A Look at Art & Design

The competitive nature of things and what to do to maintain artistic professionalism

The art world, the design world, advertising and PR are all such competitive fields.  Throw them all together in a mix such as arts management and the competition becomes fierce!  So what do you do if someone should circumvent the unspoken rules of good business decorum and oversteps the line into your stable? Sometimes it's just a matter of poor communication but whether the offense has been by accident, malicious intention or just because of plain stupidity it is always good to take a reality check and reflect.  So what is one to do when ignoring a "red flag" just plain bad business sense?

• Always remain diplomatic and polite
• Always continue to do your job to the best of your ability
• Be a professional
• Remember bad business practice reflects worse on the offender then it does on you.
• Re-access your own business practices, goals and strategies
• Competition is flattering...when people start competing with you it's because you have become a force!
• Retain and believe in the loyalty of your clients and associates. Surround yourself with a base you can trust and prove to your base again and again that the trust is well warranted.
• Read Machiavelli?

I like to think that most players can work together and support each other but sometimes there are those who just don't like to play nice.

• The bottom line is...while maintaining your professional attitude...Watch your back, be smart, work harder and don't let it happen to you again.

Opening for Gallery at 85 Main called by many "The Opening of the Year"

Well the title of the post rather sums it up, I guess. The opening at Gallery at 85 Main was "an overwhelming success." 175-200 people attended the opening on Thursday August 24. We enjoyed great art, perfect weather, fabulous company and we are looking forward to many new opportunities. Attendees came from NYC, Massachusetts and all over Connecticut. The phones still haven't stopped ringing and the emails are plentiful.

Here's some of the feedback we've been receiving:
"Extraordinary event"
"It was the opening reception of the year."
"I had a great time obviously, I just couldn't leave."
"A great location for artists to gather and share ideas."
"I met quite a few very interesting people and am reading emails already this morning from some."
"The best opening I've ever been to."
"The Opening Reception was incredible! Great atmosphere, great company, great artwork, great weather. PERFECT!"
"Fantastic space to show art."

Sneak Peak at Gallery on 85 Main Street

A sneak peak at the interior of The Gallery at 85 Main Street. The gallery will have it's opening tomorrow night August 24th, 2006 from 6-10pm.

Gallery at 85 Main Street will hold regular openings featuring a variety of artists. It encourages artists to come work on the grounds, and to attend workshops and lectures which will be held throughout the year.

Gallery at 85 Main Street
Centerbrook, CT
www.galleryat85main.com

Eric Karjaluoto :: The Culpable Designer

I never have enough time to just think.  I'm not talking about the day to day decision making type of thinking, but I refer here to that relaxed "let's just ponder the universe" type of idle time. I think it is so necessary to take time to be with ones thoughts and yet it seems like such a luxury.

I was inspired to do some thinking tonight after having read another of Eric Karjaluoto's posts at ideasonideas, called The Culpable Designer. I haven't thought a lot about responsible design since my last post on the subject here at ArtLOOK and so I was happy that I came across Eric's very thoughtful post which rather re-awakened the subject for me.  The Culpable Designer touches upon some lofty issues and Eric understands and states that a blog post can't address all the issues which could come up in writing, talking, and thinking about responsible design, but it does open up avenues for dialogue. It does serve to remind us, in the course of our often frantic days, of a issue which is relevant and shouldn't be forgotten. I think as more and more designers begin to think and talk about these issues the more we will begin to insert responsible design practices into our lives.

Eric's post spans discussion from the virgin fiber used in the Victoria's Secret catalogs (really? I had no idea!), to the design of the Third Reich, on to Michael Bierut's When Design Is A Matter of Life or Death to First Things First Manifesto of 1964.  Yup...big ideas and observations and Eric writes about them in a thoughtful and eloquent way. Truly, I love to read his stuff.  I will probably never get a gig with Nike or Victoria's Secret so these thoughts while mindful are moot to me, but what about the little things?  While I encourage you to read The Culpable Designer I also want to ask...What if every design firm, every freelancer, every studio big or small across the world just started to use both sides of the paper coming out of our printers? Perhaps I fear here, as Eric did at ideasonideas, that this question makes light of a topic which is so big. Perhaps it will just be another avenue to open up dialogue...??

