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| Art Licensing 101 presented by Jodi Pedri- I'm on the front row. |
Last week I had the great pleasure of attending a mix between an informal presentation given by artist Jodi Pedri of Working Girls Designs about her experiences in the field of art licensing. Let me first say that I met Jodi maybe a year and a half ago when she dropped into the @Arthouselv gallery one afternoon when I just happened to be there. The meeting might have been chance and lasted only a short time but it was like she was speaking straight to my goals list. I immediately found her on Facebook and sent her a friends request because I just felt she might be an excellent resource and an inspiration to me down the road.
If you check out Jodi's work and read her bio you will realize that she is very successful as a licensed artist. Here are my big take aways from the evening. |
| Button that is now on my website Home Page |
Most important is your portfolio. This portfolio should be easy to locate on your website home page. I made this button and I now have to right on my home page of my website. Of course I'm still working on the portfolio page and have it currently "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" right now.
Get your work copyrighted. This can be done periodically in collections. She copyrights her work quarterly and includes all her drawings as a collection for the one price of around $55 at the Copyright.gov website. Intellectual property is automatically protected but manufacturers require that the images be officially copyrighted before they will issue a contract.
Building a contact list is extremely important. Jodi suggests that as you walk through a department store that you pick up products that you are drawn to and flip it over to find the name of the manufacturer. Make a note and then try to call them and get the contact information for their Art Director. Build an email/phone list so that you can start sending out your newsletter to the appropriate individuals keeping them informed of your new projects and artwork.
Jodi also confirmed what I already knew that learning a program like Photoshop was key. Even if you are 100% producing standard artwork using traditional mediums you will need to be able to resize and clean up the images. She passed around some of her change orders that she gets from the manufacturers and the ability to have your artwork in layers only makes sense. This gives you the ability to move elements of the design around as well as remove or add images. Using Photoshop and keeping your artwork in layers is a must. I'm starting to think differently when I sit down in the studio. Rather than full compositions, I'm doing more of drawing separate elements that I can then bring together. Here is an example where I took two existing sketches that I drew sometime ago and embellished them with autumn themed elements to create a completely different composition.
Create mockup images of your artwork on products that you are trying to target. For example, a paper manufacturer would need to see your images on gift bags, party plates or napkins rather than on a piece of wall art. It helps those in the decision making capacity to quickly see how well your images will work for their application. Here is one mockup I put together to showcase my fine art. It goes perfect with my Giraffe piece because of the stuffed elephant in the chair. I want to create a mockup that has more of a country flavor because so much of my work is country influenced.
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| Mockup to showcase my artwork |
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| Banner I created this week for my Etsy Shop using my artwork and Photoshop. |
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| Social Media Sign to add as a photo to each of my Etsy Listings |
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