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.

With the release of Imagekind Storefronts, Portfolio Manager and more last week, we have seen some truly amazing customization from a variety of artists. It’s really cool to see how various artists customize and use features differently. We’ve noticed some artists go for limited customization, sticking close to the defaults, while others seem to change the look of the whole thing. Because we give artists the control of their Storefront, we are excited to see the different varieties. But, with our newest release…

Customization just got a lot easier

We have just released a new set of upgrades for the Imagekind Storefronts which are sure to make customization even easier. Now, even if you don’t know CSS, you can customize just about the entire look of your Storefront. Some of the features in this release include:

Customize Page Body & Surrounding Background

Don’t know CSS? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Changing the CSS of your Imagekind Storefront can be daunting. That’s why we’ve made it easy to skip the technical stuff and get right to the customization. In this update, you can now customize both the page body and surrounding background of your Storefront. Just go to the Options tab in your Storefront admin.

Hide Header Text

If you’ve uploaded your own header image, we have now provided an option for you to disable the header text. This way, the text will not display on your Storefront behind the header image. If you want to hide the header text, simply go the Options tab and click the box next to “Hide store name” under the “Page Header” section. If you do choose to hide the header text, make sure you still fill out the information under the “Name your Storefront” section. This will help ensure you get found in search engines, which will help increase your sales!

Dual CSS Views

For those who do want to continue modifying the CSS of their Storefront, we have now made it much easier with dual CSS views. Now, when you choose to edit the CSS, we provide two screens. One shows your current CSS configuration. The other shows the current default CSS version. We have realized that new features and bug fixes will cause changes in the default CSS which will not be picked up by those who have saved a modified version of the CSS. To make it easier to deal with this future issue, we are now including within the CSS files, a clearly visible tag at the beginning of the file. We also mark every line change from version to version with a specific tag and will add new CSS properties in new, marked sections at the bottom of the CSS files. We have also added an experimental highlighting of line changes from the original launch version, which should make it easier to find lines with CSS changes, which might be different from the saved (edited) version.

Preview Improvements

To make it easier to modify your store without exposing your construction mess, you can now pause your storefront and the preview will still work. We have also fixed a number of issues with the previews including the ability to see modified CSS.

Artist Drop-Down

In addition to the various customization updates we’ve made, we are also releasing an easy-to-access link to any artists” Storefront, right from their drop-down list. You can access the “Shop My Store”  link by clicking on the artist’s screenname where available.

Various Bug Fixes

We have also taken care of most of the bug that typically accompany a release of this magnitude. If you encounter others that we are not aware of, please do let us know in the bug section of the forum. We will be sure to address it as quickly as we can.

Thank you to everyone for the great feedback and support as we continue to bring more options to our artist community of buying, selling, and creating art.

Announcing a host of new features for artists at Imagekind!

Empowering artists to sell their artwork, their way, online, has been our passion from day one. For the past three years, we’ve focused on building one  community for buying, selling and creating art. That’s why we are more than excited to announce today our newest features for artists selling their artwork through Imagekind.

Alright, here’s the low-down on all the amazing features just released:

1. We’ve removed the upload limitations and implemented unlimited uploads – no matter the account level.
2. Premium Members can now create their very own completely customizable Storefront.
3. That’s right, there’s more. We’re also unveiling our new Portfolio Manager to help batch-edit your galleries.

Need more details on the features? Keep reading!

Portfolio Manager & Image Upload Limits

• Unlimited uploads for all members
• Up to 3 galleries for free members
• Manage all your galleries and images in the new Portfolio Manger
• Select a single image, a gallery or any number of images and edit them all at once
• Use drag-and-drop to change the order of your images and galleries
• Move images easily from one gallery to another
• Add tags, subjects, genres, medium and décor across multiple images at a time
• Set default frame and canvas selections for multiple images at a time

Storefronts (For Premium Members Only)

• Your own customizable storefront, with an easy to remember URL
• Choose from a selection of themes, and personalize it to match your style
• Easy to manage and update – change your storefront as often as you like
• Add, remove and customize pages in your storefront
• Pick the galleries you want available in your storefront, and keep more available in the marketplace
• Edit the CSS of your storefront to make it look exactly the way you want
• Track visits to your storefront using Google Analytics
• Make money by selling ads with your own Google Adsense (or keep it clean and ad-free)
• Collect your shoppers’ email addresses with mailing list sign-ups

Changes to Member Benefits

• Unlimited uploads for everybody
• Up to 250 galleries for Platinum Members, 100 galleries for Pro Members and 3 galleries for Free Members
• Premium Members get fully customizable storefronts
• Framing Commissions: 15% for Platinum, 10 % for Pro and 5% for Free Member accounts

Best of all? We’re still not done… Rest assured this is just the begining of our continued mission of empowering artists to create, discuss, share and sell their artwork their way!