Cult Design inspiration

I check out Cult Design everyday. Beautiful ideas, sparkling photography...It's a blog that just makes me happy.

Cult Design: Ett koncept för modern inredning, skapat av svenska formgivare.
Cult Design: A concept for modern interior design, created by Swedish designers.

Link: Cult Design inspiration.

Arts Management :: Promoting a New Gallery Opening - Part 2 of a 2 Part Series

In addition to the web design and graphic design I do for my clients, another service I provide is the promotional aspects of actually getting those designs out there working for the client. A beautiful ad design or web design which is never seen doesn't fulfill its purpose at all. In this second part of the series on Art Management, I'd like to show you a project I'm presently working on and how marketing, PR and promotion works hand and hand with the design elements to gain the gallery exposure.

Gallery openings are HUGE.  There are 1000 moving parts and a million details to consider from exhibition labels to coordinating with the artists to marketing. Gallery at 85 Main Street is a new gallery which is having its opening night on August 24th, 2006. It is going to be an event with live music, great food, a newly renovated 200 old year structure on a gorgeous and inviting property, terrific art and big plans for the future.  We want the gallery and the opening event to be a big success. So how do we inform the public and the art community about the new gallery?

Deadlines mean a lot. So the first thing we created was a one page advertisement which appeared in several art magazines one month before the opening. This design was refined a bit, as the owner of the gallery wanted a black background to be standard in all her promotional materials. To create an image for the gallery, or an identity, other elements also need to be consistent. The font used across the board is Garamond. Garamond has also been used for the signage on the gallery itself. The black background and the promotion of the Blooms Series, by artist/owner Glynnis Sorrentino, are the images used in promoting both the artist and the gallery opening. A logo or identifying mark would be nice but that is something that will come with time and be added later for future projects should the owner decide she'd like such a mark.

The brick and mortar of Gallery at 85 Main is a 200 year old barn which has been renovated and converted into a gallery and artists space. The property is quite unique and part of the gallery's allure is to also provide loft space, workshops, lectures and the ability for artists to work on the grounds. All these benefits were noted in press releases, email campaigns, and the website; photographs of the gallery and its property were used in the campaign.

In addition to the print advertising which will run every month, Dragonfly Blu also created a website for the gallery. A website, as noted earlier, is the cornerstone of marketing here at DFB and lisamikulski.com. I don't think I need to go into all the benefits of a website but indeed a site provides 24/7 information accessibility. It should be noted on letterhead, business cards, advertising documents, press releases, invoices, email campaigns, postcards, brochures. Because we use the website as the base for all future endeavors the website needed to be designed and up pronto!

One of the things that makes a gallery site different from an artist portfolio site is that the gallery is a business and it displays the work of several artists. A gallery needs to establish itself as a serious enterprise. A mission statement is needed and serves as the statement for the website, marketing, and the business plan. All images and photography need to be gorgeous to best represent the artists and to establish the credibility of the gallery. A poorly designed business site will discourage business not bring business in. This is KEY to any online endeavor, or any design endeavor for that matter. I saw an advertisement today for a art organization that was so poor in its design, font choice and content that I opted to not contact them about their services. Don't let this happen to you...competition is hard enough, don't damage your reputation because your don't want to hire a professional to do the design. Design work and PR is a valuable service and the return on investment will make you a very happy gallery owner when all is said and done.

Now that we have the website online, press releases are sent out and postcards created. Press releases must go out 2-3 weeks before the event and follow a standard format. Here is our press release. Postcards are very versatile and are used for direct mail distribution. They are also used to hand out to community businesses and associates and a stack of them will reside in the gallery.

Direct mail campaigns are great but when used in conjunction with a email campaign the effect is far reaching. Some galleries (and artists) might have a mailing list which only includes postal addresses. Some may only have email addresses but no postal information. In this case we want to build our master list from visitors, past collectors, networking contacts etc. To ensure that everyone is notified from both the postal list and the email list, we send out the postcards first and then an email campaign one week before the opening.

