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 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

It’s Friday! And on Fridays, I share some of my Friday Favorites. This week, Imagekind artist Rob Dobi released 9 new killer designs in his fullbleed 9 series. You can buy fullbleed series 9 prints right from Rob’s fullbleed Imagekind Storefront.  Check it out!

fullbleed Series 9

Rob Dobi, premier artist and t-shirt designer whose client list includes notables such as Warner Brothers, Urban Outfitters, Atlantic Records and many more, released his newest series of fullbleed designs on Monday July 27. His loyal fan base continues to grow with each new ironic illustration and compelling conceptual design he releases; propelling him to become one of the most popular independent designers around. In addition to “[drawing] pictures and [making] t-shirts” he’s also a really good photographer.

You can see all fullbleed series 9 prints in Rob’s fullbleed Imagekind store. Also below. For fullbleed t-shirts, check out fullbleed.org for more info.

Mind the Gap - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Color Theory - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Shoot for the Moon - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Disasterpiece - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Time Flies - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Nail in the Coffin - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Curtain Call - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Art is Hard - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Vicious Cycle - Fullbleed 9 by Rob Dobi

Friday is here again! And on Fridays, I share some of my Friday Favorites. This week I wanted to take some time and highlight some of our amazing member artists taking full advantage of their Imagekind Storefronts. Also, member artist John Kraft just announced the release of his new children’s book featuring artwork for sale right in his Imagekind gallery!

10 Amazing Imagekind Artists’ Storefronts

With the recent launch of Imagekind Storefronts a few weeks ago we have seen some truly amazing artists take advantage of the customizing features. Customizing your Imagekind Storefront can help make it more personal and showcase your artwork, your way. There are so many different customization options available and each of the below has set theirs up a little differently than the rest.

Take a look at 10 of the top Imagekind Artists’ Storefronts.

John Kraft Releases New Children’s Book “The Little Lost Boat”

Imagekind artist John Kraft has been busy the past several months creating his first ever children’s book, The Little Lost Boat. John just released the book for sale this week and you can order a copy from his website. In addition to writing the book, he also did all of the artwork and illustrations included. It is really cool to see the level of creativity Imagekind artists have.

John has made some of the artwork and illustrations included in the book for sale as framed artwork on Imagekind. Stop on by his gallery where you can purchase artwork from the Little Lost Boat!

Also, if you love John’s work as much as we do, be sure to visit the Facebook Fan page he created for the book here. And check out the really cool video that features some of the artwork in the book. Take a look!

Friday is here again! And on Fridays, I share some of my Friday Favorites. There have been some great things happening around the site including some very useful updates and a special Summer Sale! Also, several of our members’ artwork was featured in one of the leading photography blogs! Check out all the sweet happenings below!

Forum Improvements

Yesterday, we rolled out some improvements to the forums which now allow you to keep up with your watched and group discussions much easier. We’ve added two new tabs to make it easier for you to stay up to date with the conversations in the Community that matter to you most. Check out the forum, to see the new tabs in action!

More Updates to Storefronts

At the beginning of the week we released some more updates to the Imagekind Storefronts that make it even easier to customize. With the new updates, you don’t need to know any CSS to change the colors of your Storefront, simply select the color of your choice from the color options. There are tons of options available, so you can really make your Imagekind Storefront truly customized.

We’ve also made it easier for shoppers to find your Storefront through the drop down menu listed next to your screen name. You can read about these and other updates in the announcement post.

Imagekind Summer Sale!

Love the sun? Celebrate summer with 20% off custom framing at Imagekind! Simply use promo code IKSummer09 at checkout to automatically take 20% off the frame when you choose to custom frame it. But hurry, because the promotion expires Monday, July 20 at Midnight PST. You can find all the details about this promotion here.

If you’re an artist on Imagekind, be sure to pass the promotion along to your shoppers! You can easily copy and paste the image URL to your website, blog, or (better yet!) your Storefront! That way, your shoppers can take advantage of this special summer sale too. Also, don’t forget to share it with your followers on Twitter and Facebook!

Featured on DPS

Desperation by Josh Sommers

Like a braggart parent, I am always looking for ways to show of our amazing member artists around the web. This week Darren over at Digital Photography School, was cool enough to let me show off some of our incredible Photo Manipulation Artists. If you’ve never heard of the Digital Photography School, you definitely need to check it out. There are all kinds of tips and resources shared to help improve your digital photography techniques. Stay tuned though, as you might see more incredible Imagekind artists showing up there in the coming months!

Friday is here again! And on Fridays, I share some of my Friday Favorites. Check out this week’s and you’ll see Imagekind seemingly pop up all over the place. From Smashing Magazine, to AOL Home and even USA Today. Also, don’t forget that today we celebrate a very special holiday in honor of one of my favorite foods animals; the delicious mighty cow. And if you missed the big announcement about Imagekind, make sure to catch it below.

AOL Home

Ah, AOL. It brings me back to my first forays on the internet. Anyway, AOL Home’s blog ShelterPop gets it exactly right in their blog post of 5 Sites for Affordable Art. Check out what they say about us below. We are super stoked for the inclusion!

Smashing Magazine

I love Smashing Magazine. And no, not just because they mentioned us in their 35 Beautiful Photography Websites, but because they are constantly posting super helpful and relevant content. They really live up to their motto to “Smash you with the information that will make your life easier. Really.” We are totally thrilled, and humbled really, to be listed among such amazing photographers as a place where they can sell their artwork online. We are glad we have built a reputation that supports such fantastic artists. Thanks Smashing Magazine!

USA Today

I wanted to give a quick and big congratulations to our own Rajesh Srinivasan for taking second place(!) in USA Today’s Picture America Contest. Well done Rajesh! You can see and purchase his winning image right in his Imagekind gallery.

Rainbow Passage by Rajesh Srinivasan

Cow Appreciation Day

I love beef cows. But today might just be one of those days when I put down the cow, and trade it for it’s feathery counterpart. Today, July 10, is Chick-fil-A’s 5th Annual Cow Appreciation day. The deal is, if you dress like a cow and go into any Chick-fil-A’s restaurant, you will get free chicken meal. So what’s this got to do with Art and/or Imagekind? HA! Very little… But to show our support of one of America’s best-loved animals, I thought I’d give them their day in the sun and feature some inspiring cow art on Imagekind! Heck, we have a whole homepage dedicated to them.

Holy cow! I was just told about this: The Cow Appreciation Day photo contest. I love it! If you submit a photo, upload it to Imagekind too! And please show me!

Major Updates to Imagekind

We hope you didn’t miss our big announcement this week. But if you did, no worries, I’ve got you covered. I mean, you could just scroll down a bit and see it on the blog yourself, but if that requires to much time and/or effort, here is the quick version:

1. We’ve removed the upload limitations and implemented unlimited uploads.
2. Premium Members can now create their own customizable Storefront.
3. We also unveiled our new Portfolio Manager to help batch-edit your galleries.

Need more details on the features? Check the actual announcement.