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Make sure to login to your Imagekind account and check out all the features. Including the new Portfolio Manager and Storefront. Want your own customizable Storefront? Upgrade your Imagekind membership!

Have you seen the new artwork page on Imagekind?

We’ve just released a newly updated version of the main artwork page that’s sure to make quite an impact on the overall Imagekind experience. Now it is easier, more intuitive and all around quicker to shop for the framed artwork you love!

Just some of the amazing features:

Single click shopping with shorter purchasing path for those who don’t need all the options!
Better product displays that show frame details right on the page!
Browse links to easily see the previous and next artwork in an artist’s gallery!
Choose your product (print, canvas or greeting card) on the same page!
Quicker load time to improve the overall page performance!
Shop similar art by color, genre, tags and more!

Additionally, we have also made changes to include both our satisfaction guarantee as well as easily displaying the savings you’ll receive when shopping at Imagekind.

We are all excited about these recent updates and think the new artwork page shows off Imagekind’s unique offering; being both an active and thriving artist community site, as well as a high end framed art retailer. We’ve essentially split the page down the middle to successfully incorporate both aspects.

We have several more plans for future improvements and features. Imagekind is dedicated to continue innovating the way you shop, sell and create art. You can stay updated on all of Imagekind’s future improvements by subscribing to our RSS feed, and joining the Imagekind newsletter.

Find all of the improvements in our official announcement to our community.

Now, stop reading and go check out the new page and shop for framed art!

With over 50,000 member artists and over 1 million art prints for sale on Imagekind, the choices can be enormous when trying to find just the right high end framed art print you are looking for.

Maybe it’s a painting, of a dog. And you want that dog painting to be in a large size. Enter:

Search Filtering

Now it’s easier than ever to find exactly the art print you want! With Imagekind Search Filtering you can narrow your search by medium, size, subject, genre, and more; even orientation!

Start searching to shop for art.

Search Filtering relies on artists’ categorization of their artwork on Imagekind. Based on the account type, artists can classify their artwork through a series of options; including tags and taxonomy.

So, if you’re an artist selling your artwork on Imagekind, make sure you have the correct taxonomy set for each image. You can find the categorization options in your admin under every image. To learn more about how to set your tags and taxonomy, visit the Imagekind Member Forums.

This is just the first of several improvements we hope to be making to the search feature in the coming months. Check back often and stay tuned as we continue to refine how you shop for art.

Search Filtering is one more way we continue to make Imagekind the best community for buying, selling and creating art.

Happy Searching!

Looking for more ways to market your artwork for sale on Imagekind?

Now you can keep your fans and friends connected to your art on Imagekind with Facebook!

We’ve just launched a new option you have on Imagekind to connect your art on Facebook. If you’re a member on Imagekind, and have a Facebook account, you can easily post your new art on your feed. It’s a simple way to help market your art to one of the largest audiences online: Facebook.

It’s all automatic and there is little you need to do. Just follow the steps below.

To start marketing your artwork for sale on Facebook, follow these simple steps:

1. Login to Facebook.com. Make sure to check the “Remember Me” box at the top before clicking “Login”
2. Login to Imagekind
3. Upload new art to your galleries, join one of the Imagekind groups, or add a member’s image as a one of your favorites
4. A box will pop up that asks if you want to allow Facebook access. Click “Publish”
5. That’s it! You should see the images on your activity feed on Facebook.

After you allow access, here is what you should start seeing show up on your Facebook feed:

• New images you post for sale in your galleries
• Groups you join
• Images you favorite on Imagekind

Some of you may have received an email recently informing you about membership renewals. Now it’s simple to renew your membership right from your admin.

We’ve just added a new section in every members’ admin area where you can easily view your current membership level; manually change your account type; and your preferred renewal payment method.

Now it’s easier than ever to change or upgrade your Imagekind membership level!

To view your current account type, and make changes to your preferred payment method, follow these simply steps:

1. Login to your Imagekind account
2. Click the “My Account” link at the top of the page
3. Click the “Membership Level” option in the blue header

Scroll down and you can see what your current membership level is, when your membership renews, and the option to change your preferred renewal payment method.

Using PayPal?

If you are currently setup to renew via PayPal, please be aware that there is no automatic option when using your PayPal account. Therefore, you will need to either provide a valid credit card number, or renew with PayPal manually every time your membership level expires; monthly or yearly, depending on your Imagekind account type.