Online Printing Resources for Artists
Last week for Creative Arts Workshop: Artists Portfolios for the Web, we talked about print solutions to go along with your website.
Business Cards and Postcards
I discussed moo.com for small and regular business cards, I love moo because I can pick up to 100 different images rather than settling on one. It is always fun to see which ones visitors prefer to take at Open Studios. It gives you feedback about what work people like without necessarily putting them or you on the spot.
You can use moo.com with your flickr.com photo sharing account or upload images directly.
I mentioned Modern Postcard too, as a quality shop to get an affordable and larger run of postcards or business cards.
Printed Artists Portfolios and Books
We looked at a few sample printed portfolio books that Ken Lovell made. Chatbooks makes cool books from Instagram and Facebook feeds. They are square and well-made and inexpensive. $8 a paperback. Sweet!
Speaking of Instagram– it is a photo sharing service which you mainly upload from your mobile device so take that into account when figuring out images for your book.
We saw examples from Lulu and Blurb also. More variety, and you can upload your own pdf and sell online, even offer your book through Amazon!
These are great proof-in-concept places, because it is so affordable to print just one copy and have the book online if you need more, or if you want to shop your book around for wider publishing or to use as a gift in your Kickstarter.
Artists Funding
Speaking of Kickstarter, and we did, we looked at how different individuals and teams use Kickstarter to fund projects or goals. There are also sites like GoFundMe and Indigogo that I forgot to mention. Browse through and see if there is a site and a format that would fit your particular project or needs. You could Kickstart a book or give supporters handmade work to fund a studio renovation. We touched briefly on Patreon as an artist’s tip jar as well.
Video
If you end up creating an appeal for funding, you probably end up needing to make a little video telling the story of your project. Upload it to Youtube or Vimeo.
Questions
If you have any other suggestions or questions about these services, leave a comment.