Art Print Issues by Barney Davey

Phoenix Collage Artist Katia Von Kral - Art Print Career on a High Note

Recently, I had the pleasure to meet Katie Kral. She is an inspiring local artist here in Phoenix who specializes in collage art and mixed media art. She also publishes reproductions of her collage art as digital fine art giclee prints. 

Developments in artists' careers & technology arrest my attention

I am perpetually interested in learning how visual artists’ careers unfold, and how evolving technology and e-commerce continue to dramatically affect how fine art prints are created, produced and marketed.

It was at the intersection of those interests where Katie caught my attention. When I noticed she was a local artist with a listing on Groupon, for one of her giclee prints, I had to learn more and contacted her.

Is Groupon a suitable advertising medium for visual artists?

For those who don’t know, Groupon negotiates huge discounts—usually 50-90% off—with local businesses. It then sends the deals to thousands of subscribers in our free daily email, which results in new business for its advertisers. Groupon arguably is the hottest private company on the Internet. It  recently rejected a $6 billion buyout offer from online search giant Google. It was either a brilliant or boneheaded decision to pass on the offer. Time will tell how it pans out for the Groupon's founders and investors.

What I found in meeting with Katie and her business partner was that the Groupon offer for her print did not generate the sales she had hoped for. It didn't help that her offer was on a sidebar and not a featured item on the email I received. This had to have hurt her sales. The good news is there is no fee for participating. Groupon makes the sale and pays the business out of the proceeds.

Katie is on the cutting edge with her art on Groupon

If you can deliver your work nationally, as an artist you can arrange to have deals done in different cities, providing your work is acceptable to Groupon. It makes sense some cities are more likely to be responsive to an offer from an artist selling fine art giclée prints than others. Groupon is in 177 cities as of this writing and growing. Katie is going to continue to test the concept in other markets and hopes to be featured instead of on a sidebar with her future offer.

In general, generating sales success for giclee prints on Groupon will always be a challenge as art prints are not as universally popular as dining and entertainment offers. Nevertheless, there is potential for residual promotional value in participating. Katie, for instance, finds herself featured in a blog post here.

What I found when meeting with Katie and looking at her career was she was already doing many of things I regularly urge artists to do. She has created a line of images based on musical instruments. In fact, her "Ray the Guitar" piece was the one I saw in the Groupon ad.

Creating synergy is how artists can leverage their marketing

Being a fan of both blues guitar artists and of the late great Stevie Ray Vaughn, the giclée print reproducing her original collage art helped grab my attention on the Groupon email. Besides painting thematically, which is a cornerstone trait of successful print artists, Katie has managed to garner a number of high profile pieces in influential local magazines, including Phoenix Home and Garden. She has created custom artwork for local Google offices in Arizona, and corporate real estate giant Del Webb and Pulte Homes. She has also had the honor to work on restoring the 1926 Historic Civic Plaza in downtown Phoenix.

Getting one's work sold in museum is no easy trick

Katie’s latest and most prestigious honor to date is having her work being sold in the Musical Instrument Museum, which recently opened here in Phoenix. MIM is a world class facility devoted to displaying and showcasing musical instrument from all over the globe. It is well worth the time on your next trip to Phoenix.

Having such good fortune or creating it, (She sought the deal with MIM), to occur in one’s career can only help enhance it and set the stage for good things to come. This is what I predict for Katie. She has talent, ambition, more than capable full-time support, thematic work, marketing smarts and the drive to want to make a successful career in the print market. Adding in being willing to try new things like Groupon, and having the moxie to get her work sold in a museum are positive indicators of potential great success.

When you work for the greater good, the karma reflects back

Having a cause and a passion for a cause can not only help to do good things for the cause, the side benefits to the artist can be substantial. Having suffered for more than half her life from endometriosis, she champions for Endometriosis Research and Awareness. It affects 1-in-10 women, or approximately 176 million worldwide, which is a staggering number. It is hard to diagnose, causes great pain and can lead in infertility.

To her credit, Katie talks openly and freely about her experience and donates a portion of all of her sales to Endometriosis Research and Awareness. She is using her art career to help others who also suffer from this dread disease. A positive by-product might be greater awareness for Katie and her art career, which is a good thing. But, if you have the chance to meet her, you will know her passion purely comes from a true desire to help.

A successful art print and art licensing career in the making

All-in-all, I rate Katie as having her career as moving on the right track and picking up speed. When you put all the things she is doing together, you create a prescription for success and a long prosperous career. Such is what I predict for Katie Von Kral. You can say read it here first.

