Clients from Hell

Thankfully, I never had any clients like those whose obnoxious conversations with creators are inventoried on the website Clients From Hell, but I have commiserated with many who have. I did graphic design commercially as well as writing, and the design clients were always more challenging to converse with than my writing clients.

As a technical writer, this happened to me many times:  An employer would contact me and work out a contract and then he'd walk me down the hall to meet "the people I'd be working with." They would warmly welcome me then the boss would leave and the "people I'd be working with" would say, "What the hell ... we're not ready for you!"

Here is a sample of what you'll find on Clients from Hell:

          CLIENT: “I don’t like the type.”



          ME: “What don’t you like.”



          CLIENT: “I don’t like how it goes all to one side.”



          ME: “You mean arranged left.”



          CLIENT: “Yes, yes, arranged left.”



          ME: “How do you want it?”



          CLIENT: “To be the same on both sides.”



          ME: “Justified?”



          CLIENT: “I don’t have to justify anything for you. I own the fucking company.”

Digital Art Gets Monotized

This (from Forbes) is the first I have ever heard of a digital art auction described thus:

"Earlier this month, Phillips, a prestigious art auction house, partnered with Tumblr, one of the largest repositories of freely-shared GIFs, to showcase GIFs, webcam selfies, video game screenshots and other experiments in screen-based pieces and physical objects derived from digital tools."

The article continues...

"Though digital art is shared, liked, retweeted and embedded free-of-charge all over the web, the 20 pieces Lindsay Howard selected for this exhibition demonstrate a new level of comfort with bringing digital art offline and traditional media online. And, unlike the digital art shared and spread online, these pieces pulled in prices of $800 to $16,000 each."

I also found some interesting commentary on the show here:

Steven Sacks, the owner of bitforms gallery in Chelsea, said that while he thought the auction was a wild success for artists that weren’t well-known, “financially, it’s more difficult to say.” Nine of the 20 lots sold for less than their estimated bids, and four of those were bought-in by the auction house. “Obviously, the numbers weren’t through the roof,” Sacks said. But Phillips was extraordinarily happy with the auction, its head of sale, Megan Newcome, told me. And by its metrics, that’s not just PR. “We were very clear-eyed about this: no matter what the results are, if we’re able to bring these artists to a mainstream audience, then the auction is a success,” she said. About this there is near unanimous agreement. “This auction was great for opening up people to digital art,” art consultant and collector Myriam Vanneschi told me. (Full disclosure: Vanneschi once bought a digital portfolio from AFC.) “For the collectors that I work with... it takes me a lot to even get them to consider digital art. Because the auction took place at Phillips, a big name and brand in the art world, it gives them some sense of assurance.”

 

Inkodye Printing System

Lumi is a new DIY alternative to screen printing. The process works on cotton, linen, silk, rayon, canvas, and any other natural & absorbent fiber. Once finished, your print is permanent and can be machine washed without fading. Link.

MyArtSpace

I got a curt email from Natalie Toppin:

"Whatever happened to MyArtSpace.com?"

I didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so I went to the site. It isn't there and there is no explanation as to why. I hate that like I hate failed business owners who post "we're renovating" notices when, in fact, they have failed and closed. The owners of MyArtSpace could have kept their homepage up and explained their decision, but they didn't, so I had to do some research...

The owners of Myartspace (MAS) recently decided to pull the plug on the project -- which means they pulled the plug on any artist who put in hours of work building a presence on MAS. We all know that a website can close. Unfortunately, Myartspace did not warn their membership -- they technically were not obligated to offer a warning due to their terms of service (TOS) agreement. Fair enough. That said, the decision to close abruptly has angered more than a few artists and fans of the Myartspace ….

… Imagine the surprise of waking up to discover that you lost all of your art contacts on a social networking site that you had invested time in. In addition to that, imagine losing images of your art -- that you assumed would continue to be safely hosted -- that can't be replaced. Again, I understand the frustration -- the anger -- but I also realize that there is a lesson to be learned from the closing of Myartspace.

The lesson is a cruelly simple one -- if you are going to market your art online, make sure to keep physical records of your art contacts and images.

Link to the article from which the above was taken.
Link to another article on the Myartspace closing.