Friday Favorites are my weekly wrap-up of the cool happenings going on around Imagekind over the past week. This week we launched “images not for sale.” Also, don’t forget, from now until September 21, you can get 20% off custom framing. Cheers!

Images Not for Sale

This week we released images not for sale. Now, artists can upload their artwork that they would like to showcase, but not offer for sale. Some reasons artists might want to choose the “not for sale option” include:

1. Show off commission works
2. Display works in progress
3. Example images
4. Work to showcase on other sites
5. etc.

For full details, including a video on how to setup your images for display only (not for sale), check out the forum post announcement.

20% off Custom Framing

Great news! In celebration of Fall, Now through September 21, you can get 20% off custom framing at Imagekind. If you’re an artist, now is the perfect time to let your shoppers know of the discount.

Friday Favorites are my weekly wrap-up of the cool happenings going on around Imagekind over the past week. This week saw some very exciting things including new top navigation and a kickin’ promo for free shipping. We’d love to hear what you think about the updates!

New Top Nav Header

We’ve made some significant updates in our top navigation (the Buy, Sell, Create and Community tabs). It’s pretty clear to see the changes and all the great benefits. We are sure this will help with overall navigation, making browsing of the site much more efficient.

Now you can easily see all the different options for buying, selling, and creating art right from the navigation bar. I think it’s pretty cool. What about you?

Get Free Shipping at Imagekind!

Check it out! Now through August 31st, 2009 you can get free shipping at Imagekind! Simply enter promo code BACKTOSCHOOL09 at checkout.

For full details, see the newsletter announcement here.

Friday Favorites are my weekly recap of some of the amazing things going on around Imagekind. I love hearing about what Imagekind members are up to and this week is no different! Check out below to see how you can have the chance to meet up with prominent Imagekind artists who are truly utilizing the web to bring their artwork to the masses. Also, check out a very helpful blog post written inspired by our own Imagekind artist on tips and ideas to help you sell your artwork on Imagekind. Lastly, take a look at the kind of coverage some of our artists’ work is getting around the web!

They Digg Your Art!

Last week I wrote a post for Digital Photography School on 20 Beautiful Examples of Urban Decay Photography featuring some of our top Imagekind artists in the field. It was such a hit that it reached the number one spot on Digg for the Arts and Lifestyle category! It really took off!

If you’re a digg user, give it a read through and digg it if you feel so inclined. Thanks!

Create Live Seattle

Prominent artists and Imagekind members Natasha Wescoat and David Hoang are coming to Seattle next Saturday, August 29! In conjunction with their event Create Live Seattle, Natasha and David will be creating art  live while they stream, chat, tweet, answer questions and hang out with other Seattle artists at Bedlam Coffee. Here’s what they say about the event:

The rules at a CreateLive event are simple. If you have something creative that you are working on, bring it and work along side our featured artists. If you want to come and just hang out, by all means, you are more than welcome! Come, have fun, create, hang out, eat, drink, whatever. Be Awesome!

I plan on going. So if you’re in the Seattle area and want to meet up with Natasha and David, make sure to stop by! If you’re not in the area, no worries! You can keep up with what’s going on live. Follow the action via Twitter: #createliveseattle and follow the host: Brent Spore. You can see all the details on the Create Live Seattle website.

Helpful Imagekind Overview and Selling Tips

Art marketing blogger Cory Huff put together a fantastic post the other day on tips for selling artwork on Imagekind. After talking with Imagekind artist Tim Aldridge and Leyl Black, Cory was able to put together some top tips for selling your art prints on Imagekind. Cory covers very helpful tips and ideas on how to increase your sales. Some of the highlights include how to promote your artwork, Imagekind marketing tools, the importance of tagging, and more.

You can read the full blog post here.

Quick note, Cory does suggest to add the colors of your artwork as tags (such as tagging your art with “red” “blue” etc.) in order for it to show in the Color Picker. Though it is a good suggestion to tag your work with the prominent colors, it is not necessary for it to show in the Color Picker as it pulls the promiment colors from the image automatically, regardless of the tags.

