FAQ: What is the best size to create designs for licensing?
This is an excellent question and one where I have apparently created confusion. The question was submitted for an Ask Call:
What is the best size to create designs in for licensing? In Tara Reed’s e-book she says she puts all her images for a collection on one sheet and scans that into her computer. That seems like the images would be very small. How can I use my existing oil paintings for licensing?
I thought this would be a great place to clarify what I do so you don’t think you have to paint in miniature. First, every artist has a different process and you need to do what works for you. Some art that is licensed started out as large canvas, others did not. If you paint or draw too small, the resolution will suffer and not reproduce well if enlarged.
I have a large format scanner and dislike having to scan art in pieces and get them to go together seamlessly on the computer. It just doesn’t work for me! So I never paint larger than 11 x 15. But I don’t paint full “paintings” either. If I create a holiday scene for example, Santa, the tree and each and every gift are painted and scanned separately then put together in Photoshop. So they may not all be on the same piece of paper to start with. An entire collection of images never fits on a single sheet of watercolor paper.
Bigger is better when dealing with hand painted designs for licensing.
Art can be scaled down and look good but if are enlarged too much, they will get blurry. If you know what the end product will be or have something in mind, I recommend you paint larger than you think the art will need to be. For example, I just took a ruler to a rooster I painted recently – he is 7″ wide by 8″ high – but will probably be about 2″ x 3″ on the final product.
One thing that is certain, you will need to get your art into a digital format if you want to license it. So figure out how you can get it from the easel to pixels in a way that puts your work in its best light!
Here’s to your creative success!
– Tara Reed
FAQ: What Do you Mean by an “Art Collection”?
Continuing to build the FAQ page, I was surprised to see that I had never actually ‘blogged’ about this topic. We have covered it numerous times in Ask Calls but not in print. So here is what it means when someone talks about a “collection” in art licensing.
In art licensing, manufacturers usually want to see groups, or collections, of art more than stand alone pieces.
How an artist goes about creating these collections seem to fall into two categories – those who take a ‘fine art approach’ – creating painting that could be put in a frame and hung on the wall. The type of art that easily lends itself to gallery sales, for example. The other way is to start with icons and build to a scene or image digitally. Art can either be done by hand or completely digitally – there are both types of artists successfully licensing their work.
Artists who paint completed images use four coordinating pictures as the building blocks of a collection. For example, four different but coordinating snowman paintings would make up a winter or holiday collection. The artist could make the collection more easily applied to products by creating coordinating borders and repeat patterns, using elements from the four base images, to fill out the collection.
An alternate way of creating art collections is to start with individual icons as the building blocks. The icons can then be combined to create scenes (similar to the four painted images above), borders and repeat patterns.
Creating collections means thinking about the bits and pieces a manufacturer would need to create a product. When manufacturers see that you understand and can provide what they need, you are more likely to get an art licensing deal.
– Tara Reed
P.S. To learn more about the basics of Art Licensing and decide if it might be a fit for you and your art, I recommend you take a look at the “Beginner Basics Audio” or the eBook, “How to Get Started in Art Licensing”.
FAQ: How Much Can an Artist Make Licensing Their Art?
or…
“Show me the money!”
Of course it is a good idea to decide if working towards licensing your art will give you the income results you are looking for, right? Unfortunately, I don’t have a definitive way to answer this question.
Every business will have different results so I can safely say between $0 and millions.
Of course I’m often asked for a better, more “standard” range than that. Well… I don’t know.
While people looking for a traditional job can go online and see statistics about average salaries, most artists who license their work are in business for themselves, so these statistics don’t exist. Add to that the fact that two artists could bring in identical royalties and have very different expenses based on how they run their businesses, that what they actually “make” would be quite different.
According to License! Global Magazine, the art licensing industry as a whole (art, tv, movie, entertainment, sports…) accounts for $187.2 billion worldwide. (April 2010 source: http://digital.licensemag.com/nxtbooks/advanstar/license0410/#/40)
The fact of the matter is, how well you can do depends on how well your art fits the market, how well you market your art and how patient and consistent you are. One thing we can agree on, this isn’t ‘quick & easy’ money.
But there is money to be made, I just can’t tell you how much your share will be.
– Tara Reed
P.S. To learn more about the business side of art licensing, I recommend you take a look at the eBook, “How to Find, Interact and Work with Manufacturers Who License Art.”
FAQ: How do I know if my art is a good fit for licensing?
This is the #1 most frequently asked question by artists just learning about this thing called “art licensing”.
Art Licensing means an artist grants the right to use their art to a manufacturer, for use on a specific product or products, for a specific period of time, in exchange for a royalty (percentage of sales.) Sometimes there is a flat license fee but that differs from selling art outright since the artist still maintains the copyrights and there is still a contract defining the product(s) and term of the agreement.
So how can you tell if your art would be a good fit for the art licensing industry?
Here are 4 things that make some art easier to license than others:
- The art is FLAT. 2-dimensional art can be applied to all sorts of products: gift wrap, greeting cards, dishes, dish towels, fabric and more. And with some dimension and maybe a back and side view picture as well, 2-D art can be turned into 3-D figurines, ornaments, gift products and more as well.This doesn’t mean that if you are a sculptor, wood carver or other type of 3D art creator, that you can’t license your art. It just means that you will need to look at what products are going to be a good fit. I haven’t seen photographs of many sculptures on wrapping paper lately. So target companies who create products that are 3D, like your art.
- The art is in COLOR. Go shopping and instead of looking for items you need to purchase for your own use, look at products that have designs on them. How many of them are in color vs. black and white? (And I’m not talking about the trendy black and white art, but black and white sketchy type art…)Art is used by manufacturers to help their product stand out from the competition. And most of that art is in color.
- The art is in COLLECTIONS. It is rare for a single image to be licensed. Manufacturers usually need a variety of images – in my experience, at least 2 if not 4 if you paint or create in collections of images. (When I say “images” – I usually mean something you could frame and hang on the wall. A painting of fruit or a beach scene, things like that.)Another way to create a collection is to take a theme and create icons, borders and patterns. (That is what I do.) Manufacturers usually create groups of products instead of one of this and another of that. Think about dishes for example, sets often have a variety of 4 plate designs, an apple, a pear, a plum and grapes. Then the bowls might have a coordinating border design and serving pieces with a group of the 4 plate fruits. So designing in collections of art that can create a variety of coordinated products increases your chances of success.
- The art is MAINSTREAM. Like I said in the beginning, art is subjective and no one style is more “valid” than another. It is personal expression, personal preference and personal choice. But when you want to license art, the rules change a little.You are no longer creating for yourself or a single collector but for the masses. Art that is more mainstream is going to be chosen more often than things that are more unusual, edgy or abstract. And in tighter economic times, retailers and manufacturers become even more conservative and traditional in what they choose.
A great way to decide if your art might work for licensing is to head to the stores! Go shopping and look at the designs you see on products on store shelves – do you think your art could fit? Of course I don’t mean “is your art exactly the same?” but is your art within a range of what you usually find. For example you will regularly see Christmas themes for home décor, paper and ceramic tableware, greeting cards and more. Chances are if you do Christmas themed art, you have a shot at licensing. So go shop!
Here’s to your creative success!
– Tara Reed
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