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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Joe Barrouk, the founder of A Singular Creation, shares his insights into why he does, what he does. He is passionate about art and providing tools, resources and a community to share those with others. A Singular Creation includes a place for “art contests and competitions, call for entries, juried art exhibitions, art events, art workshops and classes, art shows, fairs and festivals and other opportunities for artists and photographers. We also have several options for artists, galleries and art businesses to submit an art related announcement of any kind.” Continue reading to see what drives Joe and A Singular Creation to keep going.

Image: Dawn of the Trees by Carmen Cordelia
http://ccordelia.imagekind.com

Why do you do this? Because I love art. That is the reason. Many people ask why I do what I do – why I spend so much time building a free site for artists with no plans of ever charging any fees. I tell them I do it because I can. I do it because someone should, because it needs to be done. Some other art sites out there ask me: Well how do you make money? My answer is: I don’t. This site is not about making money. It’s about building a community where artists can collaborate with other artists, get advice, learn, show their art, find opportunities, have fun and get to know other artists. That’s it. No strings. Don’t you wish everything could be that simple?

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Natasha Wescoat, one of our top selling artists, has recently contributed a few very interesting articles to the EBSQ blog. I found them particularly insightful and knew they were worth sharing as soon as I finished reading them. I especially like her DIY and whatever-it-takes attitude.

Image: Just Waking III by Natasha Wescoat
http://natashawescoat.imagekind.com

In Creating Your Success: Online Self-Publishing, Natasha says, “Being successful doesn’t mean it must be determined through traditional channels. Media moguls are cutting college to develop their successful technology, artists are fending off traditional education in favor of self education, and writers are finding they don’t have to go through publishers to follow their dreams.” I like her attitude and perception! I am glad to read how she has been able to successfully leverage all the resources available to artists to show and sell their work.

Image: Crystal Breezes by Natasha Wescoat
http://natashawescoat.imagekind.com

Check out both articles on EBSQ’s blog: Creating Your Success: Online Self-Publishing and Using Flickr To Market Your Art

I am excited to see how all of our amazing artistic collaborations are coming together! Not only does Imagekind have a great relationship with EBSQ but also a fantastic partnership with Flickr, one of the top photo sharing sites. It is fascinating to see how the artistic web continues to grow and spread!

Take a look at Natasha Wescoat’s art at Imagekind. Her whimsical trees are simply captivating and you can now purchase her art as greeting cards.

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Look Mom, Imagekind’s on TV!

Kevin, our CEO and Fearless Leader spent some time on one of the local news stations here in Seattle to help explain a few of the top tips and trends when decorating with wall art. We have added the video to YouTube for you to share in some of the great press Imagekind has been getting recently!

Take a look and let us know what you think. We are always excited to share how our artist community is changing the way people experience artwork.

Artists featured: Eli Halpin, Herb Dickinson, Sue Nosler Gray, Michael Rafferty and Tess Johnson.

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Have you seen Imagekind now has a facebook page? Check it out and if you have a facebook account (which all artists should) become a fan! Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites and provides a great way to stay in touch with friends, family and even fans of your work!

Image: Ascension by Chris Darroch Biggs

http://chrisbiggs.imagekind.com

If you haven’t setup an account, it is quick and easy. Upload a profile picture, tell a little bit about yourself, and always make sure to let people know where they can find high quality prints of your artwork!

Once your a fan of Imagekind on facebook, upload some of your work and it might just get entered into the rotation of our weekly profile picture! On the page, you can write reviews, add comments, upload your own art to the page and connect with other artists and fans alike. It really is a great way to add more exposure to your work by connecting you to millions of people around the world.

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Click here to check out the Imagekind page on facebook.com!

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Take a minute to analyze the graph below, it might just help you in your endeavor to increase sales.

This information is pulled from a service offered by Google called Trends. Google Trends displays aggregated graphs of information mapping the amount of a specific word or terms searched using Google. Simply, it lets you see what people are searching for, and to what degree of interest searchers have in specific words or terms. What this provides practically is a way to help determine what is on the market’s mind.

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Videos on YouTube have advertised just about everything else alongside their clips, why not your work? Here at Imagekind, we’re starting to see referral traffic from member generated videos, driving users to their art galleries. Investigating this a bit we see plenty of opportunity for any artist who who’s inclined to create some unique video around their subjects, and market themselves while their at it.

Sites like YouTube make it very easy to get video going online, so all you need is a camera, or screen capture software (if there is a digital component to your work), and maybe some video editing software (you can find some basic applications for free online). 

You might already want to use video sites like this to host video for other other purposes, but as long as your becoming your own “auteur”, you might as well fill out some details for those who happen upon your clips while browsing these sites.  Going further, you could create a detailed profile that helps your audience identify and check out all your work, giving some connection to the subject matter and style of your episodes.

The crucial component in creating a video that gets watched is creativity.  Keep reading and we’ll go through some of the artists we found that have tried different approaches to gain views numbering from the hundreds to tens of thousands - even over 4 million!

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Don’t tell anyone, but there is a whole world of art goings-on outside of Imagekind. Heck, one of own team members just had a smash of a gallery show exhibited this last month, and we all celebrated her closing on Friday. But you know what? Most of us didn’t even know about it until a few days before! OK, so we give in, tell everyone.

Self-promotion can take many forms, from wildly creative, to numbingly mundane - but all very necessary for success in a creative endeavor. Some artist shy away from self-promotion all together, running away from an artist’s ego, but it’s likely that most members selling on Imagekind already know it’s value. Someone once said that art has three requirements: intention, a moment in time, and an audience. Many have debated those contentious points, but it’s pretty hard to argue with that last one.

We’ve often wanted to feature more announcements from our members, but have received a surprising lack of notices, so we thought now might be a good time to put out the call again. Send us your events! Tell us about your gallery opening, your book being published, your coverage on the local news! If it’s interesting and about an Imagekind member or their work - we want it in our inbox, and we want it early! We’ll put together a collection every week or so (assuming we get some responses) and feature all the happenings right here in our blog. Just post our forum under “Member Artist Brags and Events”, or go ahead and send an email to care@imagekind.com and we’ll make sure it gets into the right hands!

But that’s not all, as long as you’re telling the world, don’t forget that your member profile is a great place to keep events updated. We have some truly amazing artist here at Imagekind, and we look forward to sharing more and more about them with the growing numbers of art fans that look toward us for something new!

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We consider Imagekind a rapidly growing community within itself, giving artists of all stripes tools to meet others with similar styles and creative interests. You can find new fans for your work, get inspired by others, and learn about the business of art with other’s trying to revolutionize the way artists represent themselves. Heck, we even have a pretty happening Forum.

However, we’re still pretty young, and we realize there have been plenty of other artist based social communities around for a while - we’ve even featured a few in these digital pages. And then there are the big two - the one’s who put “Social Networking” on the map, ant least the virtual map. MySpace, and Facebook - you know what they are, but do you know how useful they are for artists? And can you find Imagekind and it’s friend’s network on these sites?

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As everyone probably well knows, Imagekind is a terrific way for artists to sell prints online, but we often are asked how artists can sell original works online. There are probably several venues where this can be facilitated, but one website in particular finally seems to enabling this in a very artist-centric manner, so we thought we’d share it here. The website is called ArtFlock, and it has a few nice additions to what any artist may have previously had available to them online, and some other key winning factors.

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