Imagekind Blog | Buy, Sell, Create and Discuss Art

We are thrilled to have Rob join us and are excited by his wealth of knowledge and experience in marketing, brand building and advertising strategies.

Rob brings over 17 years of experience in marketing and organizational development to Imagekind, spending 14 of those years working with our hometown NBA team, the Seattle SuperSonics. Prior to joining Imagekind, Rob worked with Tully’s Coffee as vice president of marketing and production.

Read the full story to find more information about Rob and see what both he and Kevin think about this outstanding addition to our artist community.
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Robert Martin Joins Imagekind as Chief Marketing Officer

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Congratulations to artist Lisa Willis for submitting the wining entry to Imagekind’s “Create your Heart Out” art contest. Her image, All You Need is Love, was selected to be featured in Imagekind’s Valentines Day promo email. You can check out all the amazing submissions at the Imagekind forum. Thank you to all the artists who entered their work!

If you missed the promo email, make sure you subscribe to the Imagekind newsletter to ensure you receive all the important news, updates, discounts and sales. You can sign up for the newsletter on the Imagekind homepage.

Valentines promo includes Free Ground Shipping on all orders over $15 and expires February 7, 2008 at 10pm PST. Use promo code LOVE2008 at checkout.

Shop Now

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As of 5PM PST today, all older directories previously available for uploading to your Imagekind galleries via FTP will cease to be accessible.  The one exception to this will be our most recent IP address : 74.86.92.3  -which will still work as normal.

Many of our long-time members may be familiar with a few different addresses which they could use for access, however, we are moving over to a shiny new DNS based access point, which will stay in place, regardless of any changes Imagekind makes in the future.  This means you remember one easy location - we’ll take it from there.  You can start using it anytime you want, it’s ready now, though any older addresses referenced above will cease working around 5pm.  Images currently inside those directories will not be affected.

The correct access info for utilizing Imagekind’s FTP directory to move files into your galleries, from this point on is as follows:

IP/Host address: uploads.imagekind.com
Username: memberupload
Password: iprintmoney

This directory, like all others before it is secure and locked - not even you can remove, or change your file in any way once it’s on our server.

You can always reference this information again anytime, as well as learn about using FTP for those who are new to this protocol, from inside your “My Admin” area on our regular web-based upload page, or on the following page:

http://www.imagekind.com/create/upload.aspx

Please keep in mind that you must email care@imagekind.com and reference your specific Imagekind screen name, image filenames, and which of your galleries you want the images placed into.  If you do not receive a response, it’s likely your email hasn’t reached us for some reason, so do try sending it again, or give a call.  If you don’t get in touch with us, your images won’t make it!

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Every once in a while some spring cleaning needs to be done in the fall.  Imagekind is adding some significant new firepower to our technical arsenal, and will be experiencing some planned downtime tonight at 8PM Pacific Time, through 12AM (Midnight).

The main Imagekind web site will be unavailable during that time period, but our ever popular Imagekind Forum and your’s truly Imagekind Blog will still be around and ready for you.  If you haven’t taken a good look at either, now might just be the perfect time to see what they’re all about.

We’ll be posting any updates right here, so tune in if you’re up late with us (or very early) and we’ll see you on the other side!

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We had planned to make an earlier announcement regarding scheduled downtime of our Imagekind Forum, for a much-needed oil change.  Unfortunately, we had some issues today, and had to put up a placeholder earlier than expected.

We’ll be looking into some issues over the next few hours, and the Forum may be available again for the next 2 days.  It is likely, however, that we will utilize this downtime for updates, and get everything back up and running, better than ever, sometime this weekend.

Status updates will be posted here.  Thanks for your patience everyone!

—Update:

The Imagekind Forum has it’s legs back under it, but the release of the better, faster, stronger version is still going to be a few hours away.  If you notice anything strange, please let us know, and we’ll be updating you all when we need to to go back down for a short time to move over to the newest version.  Thanks again for waiting!

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We are doing some maintenance over on the Imagekind Forum for a little while - likely through this evening. Imagekind members need not do anything themselves - aside from be patient If you saw an upgrade message last night or this morning, that was simply an error.

Keep an eye out on this blog for an update when the discussions can begin flowing again! Thanks everyone!

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UPDATE: The Imagekind Forum is back in action!  If you notice anything funny, please let us know.  We will continually be improving it’s functionality - so let’s all keep making it a place where artistic conversations thrive!

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We are experiencing some minor technical difficulties right now - we’ll be back on line as soon as possible and give you an update right here!

More soon…

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Second Update:  It looks like we do have the server upgrades going smoothly now, and all functionality should be back to normal.  Right now all thumbnails throughout the site should be properly displaying; shoppers and members should not be seeing any missing image symbols.  So, this was a bit of a hiccup, we realize, but we all want to thank everyone for their patience, and the good news is: members do not need to re-upload or replace images.

Everything seems accounted for, but if you do notice persistent issues, please let us know at the usual place:  care@imagekind.com
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Update: OK, image uploading can resume! That goes for FTP too! It seems that the issue may not totally be related to recently uploaded images, so don’t attempt to fix any images with errors just yet - we may be able to fix them for you. More advice for you here shortly.
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We are making a few changes server-wise right now, a process which began about an hour ago - and some of you may have noticed some unanticipated hiccups we are experiencing. We wanted to give everybody a little info and keep you informed, so here’s the post!

