Trends in the Art World

by Tonya Aspegren, Fine Print Marketing Maven

"The Good Wife" set

What comes around, goes around. Trends are part of our culture. Everything comes full circle, maybe just to see if it ever went out of style in the first place! We love them, we hate them. They are part of our fashion, our decorating, our way of thinking. Sometimes a color scheme, a hairstyle, or a fashion makes its way into your consciousness. What do you do with that information?

In the last year, we’ve noticed a trend in botanicals. We’ve seen it on the walls of TV series such as "The Good Wife" and "Madam Secretary", as well as the cover of Professional Framing Magazine and the pages of Pottery Barn catalogs. Fine Print even had a mention in the magazine This Old House as the printer who could produce vintage botanical prints on high quality art paper!

As an artist, you want to continue your own style and originality. You likely have a collection of similar works. As trends come and go, you don’t want to abandon what you do for something that may be gone tomorrow. However, if you are tuned into the current trends, you may be able to grab onto a color that may be attracting the eyes of a buyer or a motif that fits your painting style.

There is nothing wrong with noticing the trends around you even if you don’t want to jump on the bandwagon. If you notice a trend in more contemporary, streamlined styles, you may choose to go with a simple, less decorative frame. If you notice a color scheme that is standing out, you may want to showcase a painting that complements those colors.

What trends have you been tuned into lately?

Goodness. Richness. Simplify.

We read Barney Davey’s recent blog and something in his words resonated. Instead of coming up with a list of New Year’s Resolutions, he came up with three words to serve as his guideposts during 2012. You can read his excellent blog here.

We started thinking how we at Fine Print Imaging might apply his words to our business.

The first word is Goodness. We like that word. It implies something beyond creating an excellent product. It implies a conscious effort to always do our best for our employees, for our customers, for our business, for our community and for our environment.

Those of you who’ve been with us for awhile know that this is not a “new” way of thinking for us. Since our humble beginnings 36 years ago, it has always been our intention to offer the best product, service and price to our customers.

The second word is Richness. We’re not talking about monetary wealth here, although we are not adverse to making a profit and sharing that with our employees and community. The richness we will embrace is a more abstract concept. It means we will look for and create opportunities to share our wealth – of knowledge, experience, ideas – with our customers and our community.

We’d like your feedback here. What information might we have that you would like us to share? Click here and ask away!

The third word is Simplify. Back when Fine Print first started, our business WAS simple. We had one main service – photo printing on matte Kodak paper.  We had one main type of customer – photographers who were selling their prints at outdoor arts festivals. We had one type of pricing – wholesale. Our customers had to order an average of 10 prints of the same image/size.

Fast forward to 2012 and we are more of a fine art printing department store. We offer art copy/film scanning, digital photo printing on four surfaces, ink printing on six surfaces, canvas stretching, Duraplaq mounting and mounting on gatorfoam board. Last year we added a full-service frame shop. We also have an online ordering system (Fine Print Express) and an online print gallery (ArtForConservation.org). And we handle the printing, framing and shipping of gallery/museum photography exhibitions.

Our customer base has changed, too. Half of you are painters, the other half photographers. Many of you are still doing the art festival circuit but many have scaled back and some have quit. Lots of you are selling prints through galleries (unheard of 10 years ago!) and even more are selling through various online outlets – including the social networking sites. Most importantly, the way you order has changed. Many of you are taking advantage of our Express online ordering. Still others like the ease and convenience of our Full Service online order form. And while we still have a good number of customers who take advantage of our quantity pricing, a large percentage prefer to buy prints a few at a time.

So how do we simplify? In ways that directly impact you – we’ve made ordering fine art paper and un-stretched canvas giclées much easier. (Click here to see our new price chart.)We’ve become your one-stop shop for prints, mounting and framing (we can design and frame for you or we can provide you with the supplies to do it yourself). In the months ahead we’ll continue to find ways to make YOUR life simpler. 

We invite you to read Barney Davey’s blog, and think about ways that YOU might incorporate these three words into your life this year. Goodness. Richness. Simplify.