On What Is Art, Inception and Hazel Dooney

As J.G. Ballard once put it, "I treat the reality I inhabit as if it were a fiction—I treat the whole of existence as if it were a huge invention." (Courtesy of Hazel Dooney's Self vs. Self blog)

What is art?

Ask the question 1,000 times and you will get 1,000 answers. There is no definitive answer when perception, bias and experience are involved. Great art provokes as much as does the simple three-word question, "What is art?" There is never a definitive easy answer.

On the deepest level, what do we truly know about our lives?

Inception was one of the best movies in years. It is a mind-bending paradoxical film that leaves everything about it open to debate. It stimulates the way the best art does when it causes wildly different visceral and cerebral reactions when it is viewed. Some consider it the equivalent of an M.C. Escher image portrayed in film. And, as with great art, repeated viewings reveal deeper meanings and new nuances to consider.

Inception blurs the lines between being a fantastic sci-fi thriller and an evocative high brow art film. The complex plot mixes realities as it fires one's imagination with an in-your-face challenge to delve into what is real in our lives and what is not.

Who Is Hazel Dooney?

Australian artist Hazel Dooney is no stranger to in-your-face challenges with the way she lives her life and makes her art. Rather than be reigned by the conventions of how art is distributed, she has forged her own means of creating awareness for herself and in the process created a collector base beholden to her, not a gallery, not an agent nor a publisher.

Her collectors buy because they know about her through her incredible outpouring of work through electronic media. She is who she is by a mix of provocative art, great intellect, deep passion, and seemingly effortless communication skills exploited in compelling sheer volume. 

A Simulacrum of My Self

In a recent post titled, A Simulacrum Of My Self, she takes on the blurring of our real lives and our increasingly broadened online personas to dig into the art within these different parts of her life. When one begins thinking about what are the realities and differences between our varied offline and online personas, it becomes easy to see how a bright cutting edge artist like Dooney would be up to the challenge of making art in the cracks.

Whether you care to go there or not, in some ways you are always forced to deal with the simple question, "Who am I?" Of course, for each of us, the partial short answer is, "It depends." Dooney is taking the concept of melding her various personae into performance art. Here is a quote from her post:

Taken together, the writings and images I publish online are an early experiment in a new form of performance art, which interrogates, almost hourly, the evolving and possibly confounding split between an artist's real self – and real work – and their virtual edifice.

Read her entire postto get the full gist of what she is exploring with her art. Anyone who thinks that making art and creating collectors is the same as it always was would do well to keep an eye on Hazel Dooney. It's obvious she has much more to show us.

Hazel Dooney casts a shadow over the art business

Through her persistent and eloquent use of social and electronic media, she has managed to reach our beyond the borders of her native Australia to become an internationally recognized artist. To have achieved this primarily by dint of her own doing without an entourage, handlers or an agent, is remarkable.

While other artists might not have what she has in skills and ambitions to match her achievement, there is no doubt that any with skill and raw determination can use her model to forge something different for their career; something not available to artists in previous generations.

What Dooney does works on me.

When I write about her, it is a much different tone than what you normally find here on this Art Print Issues blog. I find myself challenged to escape the mundane blogging about the business of art and rather to dig deeper into musing on esoteric and philosophical questions about art, about how it is evolving and how the means to make it available changing and morphing as we watch.

Like many artists reading this, my reality is I will continue to forge ahead writing, consulting and producing workshop all the while making large concessions to other parts of my life that curtail these activities as a result. For me, that's necessary balance. Nevertheless, it does not stop my admiration or dim my enthusiasm for the inspiration I take from watching careers of fearless artists like Hazel Dooney.

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25 Visual Artists Coming Together to Promote Cancer Awareness

Art can heal. Art can create awareness. Art can communicate.

Matt LeBlanc asked me to help create awareness for this poignant video. It has many artists I know and all whom I admire. Watch and be inspired.

Here is a wonderful video with some very talented and passionate artists who want to share their concerns about cancer. I lost my father to cancer when I was only 10, and a good friend just a couple of weeks ago. In one way or another cancer stalks us all and will until we find a cure for it.

Build an Art Market - Profit from Your Passion

I love to read stories about artists who succeed against improbable odds. The news in this post should bring hope, joy and encouragement to visual artists everywhere.

The past five years have been very difficult for artists and publishers in the art print market. The dwindling pages in trade magazines and disappearance of formerly important tradeshows serving the art print market punctuate the point.

