There hasn’t been anything quite like ImageKind before. That’s because it combines several new concepts and technologies together in one site. In a nutshell, here’s what’s unique about this service:
Unique thing # 1
It takes advantage of fairly new fine art printing technology and exposes it to the world in a friendly internet interface and at an affordable price.
Why is this interesting?
Because for years, most consumers, photographers and artists couldn’t afford true “giclee” printing. Not to be confused with photo printing, giclee (pronounced “gee-clay”), is a highly sophisticated inkjet printing process that is so sophisticated, in fact, that it produces prints, which truly capture the artist's original intent. Even museums have realized the vast potential of this technology and have made giclee editions a permanent part of their collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco) and Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) to name a few.
Unique thing # 2
There's a community here .
Why is this interesting?
Social network theory views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual people within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the members. The more ties between members, the richer the experience for all and the more members there are likely to be. Never mind. What it basically means is that our members contribute products to the site and we make it easy for members to find the products of other members or to learn more about the members themselves. We'll keep building functions of the site so that you can find artists based on geography, popularity and more. So, if you care about fine art, photograhy or a new way to market your own creativity, this is a very unique place indeed.
Unique thing #3
Customers, photographers and artists get more control over the sale of their products than ever before.
Why is this interesting?
Only recently, other sites have begun to let artists and photographers have access to their printing technology and their storefront. But they don't accept all artists. And the few that do this still primarily make their money selling pre-printed posters. Their focus is not about the membership and converting your digital files into sales. Additionally, they keep most of your money! Finally, they control the resale price of your products. To us, that’s crazy. It’s your work. You should get to control how it is priced and you should get to keep most of the mark-up. We make a small amount above and beyond our wholesale (base) prices and we’re happy with this model because we prioritize different values. You choose how you want to price your work. We don't tell you how to do that but we're willing to help if you need it. Lastly, we don't ask for any exclusivity rights for any work published on our site. You can sell here and you can sell anywhere else. In fact, we encourage you to sell on as many sites as you can!
Unique thing #4
Our site is powerful, easy to use and easy on the eyes and we try hard to adhere to “user-centered” design.
Why is this interesting?
You sell more when shoppers can use the website easily. We don’t present your artwork in a cluttered environment. We don’t use 15 colors when 2 will do. The goal is to provide for the needs of all your potential users, adapting Web technology to their expectations and never requiring readers to conform to an interface that places unnecessary obstacles in their paths. So, we're not perfect but we're always trying to fix the site and make improvements. Really think about it: don’t you hate it when you have to figure out how to use a website who is in fact trying to sell you something? Hopefully, our site is fun to use! You will notice little improvements on an almost daily basis and we listen to feature requests of our members.
Unique thing #5
You can create, shop or sell wall art ... all produced from the digital files you provide.
Why is this interesting?
Photosharing sites are not about the production of wall art. They don’t use the right inks or give a choice of art papers. And, they don’t give you a powerful framing engine to design your piece. They don’t let you build a virtual gallery with the mats and frames adorning your work. They certainly don’t give you your own admin panel to login and see what you’ve sold. We send commission checks, stock all the inventory, make and ship all the products. You just have to exercise your creativity and upload the files. Even if you forget to set your own prices we’d still send you checks because we made sure that every artists makes some money on their photos or art even if they forget to enter a retail price!
Unique thing #6
Our site should grow faster than other sites that sell art.
Why is this interesting?
In part because we’re not a typical art e-commerce site. It goes back to the social & community components whereby members can discover the art AND interests of other members. Shoppers can discover reccomendations left by other shoppers. People can comment and rate the art. On our site, art finds its way onto the screens of other shoppers who will appreciate it most. How can this happen? Because we took the time to build the site this way. Want to sort artists by location? Want to see who submitted from Stockholm today? Last week? You can do things like that. And, it goes back to the fact that we give photographers and artists better technology at a lower price. You can get started for free. You can make fine art prints for 75% less than ever before. We created a new kind of site that tried to do a lot of new things in the realm of “wall art” but we also tried to fix the things that we thought were wrong about existing art sites who sell pre-printed posters.
Unique thing #8
We’re an online site but we’re real people who will be happy to take your call (assuming all of our lines aren’t busy at the time.
Why is this interesting?
Many of us have purchased products online to include airline tickets, CD’s and other things. You know how frustrating it is to need to get a real person on the phone when you need to make a change or request a refund? That’s mostly because they don’t want your call. We publish our telephone number where you can actually find it (it’s 1-888-264-1446 in case you’re wondering) and while we are small, we’ll try to get to every call as it comes in. If we get more calls in a day than we think we can handle then maybe we’ll need to figure out another method but for now we’re still thinking a little human contact is good business. And, the person you get on the phone is almost certainly going to be the person who tries to answer your question, solve your problem and make you smile.
Unique thing #9
We did this for a reason and think you should too!
Why is this interesting?
Because our reason is that we realized that art in all its forms (drawing, painting, photography, vector, 3D etc.) is increasingly being digitized or originates as digital from the beginning. More and more people use digital cameras. More and more artists are capturing their work on canvas or paper and creating digital copies. We also realized that all of these art forms combined represent one of the most popular type of leisure activity and creative expression! Finally, we’re reminded that art has always been the universal language throughout the ages. We’re simply streamlining one’s ability to consume, share and market wall art in a new online paradigm that isn’t hard to understand.
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