Primarily we are adding capacity to our servers. Most of the issues members have been experiencing are in the area of uploading images. So, we took the uploading page down for the time-being and will follow up here with instructions with what you can do to correct any earlier uploads that had errors.

Also, it appears that the main issue with uploading is that the database received the information, thus creating the pages and icons for the images, but the storage was not available to hold the original image, nor the thumbnails. So it looks like some members are going to be required to re-upload recent images. You will be able to do that with our “replace” functionality if you have already configured your images details. Or you can delete the images with missing info and start over from scratch.

This “hold” on image uploads also applies to those who are currently using the FTP system for uploading. Please do not attempt to FTP images at this time. This whole issue should be cleared up within 30 minutes or so, and we will keep you updated here!

The rest of the site should be completely functional so it is OK to continue managing your galleries, browsing, shopping, and ordering!

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We here at the very Web2.0 CuriousOffice.com have developed ImageKind…the fastest growing online art and photo commerce site. Imagekind is seeking a new front-end design technologist. We’re looking for someone who is a cross over from graphic design into computer science - literally or figuratively. You should be passionate about semantically correct HTML, love design, and also be an expert at cross-browser CSS, AJAX, Javascript, ASP or XML. Our office is in Pioneer Square in Seattle and you will be part of a small and dynamic team. If you know C# that puts you at the top of the stack but it isn’t necessary.

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Hello Members! Thank you for your participation in our Imagekind beta. Daily you inspire us with your beautiful images, your complements, your suggestions and your diligence in helping us kill bugs and improve the site. Our team is busy, and the updates and improvements are flying onto the pages. You may have noticed quite a few design changes, but there’s much more happening in the background which will improve your ability to manage your galleries and promote your art.

Member Feedback

We have received volumes of great feedback, from members, shoppers and industry pros. We are flattered and motivated. Much of the feedback has come in the form of complements and suggestions for improvements. We are listening and implementing many of these features, daily. Our drag and drop feature in the gallery management pages is such a feature in response to members’ requests to be able to change the order of their images.

Keep the feedback coming, especially in regards to community tools. We know we launched thin in this area. We are now ready to put more effort into features which help a grow a vibrant community. Thanks, you are helping us craft a fantastic website.

New Features

Ok, some good stuff here. Our dev team says that by this evening (that’s morning for you in Europe) members should have a button which easily enables them to purchase their artwork at wholesale. This bypasses the tedious process of having to set your mark-up to 0%, buy your own work and then re-set the mark-up for your shoppers.

Look for new buttons at the bottom of your gallery management page. You can now cut and past a short snippet of HTML code which will insert the buttons directly into your own website, blog or forum posting. The buttons will link directly to your gallery. Next up, is buttons for each piece of art in your gallery. Soon you will be able to place a “buy now” button next to your artwork at your own website.

Due to popular request, and our print shop manager’s willingness to get the goods, we’ve added new media to our paper selections. Now there are eighty print size and media combinations. Look for Hahnemuhle Torchon, Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308 and Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl in your media choices.

Uploads

Uploads have still been a challenge for many members with slow connections. We have worked to stabilize our upload component and rejected a recent code update from one of our vendors because it was not functioning properly. Again, if you have many files or a few very large files, we encourage you to send them to us on CD or DVD. We will convert and upload the correct sized preview images to your online galleries and store the originals safely here in our print shop. Call or email us and we will be happy to assist you in building a gallery this way.

We now putting some of our dev efforts into building a Pro desktop upload client. Thank you all for your patience in this regard.

News and Press

Seems without much prompting word has gotten around about our little artsy corner of cyberspace. Already we have gained a space in the Museum of Modern Betas (MoMB), our local newspaper’s venture blog and mention in the Uk’s The Register (which prompted the opening of over 40 galleries in eight hours). A post in German at Exciting Commerce even links back to one of our member’s gallery pages. We are thrilled with the guerilla marketing efforts of our members and friends and encourage you to keep us posted on any news that you see. We want to keep fanning the fire.

Gallery Management

Lots of new galleries opened in the last week and many more gorgeous artworks are gracing our pages. Remember to better define your works with appropriate tags, describing genre (classical, contemporary…), original media (oil, acrylic, pastel, digital…), subject matter (flowers, cowboys, horses, fantasy…) and color. Many shoppers are looking for images to match decor and color is very important.

Our submission process for inclusion in the public marketplace has changed. We now require you have at least three images in your gallery prior to the “public” button being available. Everything else remains the same. Your private gallery is always available for shopping by anyone with whom you share your unique URL or from anywhere you place one of our new HTML buttons.

Thanks Again

We are enjoying our days here at the shop. Prints and framed artworks are leaving the shop on a daily basis and arriving all around the globe. We are looking forward the next phase of ramping up our marketing to bring more shoppers into our brilliant marketplace. Keep the feedback coming and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Stephan Schier
Curator

By Phone:
Monday – Friday 9:00am – 5:00pm, Pacific Standard Time (GMT/UTC – 8hrs)
toll free: 1-888-264-1446 (USA only)
direct: 1-206-264-1446

By Email:
care@imagekind.com

By Mail:
Imagekind
76 S Washington St, Suite M101
Seattle, WA 98104

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