Tough times do not mean there are no opportunities

Given current conditions, it is a wonder any artist or publisher is doing well. And, yet here is a story proving when you follow your passion and create something that touches people in a compelling way, you can grow a profitable art business in the most trying times. Such is the case of Ashley Goldberg and her partner Drew. She is an artist who draws whimsical images and turns them into prints sold on her Etsy shop.

Kudos for getting ink from Inc. Magazine!

The result of creating such work and making it available on Etsy is her site is one of the most "hearted" on all of Esty and she and her partner Drew end up as part of a cover story in Inc. magazine. The cover story title is How to Launch a Dream Career and Profit from Your Passion. The aricle within the feature about Ashley and Drew is titled Start-Ups 2010: Building a Market for Art. 

Take heart and take notice.

It's obvious not every artist reading this post is destined to be featured in a national business magazine. Nevertheless, there are unending promotional and publicity opportunities for visual artists willing to work at turning possibilities into realities. You can be one of them if you put your mind, your body and your will to it.

If you want to be noticed, do something worth noting.

I do not know if AshleyG and Drew courted the publicity directly, or if they just got "lucky." Truly, it does not matter. If it is the latter, as I suspect, I would argue their luck is the residue of the hard and dedicated work they have put into making their art print business happen.

I bet the best is yet to come and that we have not heard the last from AshleyG and Drew. What is exciting to me is I know there are many more artists out there who are breaking into the print market on their own terms and enjoying the success that comes with it. If you are one of them, I would love to hear from you.

Shifting with the Paradigm - Hazel Dooney on Using Creative Commons

If you pay attention to the contemporary art scene, you are aware of of Australian artist Hazel Dooney. Or, perhaps you read about her here on a post I published last year: Hazel Dooney: A Courageous Uncompromising and Successful Visual Artist. She works as hard at her creative life and shares her successes, trials and tribulations like no other artist I know.

As one of the most prolific visual artist bloggers you will find, she shares intimate details of hard fought battles with her serious bi-polar condition, head butting with gallerists and clueless would-be collectors, her father's terminal cancer, working the creative process and managing her career.

Hers is the most revealing behind and in front of the scene look you will ever get at the struggles of making it as an artist. This is not made for television, it is real. Unless you cannot resist the guilty pleasure, there is no need to tune into to the reality TV show, Work of Art, when you can access the real deal on Dooney's Self vs Self blog.

What you will find when you follow her is that Hazel Dooney is as articulate with her writing as she is creative with her art. In both, you will find she does not shy away from confrontation or making points that make other people uncomfortable.

A few weeks back, she wrote and suggested I republish her blog post on her views and use of Creative Commons (Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.) where she said, "I think this brief piece on how artists should view the rights in their works and how value is shifting is quite important. It might piss some people off but I think it deserves a wider airing and discussion." 

I believe what Dooney is stressing is important and that we cannot avoid assessing the reality of how digital media and our interconnectedness truly have changed everything. What was will never be again. Facing what is and making it work for you is the only reality and only way to make headway in the shifting paradigms we face. Sitting still is not the answer. The famous Will Rogers saying hold's up well here. "Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there." Let's hear from you with your opinions.

Shifting with the Paradigm - Hazel Dooney

A lot of artists and photographers warn against the unauthorised use of images from their web sites, even if such use is 'non-commercial'. I can't help feeling that they're shooting themselves in the foot.

Copyright is a contentious issue. Like many other visual artists, composers and writers, I've thought hard about the consequences of relinquishing control over my work. Not that I have much choice in the matter: every image I upload to the web is likely be downloaded by someone else and re-distributed without my permission. And now that we all have cell-phone cameras that can SMS, email and access the web, even works in the real world can be captured and shared with ease. Nevertheless, the disadvantages of restricting the distribution of my work far outweigh the advantages.

Unfettered sharing encourages a wider awareness of my work and me.

I have licensed my images (and my words) under the flexible and user-friendly terms of Creative Commons for the past four years, allowing non-commercial users "to copy, distribute and transmit the work" under the following conditions: the user "must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)". They must neither use the work for commercial purposes nor "alter, transform, or build upon the work" without my explicit permission.

Operating under this license is a fair and effective way of allowing reasonable public engagement with my work and my ideas and effectively 'unleashes' it so it can be reproduced and shared freely without impinging on those rights from which I might derive the most financial benefit, now or in the future, or on other rights I might have, such as 'fair dealing' or fair use rights, so-called moral rights, or even the rights of others either in the work itself or in how the work is used, notably privacy rights.

