Learn to… Art!

Business Card Tips for Artists

Aug 18, 2010 Promotion and Exhibition

Most professionals agree that a business card is one of your most valuable marketing tools. It’s small, portable, relatively affordable and can be given to anyone and everyone you meet.

The trick, of course, is getting your business card to work for you.

Design

Some people will tel you that artists are not graphic designers and that you should hire someone to design your business cards for you. Others will say that as an artist you’re in the perfect position to design your own promotional material. My stance? It depends.

If you

• have access to a program like Photoshop, Gimp or Coreldraw;
• have some experience with said program;
• are comfortable with designing your own products;
• and have extra time to devote to the design process

by all means design your own business cards!

I design my cards myself for a variety of reasons: it’s inexpensive, it gives me complete control, and I enjoy it. As with anything, there is a learning curve. My business cards of several years ago definitely look less professional than those I have now, and in a few years I’ll probably look back and say the same thing!

If you’re hesitant or uncomfortable on the computer, you may want to look into different options.If you decide to hire out, make sure you work closely with your designer to get the look you want. Artist business cards are slightly different than other run-of-the-mill cards and need special considerations.

Graphics

Personally, I like to keep graphic elements to a minimum. Unlike other businesses, you don’t need any kind of logo or other designs. The most prominent graphic on your card should be your art. Let me emphasize: your art should be on your card! If there’s no art on your business card, you’ve done something wrong already!

Make sure you start with a good quality image, then build your other design elements around it. Your card should compliment and showcase your work, not compete with it.

I’m a bit of a minimalist when it comes to design. My advice is to not get too fancy; sometimes the simplest layouts are the most effective.

One option to showcase your work is to crop it to create a “detail” view. You can then use this detail as your background. Another option is to feature your art on one side of the card and have your information printed on the back.

If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these creative business card designs.

Essential Information

Remember that your business card is a pretty small space to work with. You don’t want to cram everything about yourself onto it. Instead, stick with the basic, essential info and include it in a way that is clear and logical. You don’t want people to have to search for anything.

The most important information is your name, phone number, e-mail address, website (if you have one), and possibly your mailing address.

Remember:

• keep fonts legible
• make sure your text stands out from the background
• use a big enough font size (no smaller than 10)

If people can’t read your business card, you’ve failed!

Tweak It

I have always found that my first design is always a bit flat and lifeless. The second design is always better! Don’t be afraid to move things around and try different colour combinations. If you need cards for an event, make sure you leave yourself enough time to tweak the design.

Printing

Once you’re perfected your design, you will need to decide if you want to print your cards yourself or have someone do them for you.

I’ve always printed my own cards. Here’s why:

• I can print small quantities of cards
• I can change my design frequently to reflect my latest work
• I can print multiple designs to feature different artworks
• I have more control over the process

To print business cards at home, you will need a decent printer. For paper, I recommend the business card paper you can get from almost any stationery store. The one I use is a heavy, white, card stock that easily snaps apart without any perforations. I’ve always had great experiences with this! It can even be printed on both sides.

Conclusion

Whether you design and print them yourself or have them done professionally, the purpose of your business card is to show peole what you do (your art), who you are (your name), and how they can contact you (your info). Include those elements, arrange them in a tasteful, legible, pleasing way, and you’re on the right track!

Tags: art marketing, business cards, promotion

Giving Interviews – Did I Say That?

Jul 22, 2010 Promotion and Exhibition

I recently had opportunity to do an interview when I had my work on display at an Okanagan winery. The article turned out great: the journalist did a wonderful job of making sense of what I said and clearly articulated my relationship to both realistic and abstract art. Read the interview!

This got me thinking about artist interviews.

For my very first show, I was asked to do an interview for the newspaper as well as for a local TV station. I have a recording of the TV interview, but to this day I haven’t watched it; I can’t bear to see myself on camera!

When I had my second exhibition, I did another newspaper interview. I had a great chat with the journalist and towards the end of the interview, the conversation turned much more casual. I mentioned in passing that one of my profs always thought I was very anal, as in “anal retentive.” When I got the newspaper a few days later, I was surprised and mildly embarrassed to see that she had included that in her article. It’s not exactly a word I want people to associate with me and my work.

For artists, it’s very important to be able to talk about their work in a way that the general public can understand and follow. Interview skills are like anything else: they need to be learned and practiced. Joanne Mattera has an excellent article on how to talk to the press.