Friday Favorites are my weekly wrap-up of the cool happenings going on around Imagekind over the past week. This week saw some very exciting things including the addition of one of the most prolific American turn-of-the-century cartoonists, Zim Zimmerman. Also, one of our member artists posted a great review about Imagekind on our blog that I have to share! Lastly, make sure to check out the latest updates to Imagekind.

Zim Zimmerman Cartoons on Imagekind

Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman was one of the most prolific turn-of-the-century American cartoonists. Who has, however, been since largely forgotten. Founder of what is known as the “grotesque” style of caricature for his use of overly exaggerated facial and bodily characteristics in his subjects.

A Truce, or How Two Wrongs Made A Right by ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

With over 40,000 illustrations published in his lifetime, Zim’s body of work were often political in nature, highlighting the “melting pot” of American culture and ethnic minorities in the early part of the century. Though many might appear as politically incorrect in our time, the cartoons provide a historical look and critique of American culture during his. Immigrating to the US from Switzerland in 1869 at the age of seven, you can imagine Zim was all too familiar with the struggles immigrants and minorities often faced at the turn of the century.

Good Poker Hands, or Fooling the Talent by ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

Most prints were originally featured in the two top humor magazines of their day: Puck and Judge magazines. Now, in conjunction with Imagekind, ASIF-Hollywood Animation Archive has provided a collection of Zim’s cartoons for sale as high-quality framed art prints.

Presence of Mind by ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

Imagekind Review

After ordering one of his prints one of our member artists, Rubens LP, provided a fantastic review of Imagekind on his blog. He even includes pictures! You can see the full review on his blog here. Rubens LP’s conclusion? “WOW!!! Nice surprise… Very impressive.”

Thanks Rubens! I am a total fan of his work so it was especially great to hear he is a fan of Imagekind!

Imagekind Review Print: Smoke by Rubens LP

We love hearing reviews about Imagekind. If you have one yourself on your own blog, send it along! It’s like my birthday when I hear how excited people are to receive their artwork.

More Updates

We’re always updating. This week brings two! First, we released an oft-requested feature: the ability to add images in forum posts. Second, we’ve included the “AddThis” button in Imagekind Storefronts to easily share images found in an artists Storefront with your community around the web. This way, visitors can share artwork for sale on Imagekind to sites like DIGG, Facebook, Twitter and more.  It’s an opt-in feature so you can control if you want your images shared or not.

You can read all the details on the updates in the forum, here.

Friday Favorites are my weekly recap of some of the amazing things going on around Imagekind. I love hearing about what Imagekind member are up to. This week, a few Imagekind artists got some nice coverage in a couple of online articles and were cool enough to share with me. Take a look!

John Kraft in Digital Paint Magazine

John Kraft, the ever-busy San Fransisco-based artist was recently interviewed in Digital Paint Magazine, a new publication for marketing and art. In the interview, John discusses not only his background (quite interesting!), artistic style and technique, but also highlights some of his various marketing initiatives. He even mentions why he’s chosen to sell on Imagekind and how he uses the service to fulfill his orders!

John’s main advice? It’s all about awareness, connections and conversations. You can read the entire magazine online and see John’s interview starting on page nine. It’s in .pdf format, so you’ll need to have Adobe Reader installed.

Congrats John on the great feature and outstanding interview!

John Kraft in Digital Paint Magazine

Winston D. Munnings in Orchids Magazine

Winston D. Munnings, who was once a Diplomat, even achieving the title of Consul General for the Bahamas, is also an avid flower photographer. One of his specialties are orchids. Two of Munnings’ orchid shots, along with a brief biography and insight into his technique, were recently featured in the August 2009 edition of Orchids Magazine, one of the leading publications on the flower.

You can see the two shots and read about his artistic techniques in the Orchids excerpt he sent me here.

Orchid (Dendrobium spectabile) by Winston D. Munnings