Ready-To-Frame Motivational Prints

 Arleyart.com is a platform where Arley Clark, the owner, sells his unique motivational art. Arley, born in 1947 and raised in Bremerton, Washington, has always been inspired by words of wisdom. This includes quotes, phrases, song lyrics, and even advertising taglines. Throughout his career, motivational or thought-provoking messages were always on display on his office walls. Frustrated by the limited selection of display-worthy plaques, posters, or art prints available in the market, he decided to create his own. Upon retiring from a management career in the sporting goods industry, Arley decided to check the market for his kind of motivational art, leading to the birth of ArleyArt​1​.

 Product photography for art is a little trickier than other products, and a basic light setup may still cause glare or color irregularities. Consider hiring a professional to shoot larger works or art with any three-dimensional or glossy elements.

 Lifestyle photos that feature your products or art in a space or scene help to inspire your customers and show scale. Ferme à Papier

 If you’re selling merch or other products that feature your art, the general rules of product photography apply. Take clear shots from multiple angles as well as zoomed-in shots to show texture and detail. Lifestyle photos (your product in a scene) are great for your homepage and social media and help to show scale.

 Print-on-demand companies often provide mockup images you can use on your product pages in lieu of or in addition to photography.

 For 2D works, Ken recommends scanning as an affordable and effective alternative to photography. “The most cost effective way to do that is to get a desktop scanner and scan the work in parts and stitch it together digitally,” he says.

 “If you’ve got a piece with a high-gloss coating or a resin, that’s a little tricker, but for the majority of works on canvas or paper, it’s pretty easy.”

 As an artist learning how to sell your artwork, your brand may evolve as a natural extension of your art. Your chosen style and medium will define you as an artist and you will naturally attract fans and buyers based on this alone. However, there are many decisions you will need to consciously make when you start to think of yourself as a business as well as an artist.

 Because art is a personal and sometimes emotional purchase, your brand story as an artist could factor into someone’s decision to buy. And other business assets like packaging and site design should mirror or complement the visual aesthetic of the work itself.

 What branding assets do you need? Even without design skills or the budget to hire a graphic designer, you can generate a logo and execute branding design with free and simple tools.

 The answer to these questions will help you build a set of brand guidelines that will form the foundation for website design, marketing materials, etc. If you eventually scale your business, these guidelines will help you maintain brand consistency as you delegate tasks to staff or other partners.

 Many artists build fan bases based on their online personas or personal brands that are closely tied to their art. Tatiana Cardona, also known as Female Alchemy, has chosen to put her face at the center of her social media strategy:

 In collaborating, I think it’s important to not only stay true to your brand, but to be able to listen and be proactive to whomever you are collaborating with.

 For Cat, the causes closest to her heart are central to her brand. While she recently refocused to work on AAPI themes, this isn’t the first time she’s made a statement with her work. Ferme à Papier launched a Saving Faces collection highlighting the stories of women and underrepresented groups.

 Cat’s brand values influence the types of projects she takes on with brands and clients. “In collaborating, I think it’s important to not only stay true to your brand,” she says, “but to be able to listen and be proactive to whomever you are collaborating with.”

 When setting retail price for art, consider more subjective aspects like value, demand, and popularity of the art or artist. Ferme à Papier

 How do you sell art online—and actually make money doing it? Making a living as a working artist is possible if you know how to value and price your work. Pricing art is challenging because it doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into typical pricing strategies.

 Running any business that will be sustainable in the long term involves being profitable at some point. To achieve this, you will need to price your art accordingly. If you’re just beginning to experiment with how to sell your art and don’t have a widely known name, you can start with a simple formula to price your original art:

 Your cost to sell and market the piece + material costs + other expenses + your markup (profit) = retail price

 For this method, it’s helpful to factor in the time you spent creating the art. It is typical for artists to undervalue their time and work, especially at the beginning.

Acid-Free Art Prints

 Knowing what your products stand for and what you aren’t willing to compromise are key components in driving decisions about pricing.

 Where the formula above fails is that the value of art is subjective and not necessarily dependent on concrete details like material cost or labor hours. Famous artists can fetch exponentially more for a piece that has roughly the same creation costs as that of a new artist. Check the market to compare your pricing to similar artists at similar levels and adjust accordingly.

 💡 Tip: If you are selling through a physical or online gallery, the gallery will usually take half of the final selling price. You can usually work with gallerists, who are experts at valuing and pricing art, to set a price that makes sense for you, the gallery, and the market.

 The cost of printing + your cost to sell and market the print + other expenses + your markup (profit) = retail price

 Your markup may be on a scale depending on whether you sell open- or limited-edition prints. Other expenses may include office supplies, software or app fees, professional services, studio rent, and more.

 “Knowing what your products stand for and what you aren’t willing to compromise are key components in driving decisions about pricing,” says Cat. For her, printing on sustainable paper was a must-have, even though it would drive up material costs and ultimately the retail price. Communicating these decisions to the customer is important, especially if your prices are higher than average.

 The best way to sell your art online is through your own ecommerce store. First, take a few minutes to create your store. At this point, you can set it up as a trial and tinker with it for two weeks before committing. You’ve already done a lot of the work if you’ve established brand guidelines, pricing, and business model (originals, prints, or merch)—this part is simply assembly.

 The best way to sell your art online is through your own ecommerce store. First, take a few minutes to create your store. At this point, you can set it up as a trial and tinker with it for two weeks before committing. You’ve already done a lot of the work if you’ve established brand guidelines, pricing, and business model (originals, prints, or merch)—this part is simply assembly.

 When setting up your online art store, choose a Shopify theme that lets your art breathe—large images and lots of white/negative space. Themes are like templates that you build upon, layering in your own images and copy, and tweaking colors and layout to suit your business.

 Studio (free) is a theme that puts artwork first, framing it with bold blocks. It’s best for artists who produce in collections.

 Demo of a website theme on desktop and mobileShopify is the easiest way to sell art online. It’s designed so anyone can set up a custom online store with no coding or design skills necessary. However, if you’re interested in customizing your theme even further to suit your business, consider hiring a Shopify Expert to help you with design or development work.

 The Shopify App Store is packed with apps that plug directly into your online store to solve specific pain points, add unique features, and help you run your store more effortlessly—allowing you to focus on the creative aspects of the business.

 Print-on-demand apps. If you sell your artwork via prints and merch, apps like Creativehub, Printful, or can sync with your store, taking the burden of shipping and fulfillment out of the equation.

 Gallery apps. An app like POWRful Photo Gallery can feature past or out-of-stock works, serving as a portfolio or full catalog of your work for galleries or brands looking to partner with you.

 Social marketing apps. As a creator, you may lean toward visual social media platforms like Instagram to help market your products and build an audience. Keep site content fresh with an app like Instafeed that pulls Instagram images into a gallery on your site.

 Product page apps. If you’re offering a specific piece of artwork with overlapping options (size, frame or no frame, paper type, etc.), use an app like Bold Product Options to layer item variants.

 What’s the best place to sell art online? Aside from your own online store, it’s where your ideal customer is already hanging out. If you have amassed a following on a particular social channel, for example, that might be a great place to start.