New Dan Mumford Prints

New Dan Mumford prints available on his online store. I really love how his illustrations are so intricate and the attention to detail is great, but I wonder if it gets trivial at times. Maybe not. Anyway you can purchase these two and some other prints at his online store here

http://danmumford.bigcartel.com/

Design By Humans - 4th Anniversary Sale

DesignbyHumans.com is having a sale celebrating their 4th anniversary. Some tees have sizes sold out, because I tried to get a couple. This ends August 7th. Pick up some of the coolest tees available!

Dream Level-1 T-shirt by Collision Theory

AJ Dimarucot aka Collision Theory is a beast when it comes to designing t-shirts or designs in general. He is certainly talented at composing some great graphics. A winner on Threadless, Designbyhumans, and various other competition sites as well as being commissioned from various companies like Nike, he continues to show why people love his designs. "Dream Level-1" is one of my favorite, if not my favorite design he's done. The colors are perfect and definitely stand out on the black tee. The use of negative space is very well done. AJ drew inspiration from the movie Inception, which is probably a reason why you see a tree grow so out of bridge. If you've purchased a DesignbyHumans tee, then you know that the quality of the shirt is very good, true to size, and the printing if very well done. For $19 plus shipping, I say this is a shirt worth wearing.

Buy here

Cool Palehorse Designed T-shirts

Palehorse aka Chris Parks is a designer who's work I really like. I really like his illustrations and think he has some creative concepts when it comes to his personal work. He has these two t-shirts that I think showcase his work very well. The t-shirts are tagless, so there won't be an itchy neck from the tag when you wear it. I'm not sure if I like the "Christos Mysterio" which I find to be a humorous parody or the "Mariachi" better. You can purchase these t-shirt for $22, which is a reasonable price for some wearable art.

 

Free Vector Roses from Jimiyo

Artist, Jimiyo, has provided everyone some free vector roses that you can incorporate into your art. He designed a whole floral set that you can purchase at The Golden Black, as well as other good and cool stock art.

DOWNLOAD HERE

The DBH 10K 2010

Designbyhumans.com is having their 3rd annual DBH 10K contest. You get to have a chance to win $10,000. Yes, that prize is $10,000. The competition is filled with amazing talent, so it may be difficult it's definitely worth a shot. From of the designs that are in the top 10 some deserved to be there, while others I disagreed with the DBH staff. I'm definitely competing this year. Who knows what will be the outcome.
http://www.designbyhumans.com/special_contest/details/25
Details:

Submissions are now being accepted through August 22, 2010 (Midnight PDT). All contest submissions must be entered through our online submission form and must conform to the DBH Contest Terms and Conditions in order to qualify for entry. Artists may enter multiple submissions. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Grand Prize:

$10,000 USD

First Runner-Up:

$1,000 USD

Second Runner-Up:

$1,000 USD

Third Runner-Up:

$1,000 USD

Fourth Runner-Up:

$1,000 USD

Design Guidelines

In addition to our general rules and guidelines, designs are also subject to the following:

• The design(s) must be an original work created and owned by the entrant. Designs may contain up to 14 colors, including halftones and gradients.
• If your design is selected you will be required to submit the winning design in high-resolution (at least 300dpi at actual size).

Submissions Deadline: Aughust 22, 2010 Midnight (PDT)

How I Made $7500 in 3 Months With My Art by Jimiyo

work full time with Teefury.com as an art director and curator, but an appreciable portion of my income comes from my own art.

You’ve most likely heard of the "starving artist" persona. This myth, at least in my experience, is incorrect. Unless it was based on wannabe artists who have no passion and lack work ethic, there is not one hard working, productive, passionate artist I know that cannot make good money creating artwork.

If you read any book on building financial wealth, much of the information will dictate that you leverage your time by creating instances in which no work except the initial effort is required to continue to make money. This means that you need to make money while you sleep.

People betting in the stock market, let their money make money while they sleep. A designer needs to set up situations where their designs will make them money while they sleep.

In the past 3 months, excluding my full time gig income, I have made approximately $7500. Much of this is generated by passive income streams from artwork that has been created and gets sold over and over as long as the product exists.

The art that netted $7500 in income can be separated into 4 categories.

1. Art Sold Outright
2. Physical products
3. Residuals
4. Digital products


1. Art Sold Outright.

The easiest, quickest money is Art Sold Outright. This is not a passive stream of income.

This income stream is a one time payment with no royalties. You make design. You get paid X for design. The end.

If this is your longterm method of creating income, you will not be leveraging your time. It’s like working on a hourly basis. You only get paid when you work.
This is not the path to work independence or a balanced life. Unless you are able to continously ask for larger amounts after each design, it will be hard to overcome the hours that is required to make money.

However there are opportunities that are good trade offs for straight payment design gigs. Provided your clients are enjoyable to work with, working for larger entities will help spur your name and build clout, so do not hesitate to work with qualified businesses.

I will not go into how to get clients, because I don’t know. They usually just end up approaching me, or I am referred to them by an artist friend. One needs only to create good art and promote themselves on the internet, and put the word out that they are available for work to get work. Search the net for places like Behance.net or Society6 to pimp your work.

2. Physical products.

This category requires some work so it is not necessarily ideal if you have to take care of the shipping and fulfillment yourself. If you can find a third party to do it for you the better.

Specifically, I have stickers for sale through bigcartel. I house the product at my residence, and ship it myself.

Previously, I sold a variety of shirts online as well as through several different boutiques.

At the peak of my shirt sales, distribution of my shirts though various boutiques used to generate $150-$400 on a monthly basis. For the minimal effort and up front investment, it was a decent experiment. It was only a few hundred shirts. You can imagine if you can make $150 a month, you can eventually make $1500, $15000, etc a month with growth into different distribution outlets.