Be prepared for your interviews, practice and be aware that everything you say is fair game! You don’t want to read your interview and think, “Did I say that?”

Tags: exhibitions, interviews, promotion

Getting Involved in Your Arts Community

Mar 17, 2010 Art General

There are many myths about artists, one of them being that the artist is an isolated shut-in, madly working on his masterpiece without a care for the outside world.

For some of us, this myth might sound tempting, and for some of us some of the time, it might even be a reality. But the truth is that there is much to be gained by getting involved in your arts community.

By getting involved, you get your name out there. The more people recognize you, the more authority you will have in the art world. When you apply for that exhibition, the curator will look at your proposal and think, “Isn’t she the one who was involved in (fill in the blank) last year?” This gives you a bit of an edge because now you have created a small connection between the curator and you. It’s like the difference between e-mailing your resume to apply for a job and walking in to submit it in person.

Getting involved in the arts community also gives you better access to the opportunities available to you. Just by mingling and talking to other artists, you will hear about what’s going on. You will also find that people go out of their way to fill you in about things you might be interested in.

I’ll be the first to admit that there are a lot of snobby artists who hold to their elitist persona and won’t help other artists out. For every one of those, though, there are probably ten other artists who will go out of their way to share their knowledge, to offer support, and to pass on information about various opportunities.

My Experience

One of my goals in the last year or two has been to get more involved in my arts community. I started volunteering at the local art gallery and looking for teaching opportunities, as well as reaching out online.

Volunteering at the gallery has been a great experience. I’ve gained a lot of insight into how a gallery works, what it takes to put on an opening, and ways to integrate exhibitions with art activities for children. I’ve become familiar with many of the people working at the gallery, and they have become familiar with at least my name.

As a bit of an introvert myself, I find that making the commitment to volunteer at openings is a great way to make sure I actually go. Openings are the perfect opportunity to network and get to know other artists in the community.

Last year, while working an opening, I was able to re-connect with one of my professors from University. That contact has led to an ongoing professional relationship, including several critiques of my work and an invitation to possibly exhibit at the University next year. All opportunities that I would not have had if I hadn’t been pouring wine at that event!

In the online world, I began by getting in touch with other artists I had met briefly at openings. It was through one of these connections that I learned of a teaching opportunity at another art gallery. I now have a semi-regular gig there, doing art workshops for kids. It’s a small thing, but that too has led to other opportunities. I have developed a professional relationship with the director there, and she has recently invited me to submit a few small pieces to their gift gallery.

Twitter is another amazing resource for artists. I have been able to connect with local artists who move in completely different art circles than I do. I first became acquainted with the talented Julia Trops, who was kind enough to refer me to a friend of hers who was looking for a portrait artist. That portrait turned into two when the client’s co-worker also commissioned a drawing. All thanks to Julia! I’ve also gotten to know Kendra Smith, an amazing landscape painter, and through her I’ve become familiar with the work of Carrie Harper and Nikki Balfour. While this is a professional network it is also, I hope, the beginnings of friendships with other like-minded people!

As I read through this, it sounds like a self-serving list of my accomplishments. I apologize if this sounds like I’m bragging: that’s not my intention! The point is that I wouldn’t have even been aware of these opportunities if I hadn’t gotten involved. 

Now that I’ve convinced you that it pays to get involved, what are some ways  you can do it?

• Volunteer: most galleries have a variety of volunteer opportunities, find one that suits you!
• Attend openings: mingle and talk to people.
• Go to workshops: you get to know the instructors and students, as well as learn a new skill!
• Look for teaching opportunities.
• Keep in touch: don’t let those connections fade away, maintain your network.
• Join an arts group.
• and don’t forget…

Pay it Forward

If you want people to be helpful  and forthcoming with you, do the same in return! When you hear of an amazing opportunity, pass it on to others who you know might be interested. This is where it all comes full circle and you get to help out those who help you.

What kind of experiences have you had with getting involved in your arts community?

PS: The photo today has nothing to do with art, but I wanted to share with you guys the amazing view I had as I wrote this post. What a beautiful day!

Tags: artists, motivation, promotion

Digitally Fix Your Art Images

Feb 14, 2010 Art General, Promotion and Exhibition

So, you’ve followed all the tips for documenting your art, but you’ve still ended up with a less than perfect image. Don’t worry, it happens. Luckily, if you’re documenting using digital photography, you can use your computer to enhance your images.

