(These opinions may not be the official positions of the Graphic Artists Guild.)
Sometimes we get out a little over our skis.
Problem: My Serbin ad just came out. It has my website address on it. (I submitted art to Serbin last April with the goal that I would learn Go Live by the time the ad came out.) OOPS! I am still in the crawling stage of the tutorial. Quick, what do I do?
First step: I called a graphic designer to ask him to do a “quick and dirty. “ He asked a few questions by voicemail. Questions like “do you have a domain name?” check. “Do you have a service provider for your website?” Hmm, upon further review, no. So, I went to Register.com, where I registered my domain name and Voila! They have web templates for a “quick and dirty.” Not the best solution, but it will get the presence up there until I can really design something. I am also learning how clumsy templates are. It will make me appreciate the flexibility of Go Live.
Next step: Content. The artwork is the easy part. It’s the writing that is critical. I do not want to bore my audience to tears. I want to distinguish myself as an original art illustrator with the advantages that come with original art. Without making too big a deal about the over-use of stock and clip, I wanted to sell the idea of original art to my clients with the option to look at my available art as a convenient alternative.
It behooves us not to slam “stock” too much, because our pre-published art is technically “stock”, but there is a difference between an individual artist offering images from their closets and a stock house offering art to art directors and designers. Their dellivery system is a fine-tuned system that has glutted the market with available art. Artists who have sold their art to the stock houses have no control over its use and proliferation in the marketplace. However, if you retain the copyright of your artwork and sell your stock as an individual, just by mere logistics you will not saturate the market with your images. And you know exactly where and how it has been sold. These should be big benefits to your clients who value originality when representing their clients product. Limited usage is valuable to your clients. Knowing how it has been used is even more valuable. (I’d better start a log...)
Final step: Prepare a marketing plan to support the website. Something catchy, with the feel of the website. I’m thinking postcards. A series.
For next year. Get that Go Live under my belt and do it for real.
P.S. Should I mention that work-for-hire contracts need not apply? My gut says yes. But I did just sign a WFH contract that was amended to include authorship, retaining the original art and receiving name credit wherever it is used. Hard fought terms. The best compromise I have yet to see with WFH. They did not abuse the “everything is theirs” clause either. It seems that some companies simply need the simplicity of WHF and until we can make it illegal, perhaps these compromises are the best we can get. But on the whole, even if Time magazine wanted to pay me a million dollars for my portrait of Einstein, I would retract the pen if I could not get credit for it. So, my guess is that I will put the clause somewhere on my website. Maybe add that WHF is negotiable, but generally not accepted as a business practice. I will work out the wording and take the heat of lost projects if it is too strong. But really, WFH should be illegal. Maybe that will be my next article. In the meantime, look for my site within the week @ frangregoryart.com
Send Web Site comments to