Eventually I quit selling shirts because I got a wild hair up my ass and went on a 30 day road trip around the U.S. with the shirts, mostly giving them away to foreigners I met at hostels.

I preferred making art instead of managing product inventory and sales.

This category is important. By having a product, it builds your artist persona, and promotes branding you as a product. If someone buys a product from you, they will be reminded of you every time they wear your shirt, or see your sticker, thus opening the door for future products.

Even on a small level, create a product, and make it available to the public.

You need to build your fanbase. Start with 1, and then move to 1000.

3. Residuals

Royalities and residuals are a rare for a designer. Having participated and won at online contests like Designbyhumans and Threadless, I occasionally receive a check for residual sales.

If at all possible, if your legal use and copyright is going to be sold outright, try to sell to companies that can pay out residuals or release copyrights after use.

One of my biggest regrets is selling all inclusive copyrights of designs to companies for a bigger check. In the long run, although the money served well, I should have taken contracts that allow more flexibility in usage than a one time sell. It’s a great shame when a solid illustration does not get distributed well, and you only get a piddlely little check for all your hard work.

In my current situation, since I have a steady stream from my full time gig, I no longer sell any design outright unless it’s with a worthy notable client. Doing so allows me to sell the art product over and over, which is the most ideal situation.

Since I work at Teefury.com, I am able to get my work printed if it suits our market. Teefury does not retain copyrights to an artwork so often I transition many of the products to the 4th category.

(If you wish to submit to Teefury.com, learn more here.)

4. Digital products

This has been a great boon to leveraging my time in my artist career.

I currently sell products through RedBubble, TheGoldenBlack, and Bigcartel (vectors).

The products require nothing of me after it’s initial creation. The products sell while I sleep, and no shipping and fulfillment work is required of me as it is done by the supplier or digitally.

Although very small in income at first, over time, with greater product range, the trickle grows into appreciable streams of income.

The ideal longterm goal is to create so many small streams of passive income that it pays for your rent, mortgage, etc. Until it pays for everything.

Essentially, this is like starting a business. You start a business, with sweat equity get it up and running, and then as you increase your cash flow, you hire employees to do the work for you while you reap a bigger income with less work.

Instead of workers, your artwork are your workers.

I highly recommend any designer to get into stock art, as well as using sites like Redbubble and other third party art distributors to start building a income stream.

There are many avenues available on the web. Start today. You have nothing to lose, except from not following through and losing all the cash that could be made.

jimiyo.com [at] gmail.com
http://jimiyo.com
http://twitter.com/jimiyo

Link 75 Skull tees that don't suck @ IAMTHETREND

One blog I like to check regularly is IAmTheTrend. They feature articles on clothing(mostly t-shirts), art, music, and film. This one article. I think with the flooded t-shirts with skulls due to Ed Hardy & Affliction there are some creative skull tees. Now I know skulls on t-shirts have been around for a while, but it seems that they were popularized a little more when those two companies became a trend. I collaborated a t-shirt design for Branded Baron with designer Collision Theory aka A.J. Dimarucot and I have to say it would have definitely made this. When that is released I'll post it and maybe my portion of the design process. You can view the rest of the article here: http://iamthetrend.com/2010/02/17/75-skull-t-shirts-that-dont-suck/ Some of the shirts I agree with and others don't, but it must've been hard to choose the top 75. The first image was available by Public Domain Clothing.

Threadless


Disturbia


DesignbyHumans


Blackbird Clothing


Fullbleed

Save Metal Ink Shop Design & Model Contest

Another contest site is calling it quits. It is a shame, because these design contest sites provided such a great outlet for people to have their designs printed and earn some extra cash. With a sea full of design contests sites like Threadless & DesignByHumans it's hard for the other companies to emerge to the elite. Everyone needs some sort of gimmick to be afloat or something that makes them stand out. I like what Metal Ink Shop provided, which was a design contest and a model contest. The target market was geared towards the tattoo crowd, but since it's calling it quits for lack of funding maybe the fad of the tattoo t-shirts are going fading. Ed Hardy & Affliction and all of its clones are on its way out. Maybe since people aren't spending as much the dishing out the $700 cash prize for a design, excluding the award for the model could take a toll on their business plan.
I personally felt Metal Ink provided some cool artwork and introduced some new artists. There model contest was cool too, because it provided upcoming models with a chance to win some money and a free photoshoot. I submitted a design, but it doesn't seem it will be accepted for voting, which is a shame, because I thought it would be cool and fit the demographic. I know I should've submitted it earlier, but I was in talks of a company of selling it, but that didn't pan out. You try to make the best decisions and you learn from them. Either way support Metal Ink by purchasing some shirts and voting on the designs and models.

Here are words from the Metal Ink Shop:
Maiden of the Month & Design Contests
To Be Paused...

Dear Members of Metal Ink,

It is with deep regret that we inform you of a sudden change in events. Due to lack of funding, our Maiden & Design Contests need to be paused until further notice. For now, our last Maiden of the Month contest will be March and our last Design Challenge will be "Everybody Loves Maidens." The winners of these contests will be awarded $300 in store credit only.

We hope that in the near future, we will be able to bring back both contests in full. To that end, we are asking for your support by launching a campaign to SAVE METAL INK!

Here's how you can help:
Purchase Metal Ink apparel. Remember, a percentage of our sales goes right back to the artist who submitted the design.
Introduce your friends to Metal Ink. Using your Personal URL, you can get $3 of store credit for every purchase new members make! Read our FAQs about how to use Personal URLs.

Tell us how you feel by posting on our Forum. We would love to know your thoughts on how we can improve our products and services!

Metal Ink Crew