Many artists think that Creative Commons undermines their rights. They clearly don't understand that while it allows others limited use of one's work, it doesn't support, in any way, the idea that someone can steal it and claim it as their own.The specific terms of the Creative Commons license I use precludes the 'mash-up' of my work without permission or, worse, attribution.

On a personal level, I like to think that others can draw whatever they think they need from what I do – quote it, adapt it, synthesize it, copy parts of it, whatever – to create something distinctively different, providing they acknowledge me as the source. There is a big difference between plagiarism and appropriation, just as there is between forgery and reproduction.

Using another's work as a starting point is not at all new. Artists have fed off each others' ideas, themes and subject matter for several hundred years. The 'modern' tendency towards appropriation took root with Andy Warhol, whose unabashedly literal reproduction of press images and package design in the 1960s ruptured once comfortable boundaries between inspired originality and 'copying'.

Warhol's soup cans, soap boxes and screen-printed multiples of Elvis were important and liberating in their day. They appear a bit mundane now, especially given how easy technology has made replication of any sort. But Warhol's real innovation was recognising long before any venture-funded dot.com entrepreneur that attention was a form of currency. He was unperturbed when his own works – even images of him personally – were copied, re-worked and widely distributed. For him, as for the web generation he has inspired, ubiquity had replaced rarity as the key element of defining value.

In the new economic reality of the art world, increased awareness promotes increased opportunities for artists to exploit not only their work but themselves. The locus of value is shifting – from the 'product' to the 'producer'. Unquestionably, the wider distribution of 'product' (even if it's free product, shared without restriction) enhances the audience's awareness and with it, the value, of the producer.

As artists, we need to be focussing less on preserving our rights in our product and more on enhancing the value of ourselves as producers and being imaginative about how we exploit and extract that value. Above: an iPhone self-portrait at The Cullen Hotel, in Melbourne

Milton Glaser Post Goes Viral - A Lesson for Not Limiting Giclees

Back in February of 2008, I wrote to ask the incomparable Milton Glaser for permission to republish his seminal speech give in 2001. It was titled 10 Things I Have Learned.

I had stumbled across it somewhere and was moved by the straightforward candid advice he gave to an AIGA gathering in London. I heard back from someone on his staff who not only gave permission, but also sent along the splendid image you see here.

It was around the time that The Secret book and videos were going viral themselves. As such, the image was very timely and clever in many ways, which is a Glaser hallmark.

Two years later the Milton Glaser post goes viral

The post received an average amount of unique visitors and pageviews for the blog at the time. Fast forward to 2010 and it was picked up by a couple of influential and well trafficked illustration blogs and went viral getting thousands of hits.

Then just as things seemed to have returned to normal, it got picked up on Stumbleupon, which is a site developed to help you discover and share interesting websites. The post has had more than 9,000 hits on it just from Stumbleupon. This on top of the thousands that have come from other bloggers.

What you potentially limit the most with limited edition giclees is your income

The point is you never know what is going to happen to the work you create. Sometimes things can get legs and be in demand that you have never seen before. Knowing this dynamic works and is real is one of the primary reasons why I believe digital prints should not be sold in limited editions.

Just as I could not fathom more than 10,000 hits on a single blog post, you cannot judge how an image you reproduce as a giclee might sell. It is entirely possible you could create a print that would have enormous demand beyond your imagination. If the piece is limited, it can cost you and your heirs a tremendous amount of lost income. 

Related Links

• Limiting Success
• The Secondary Art Market - Bev Doolittle's Beyond Negotiations Sold Out & The Lunacy of Limited Edition Giclees
• The Double Entendre of the Artist Selling Out

 

Newsletter Marketing for Fine Artists

These days, when it comes to art marketing, social media dominates the conversation. It is with good reason, many visual artists are finding new and creative ways to use tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms to find new customers and sell art. Besides being a novel way to approach getting one's art to market, social media is appealing because other than the time it takes to play, which is not trivial, there is no cost.

Your newsletter is a powerful art marketing tool

Despite the attention to social media by visual artists, many traditional forms of marketing offer significant help to sell fine art.  It wasn't long ago in the art business that email newsletter marketing was a new way to get and keep customers. Although using newsletters has now past the novel stage, it is still a powerful tool to artists build and maintain momentum in the art market.

Get started building your mailing list now!