It may seem like we are bombing our contacts with repeated information but all these different mediums are very effective for different reasons and go out to a different base of contacts. Press releases go out to the press. Direct mail campaigns go to postal contacts and are used as handouts to the community. Email campaigns go to the email list and the website serves as the meeting point for all. So these elements all work together to provide the initial starting point of working up a buzz and some exposure for our little gallery...and of course, we talk about the opening and the gallery to everyone and anyone who will listen to us :)

Site Transfers are Complete :: Dragonfly Blu Server Upgrade

Update for my clients:  Transfer of all client files are complete.  This means if you are a Dragonfly Blu Design client with web site hosting, your site files are now residing safely on the new server.  YAY..congrat's to us all.  The process went amazing well and quicker than I ever expected. All email accounts are intact as are subdomains and SQL databases.  I love when things WORK!

The last step to this process is changing the DNS (Domain Name Server) at the domain name register.  If you registered your domain name with Dragonfly Blu Domains, you need to do nothing as DFB will handle this for you.  If you registered your domain name elsewhere such as Network Solutions, Go Daddy, Register.com, you must either contact me or log in to your account and change your DNS to point to the new server. You should have received an email at your secondary email address with instructions on doing this. DNS must be changed in order for your site to go live on the internet and be accessible to your viewing audience and to reestablish email functions.

Dragonfly Blu Design Upgrades to New Website Hosting Servers

The last few days has found my site server being a general pain in the butt. The downtime has been far too long for my liking and I'll be honest...it has made me pretty angry. In response to this, I have begun the transfer of all Dragonfly Blu client site files to a new state of the art server. This new server will be a Dragonfly Blu Design name server and provide more disk space, higher bandwidth, faster FTP, as well as the following enhancements and features:

* Redundant Server Backup
* 99.9% Uptime
* Instant Blogs
* Instant Chat rooms
* Hotlink Protection
* Guest books
* Shopping carts
* Forums
* and more...


Of course, clients of DFB will still have access to Cpanel for complete control of their website, email and site statistics. Dragonfly will provide multi language features for the cpanel as well as upgrading spam filters, mailing lists, subdomains and enhanced scripting options.

The transfer of site files has already begun and will continue to take place during the week of August 14. Please bear with me as I make the necessary changes in moving files and redirecting domain name servers. I expect that all changes will be completed by Wednesday morning August 16, 2006.

Weekend Reading :: Art and Design

I just received my new Taschen Book.  I'm addicted to Taschen and today's received item has been back ordered for some weeks. So in celebration and because the weather here is so beautiful, almost perfection summer weather, I've decided not to sit in front of my computer this weekend favoring instead to head outside and spend the weekend reading with a cool drink, a pack of smokes and some sunshine.

My reading list:
Collecting Contemporary
Lindemann, Adam
Softcover + elastic ribbon, 16.8 x 22.6 cm (6.6 x 8.9 in.), 300 pages

The main body of the book brings together tell-all [I always get a kick out of the "tell all" phrase] interviews with the biggest players in the global art market: the Critic (Rimanelli), the Dealer (Boesky, Brunnet/Hackert, Coles, Deitch, Fortes, Gagosian, Gladstone, Glimcher, Hetzler, Lybke, Perrotin, Rosen, Shave, Wirth), the Consultant (Cortez, Fletcher, Heller, Segalot, Westreich), the Collector (Brant, Broad, Habsburg, Joannou, Lambert, Lehmann, Lopez, Paz, Pinault, Rothschild Foundation, Saatchi), the Auction House Expert (Cappellazzo, de Pury, Meyer), and the Museum Curator/Director (Dennison, Eccles, Heiss, Lowry, Peyton-Jones).

