations and marketing. As I began reading it, I knew I was in the U.K, because of the writing style. The words were sometimes unfamiliar, ( "carriage" charges vs. shipping charges) along with the frequent discussions about selling items in the U.K, the local tax laws, VAT, etc. But if you are not from the U.K., don't be discouraged, because 90% of the book is applicable to almost any market.

It is clear the author has seen all sides of the business from the inside out, and she is not afraid to brush away any romantic notions one might have about it by including excellent pro/con sections on vaious topics. She tells the truth of what problems you might encounter depending on your design style, the materials you use and your marketing. Other craft books often leave you hanging after telling you how to sell at craft fairs, and they don't often explain how to go national and sell wholesale. The author of Starting and Running a Greeting Cards Business is very aware that if you want to make a living in the card business, you aren't going to do it at craft fairs.

There is a good chapter on pricing, which is critical, since cards need to be scalable. The author gives this topic it's due attention and breaks down figures in detail: for time, materials, and overhead, and she explains how to do a time study to determine how much it costs to make a card. But be forewarned, many of the figures are in pounds, so they need to be adjusted in dollars if you are a U.S. reader.

There is an excellent customer survey that covers the critical questions you should ask a store to get feedback for your market research. This will ultimately prevent you from overprinting a weak card design. There is a great section on how to write a press release, along with instructions on how to come up with an elevator pitch for your line. There is also an insightful chapter that overviews things to consider when making an eco-friendly business, such as materials and transportation.

If it were up to me to make changes in the book, I might make two. First, I felt the three chapters on business topics, (business plans, cash flow, and financing) could have been reduced to one, since this general information can be found most anywhere. Secondly, I also felt there was a missing chapter on how to work with sales representatives (books refers to as "agents"). Although it is addressed briefly, the author does not go in depth about how to work with reps . There could have been more information on this, and how critical reps are to success in this business, along with problems that can develop ( territory conflicts, managing rep groups) and office practices (commission statements, rep forms, incentives).

My motto has always been "without sales reps, you have no business," and it's almost impossible to grow your business without them. It is very difficult for a designer to accumulate and service thousands of accounts without using reps. Reps do a variety of things to support a designer besides sales, such as stock and straighten card racks, and provide free displays at trade shows. A card designer may need at least 40 reps to really have a thriving business. And although the book did not address these things, it did emphasized one of the most important practices: PAY THEM ON TIME! I was always flabbergasted when reps reported to me that very few designers pay them on time. I believe a designer should pay reps before they pay anyone.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Starting and Running a Greeting Cards Business, because I do believe if you follow the guidelines, you will see results and you will go into this business with a strong education and your eyes open. There are very few places where you can get this type of information and most of it comes from experience or talking to other designers. I am surprised that with so many card businesses in existence, no one has really put this information down on paper. Yes, there are a lot of books on making cards or designing them, but this is the first one I've seen that really tells you what is required to run a professional card business. And because her experiences were so familiar to me, the U.K. references did not feel foreign; rather, they only made me feel I was reading about the card business while on vacation in England!

More Product Information

Other Books on Card Design and Card Marketing