If you have not started a formal program of collecting both snail mail and email addresses, you should get started today. There are numerous email marketing services such as iContact, AWeber, Mail Chimp and many more. Each of them will provide you with links and sign up apps to place on your website, blog and anywhere you have a presence. You should do your research and get started today!

A newsletter will help you tell your story better than anything you can do besides having a personal conversation with someone to let them know about your art and you. Artist, Ione Citrin, has been sending her newsletter for years. Her latest one, with an appealing and unique updated style, is a great example of how to do it right. Click here or on the thumbnail image above to see a full .pdf of her entire newsletter.

Many thanks to Ione who graciously accepted my request to show her newsletter to benefit you, my readers. I found it inspiring, I trust you will too.

MagCloud Is a Big Hit for Visual Artist, Linda Ott

Like most folks these days, I find information, inspiration and ideas coming at me from more places than I can track, and with velocity that amazes me. There is so much good stuff, I do not have time to review or archive all of it.

Nevertheless, sometimes a source so inspirational comes along and I am compelled to post about it right away. Such is the case with MagCloud.

When I saw what it does and conjured its possibilities for visual artists, I immediately wrote this post: Publish Your Own Fine Art Magazine with MagCloud. I heard from many artists who also could see how they could use it in their art marketing efforts.

Linda Joyce Ott is an artist inspired by the post. Recently, she wrote to thank me for publishing the piece and to share how it helped boost her art career. With her kind permission to publish, here is her email with exciting news:

Hi Barney:

I had just signed up to receive your e-newsletter when I received the one about MagCloud. As an artist and photographer, it seemed like an ideal method for me to present my work in a portfolio format. I liked that it was Hewlett-Packard, a reputable name, and the fact that they would send me a proof at no cost, except postage. Anyways, I checked it out and I've recently published my first issue Auto Parts! You can see it at http://lindajoyceott.magcloud.com

As well, I've lined up a gallery and will be exhibiting 15 of the photos featured in the e-publication during June at the Artword Gallery in Hamilton, Ontario. None of this would have happened without your enthusiastic post about MagCloud. So I just wanted to thank you and let you know the impact your newsletters have.

Cheers,

Linda Joyce Ott
http://www.lindajoyceart.com

If you have been looking for a way to spice up your art marketing efforts, take a look at using MagCloud. In the art business, it often is those who find unique ways to break away from the pack who help themselves the most. Should you be inspired like Linda and take the plunge with MagCloud, please let me know. For that matter, feel free to share any successes you enjoy that relate to this blog.

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Special MagCloud Discount for Art Print Issues readers

Just after this posted, I heard from the staff at MagCloud. They liked this and my first post so much they want to make you a great offer. Read on to find out how to save on your first order with them:

Hi Barney,

We really appreciate yours and your readers enthusiasm for MagCloud.  As a way of saying thank you for the support we would like to offer you and your readers a 25% discount off off the production price of your/their first published issue from now through August 31st.

Just email “ARTPRINT” to promo@magcloud.com and we will make sure the 25% off discount is applied to your MagCloud account. The discount applies to the production cost, dropping the production price from 20 cents per page to 15 cents per page and is applicable to the first issue of your first magazine as a new publisher.

Thank you again for your blog posts and interest in MagCloud.

Patty Tulloch
MagCloud Marketing Director

Visual Artist’s Challenge: Should I Work with Galleries, Go Direct to Collectors or Both?

 In the art business, if you hang out online with your kind or tribe as Seth Godin calls them, it does not take long to find lots of interesting folks whose work you admire. Such is the case with fine artist and prolific blogger Lori McNee and me.

Through mutual requests, we decided instead of guest blogging for each other that it would be a fun experiment to collaborate conversation style keeping to a single art marketing topic. It was an easy choice to first tackle whether visual artists should work on getting into galleries, seek to build their own direct-to-collector distribution, or do both.

Barney:  Although it arguably is contradictory, I am in the “do both” camp. While I believe artists will enjoy many benefits by working with galleries, working exclusively makes artists too reliant on things out of their control. In year’s past, there were no options and the gallery system was stronger.

I do not advocate abandoning art galleries. However, in today's art market, well established art galleries can get blindly buzz sawed by circumstances beyond their control and wreak havoc to the detriment of its artists in the process. And, now visual artists have tools to sell direct as never before. In their own interest, I believe they should pursue them alongside galleries.  As entrepreneurs, artists must tend their art careers and art businesses. That means being aware of changes and making the most of them for their own sake.