You can burn a whole career on a failed sale
Amy Cappellazzo, International Co-Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie's, New York

Advertising Now! Print
Wiedemann, Julius (ED)
Flexicover, 19.6 x 24.9 cm (7.7 x 9.8 in.), 640 pages

The world's sharpest creative minds are in high demand in the advertising world, because making effective ads takes a whole lot more than just marketing know-how. A great ad grabs the viewer’s attention and gets the point across in an original, surprising, funny, touching, or even shocking way. Because ads reflect global and regional mentalities, studying them is interesting not only for their selling points but also for what they have to say about their clients and target audiences. This mega-roundup of the world's best contemporary advertisements highlights the work of agencies in over 40 countries.

"I like words too much."
Interview with Neil French, Creative Director of WPP

Communication Arts
Current Issue: 2006 August Photography Annual

The Photography Annual highlights the best photography of the last year, by both established professionals and those new to the field. In addition, the August issue offers insightful articles on brand transformation, design leadership, global typography, creating meaning in photography and much more.

Arts Management :: Websites and Materials for Promoting Artists - Part 1 of a 2 Part Series

Part of what I do as an Arts Manager is to provide web design and graphic design services to my clients that need them. Artists and galleries require huge amounts of promotional work in the form of postcards, portfolios, websites and more...because Dragonfly and Lisa Mikulski work hand and hand, the combined networking and marketing materials provide a strategic base and customized approach to the artists outreach needs.

This post will discuss the various marketing materials and processes that can work together to promote an artist to a wider range of contacts, galleries, news organizations and networking associates. I'm happy to welcome JB Dule as a new client. Dragonfly Blu will be creating a new website, catalog, brochures and postcards for Dule's artwork and he has also retained me to represent him and to do some PR work.

So where do we begin? JB and I sat down for an initial client consult. My job here is to mainly listen and ask some questions about the artist's vision, his mission and any ideas he may have in promoting himself and to whom. I get a basic idea of what type of promotional materials the client may have on hand, if any, and whether or not there are digital files of the artwork.

In JB's case, he had no digital files of his work but he did have a sizable listing of all his work inventoried by number and description. He also had a listing of all the exhibitions and shows he had participated in and a nice little bio. These were all prepared by JB prior to our first visit.  Wow...what a guy! The first point of business was to get the work photographed. The photography will be used over and over again for the purposes of the website, catalog, advertisements and future promotion materials. I returned for another visit and spent several hours photographing his work in Waterford and then went into New York City to photograph the work in his studio there. All photos were taken at high resolution and then optimized for use either in print or online. It is extremely important to get the photography right.

From here I begin to build his website. An information architecture structure is what I begin with first. This determines the layout and content of the site and provides the navigation. Layouts are prepared and submitted to the artist for approval and then the production phase begins. Here's a little idea of what JB's home page might look like.

A website is a powerful marketing tool and in my mind serves as the corner stone of the marketing venture. It should be professionally created and be focused on the art. A website portfolio is no longer a frivolous expense. It has become a necessary component in the artist's promo bag of tricks.  Most collectors and galleries expect that the artist has a website of their own. But it is not the only trick and unless you market it, utilize it, and combine it with other marketing tools the most beautifully designed site will do little for you.

After we complete JB's site and put it online, I'll promote it like nobody's business.  Here are some additional items that can be done to give JB a one-two punch to his marketing campaign. The domain name and site pages will be submitted to the search engines for indexing. Third party art sites will also be contacted in which to submit JB's site. Rich text email campaigns will go out to both JB's list of contacts and my own. Press releases will go out announcing his site, background and contact info...of course, his new website address will be listed.

Part of our program is to also create a catalog, tri-fold brochures and postcards.  The catalog will serve as a source book for JB, and the brochures and postcards will be used for direct mail campaigns and as "leave behinds" for when we go gallery crawling, networking and partying.  These products should be so beautiful and of such high printed quality, that no one can bare to throw them away. This means concerns such as paper quality and weight, color reproduction, layout and packaging must be "break your heart exceptional."

I hope from this brief post, you might get an idea of how marketing and a PR campaign is initiated. As I mentioned, the digital photos will be used over and over and the website serves as the cornerstone of our campaign.  Make sure any website you endeavor to build is easy to navigate, displays perfection images and is tended with love and care...and back it up with some amazing print elements.

Has this post helped you in any way?