The important thing to remember when doing this is to not get carried away. You want to get your image as close to the original as possible, not make it look better than the original! This works best when you have already done everything possible during the photo-taking, and then only have to make minor digital changes. In my experience, the more altering you do on the computer, the grainier your image can get. So remember: small changes!

As far as photo manipulation software goes, you can get as simple or as complicated as you want. Most computers come with basic software that allows you to adjust brightness, colour, contrast, etc. All I’m using is the Windows Live Photo Gallery and Microsoft Picture Manager. I’ve also used Corel Draw and the Gimp (a free download). A program like Photoshop isn’t really necessary for the kinds of change we’ll be doing.

Here is our first image, direct from the camera. The problems with this are that it is very gray, there’s too much space around the drawing, it’s not square to the frame, and it’s not quite grayscale.

Rotate

Our first course of action is to use the rotate option to make the edges of the drawing parallel to the edges of the picture frame.

Crop

Next, crop the image to the edge of the drawing. This is easiest, obviously, if you’re working with a square piece of art. Some pieces, like my  abstract paintings, have irregular edges. In this case, you’ll want to document your work against a plain, neutral background and crop to just outside the edge of the art.

Saturation

Saturation has to do with the intensity of colour. With a black and white drawing like this, the lighting can actually change the colour. I like to reduce the saturation to zero, making the drawing completely grayscale (no colour).

Brightness

The next thing we want to do is get the values closer to the original. In the actual drawing, the lightest areas of the dog’s fur actually show the white of the paper. You can see how dark and greyed this image is. The first part of this two-step process is to increase the brightness, making the fur lighter.

Contrast

Our last step is to increase the contrast. This will make the darks darker, and the lights even brighter. Contrast is the option to be most wary of, as it’s easy to get carried away (for me at least, because I love high contrast!). It also has the  most potential to ruin your image, so go slowly in small increments.

Now we have an image that is much more faithful to the original drawing. Instead of being dull and grey, there is a range of values from the white fur to the black eyes.

Size

I just want to quickly mention the size of your images. When storing your images for documentation, gallery exhibitions, and promotional use, keep them large. If you’re e-mailing your images or loading them onto your website, save a smaller version. Your site will load faster and you won’t overload people’s inboxes!

If you liked this article, take a minute to check out my entire series on gallery exhibition proposals, or sign up for the newsletter!

Tags: art tips, documentation, exhibitions, promotion

Artist Fan Pages on Facebook: Re-visited

Feb 10, 2010 Art General, Promotion and Exhibition

About four months ago I started my fan page on Facebook, and wrote about the who, what, where, and why of fan pages for artists. I also promised an update  on the progress of my fan page.

Well, I can’t say that my fans have sky rocketed, sales have taken off and I’m now a famous, world-class artist.

I can say that I currently have 86 fans. Most of these are my friends and family, who are also my Facebook friends. A lot of them, though, are people I don’t know. People who have found me through their friends, through Twitter, or through this blog.

This is cool becuase it gives me access to people that I wouldn’t know otherwise.

I use my fan page as sort of a catch-all for my art related activities. I post my best blog articles on there, my latest portrait commissions, my recent abstract paintings, deals and promotions, art classes, workshops… anything I think people might be interested in.

The beauty of this type of marketing is that you never have to feel bad about promoting yourself; your audience has already expressed their interest in what you’re doing and given you permission to include them in your marketing efforts. The only people who are fans are those who want to be fans.

Also, while my fan page hasn’t generated a huge amount of sales, it has facilitated a few commissions that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

One of my worries about starting a fan page was the amount of time it would take to manage it. So far, this has been a non-issue. Because I share most of my work and news on this blog and my other websites already, all I need to do is “share” the link on Facebook. A fan page actually requires very little work.

Benefits of Facebook Fan Pages

• easy way to reach lots of people
• not a huge time commitment
• exposure to people you don’t know
• free marketing to an already interested audience
• opportunities for new clients/commissions
• networking
• keeping in touch with clients

Still on the fence? If you’re already active on Facebook, a fan page is definitely worth the small amount of effort. Try it out and see what happens. If you want more info, read Fan Pages for Artists.

And if you’re on Facebook, come join me at my fan page!

Tags: facebook, promotion