Lori:  This is one of the most heated topics being debated by artists right now. In fact, this very subject has been the focus of conversation during the past two weekends on my visits and paint-outs with some very influential professional artists. This is what I learned:
•    Surprisingly, some nationally recognized artists have begun to abandon the gallery route in favor of studio shows, self promoted exhibitions and direct marketing sales.
•    The majority of artists, including myself, believe in a healthy combination of gallery representation and self promotional sales.
•    The minority believe in relying on galleries for their sole promotion and sales.

Here is the synopsis: Direct marketing is the trend for 2010-2011. Gone are the days when galleries could hang art and easily sell it off the walls.  In light of the challenging economic times, the art market has suffered and galleries have been struggling. Most prospective collectors do not have the disposable income they once enjoyed. Now when a buyer does decide to invest their hard earned money in art, the collector wants a personal connection or better understanding of the artist. Galleries and artists can now tap into the ‘direct marketing’ approach with the use of Social Media, blogs, websites, YouTube as well as artists’ receptions, arts/crafts fairs, etc. This new form of direct marketing is the wave of the future.

Barney:  Today, society’s quick acceptance of change affects every business large and small. For example, could Google have imagined a closed social network platform launched to find the best looking freshmen on campus would evolve into the most serious threat it has known?

Facebook, other social media and ecommerce have changed consumer habits affecting the business model of brick & mortar galleries. Another factor is the Darwinian effects caused by the collapsing housing market that pummeled all businesses providing anything for homes, including art galleries.  

Changing times require artists learn to be self-reliant. Fortunately with the available tools, this is the best time ever for visual artists to control their destiny and to sell direct. That said, I believe galleries serve an important role, are here to stay and should be treated with respect.  

There is a term called coopetition where companies compete on some fronts and cooperate on others. I believe this is the future for artists and galleries. On one side galleries need to recognize and accept artists will compete with them without accepting suicidal head on direct sales battles. On the other, artists have to bring more to the table than art that sells, i.e., a personal brand, a loyal following, a killer mailing list, media contacts and so forth. Creative concerned coopetition should be the key to growth and survival for artists and galleries.

Lori:  I really like the idea of coopetition.  Some galleries might be hesitant to warm up to this mutually beneficial new idea.  Therefore, artists need to be proactive in building trust with their galleries through open communication.  I see this as the natural evolution of the artist/gallery relationship.

Barney: Despite that we both agree a combination of working with galleries and direct sales is the best. I believe we also agree there is no perfect answer. Artists can still be very successful being exclusively with galleries only program, or vice-versa handling all sales direct to collectors. Obviously, social media can play a huge part in marketing an art career no matter what path an artist chooses to follow.  

Stay tuned. This conversation will get into social media and art marketing in our next installment, to be announced.

You can find the second installment, Visual Artist’s Challenge II – Balancing Self Promotion & Gallery Representation, on Lori's Fine Art Tips blog.

Milton Glaser "To Inform and Delight" DVD Winner Announced

A few weeks ago, I was honored to be asked to help promote the DVD release of "Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight." It was decided I would raffle a copy of the DVD. After entries for the raffle closed a few days ago, I put all the names into a spreadsheet in random order. Then used a random number generator to pick the winner.

Congratulations to photographer, Joe Gemignani, of Asheville, NC. You can expect your copy of the DVD in the mail sometime very soon. Thank you to all who participated in the drawing for "To Inform and Delight". I encourage you to get your own copy of the DVD, or find a way to view from a service such as Netflix. However you manage to do it, I assure you it will be worth the effort.

The documentary provides insightful looks into everyday moments of Glaser's personal life and captures his immense warmth, humanity and the boundless depth of his intelligence and creativity. In the case of Milton Glaser it is not a cliche to remark that his is a life well lived.

For many including me, Milton Glaser is the personification of American graphic design. Best known for co-founding New York Magazine and the enduring I ♥ NY campaign, the full breadth of Glaser's remarkable artistic output is revealed in this documentary portrait, MILTON GLASER: TO INFORM AND DELIGHT.  From newspapers and magazine designs, to interior spaces, logos, and brand identities, to his celebrated prints, drawings, posters and paintings, the documentary offers audiences a much richer appreciation for one of the great modern renaissance men.

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The 2010 Smartist Telesummit Home Study Course has been released. For anyone who missed it, this is an opportunity to get in on all the learning provided by the stellar lineup of speakers for the event. It includes Hear my presentation, "Putting Art Prints in Perspective: Build a Second Income in the Art Print Market?"  Click here to get the details!

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