ArtMama: The Business of Design
The world is full of people who love to create. Establishing a small business is often the way these people meet both their creative and financial needs.
Julianne Pearce is one of these people. She is the artistic spirit behind ArtMama, an online source of digital fonts and elements for designers and scrapbookers. While it was her fonts that finally led her to the world of ecommerce, Julianne’s career has been full to the brim with creative exploration. She has worked in many related fields, such as commercial art, printing and screen-printing.
In addition to ArtMama, Julianne also works as a web designer and an illustrator. A sister website, Urgent Artwork, is a platform for Julianne’s illustrations, her free fonts and the ArtMama website.
It was when people started requesting to use her fonts that Julianne realised there may be a market for her designs – and she responded by creating the ArtMama website.
The learning curve is steep – but fun
Julianne initially started out as a designer for an online scrapbooking store, and it was in this time that she learnt a lot of skills which she carried over to ArtMama.
“The position meant I was designing more than just fonts. It was quite a lot of work as each month we had to come up with different designs to match a theme. It was a really steep learning curve for me.”
While experience as a web developer has assisted her in the technical side of running a website, Julianne had a lot to learn about the specifics of designing for the online market. In her time with the scrapbooking store, Julianne says she made the most of the opportunity to learn about the various intricacies of designing a new range for the online market. She also learnt a lot from the other designers, many of whom designed full-time, had their own online stores and were only too happy to share their knowledge.
Keeping in touch
Since the early days, Julianne has had a loyal following of people who appreciate her work. One way she keeps in touch with them is through a Yahoo list. List members receive freebies, specials and notice of upcoming releases. Julianne says that offering specials to members of her list is useful, as she can see the direct impact of her marketing method.
“The results determine what’s working and what’s not,” she says, “When these things are successful I can use the strategies for my other web development clients.”
Julianne’s blog is another way she keeps in touch with customers, and she uses it to update them on designs and give them the opportunity to comment. Julianne has also noticed the value of having her website listed on other people’s blogs and websites.
“There are people who compile lists of certain topics, like scrapbooking. There’s one particular lady who, every day, creates a list of new posts, new freebies etc. It’s quite fun to get on her list because you do get a real noticeable increase in traffic.”
What’s more, links back to her site are a valuable way of increasing search engine popularity and improving page ranking, says Julianne.
Making the most of Twitter
Although Julianne concedes that she is not a big Twitter user, she still finds the online networking site valuable for increasing the profile of her business. She looks to using it more frequently after the re-launch of her website, planned for November 2009.
“I thought I would have a bit of fun with Twitter. When I re-launch I might get my announcement list to follow me, and re-tweet my announcements. There might be a competition where, if you re-tweet a certain number of times, you get free products.”
The trending topics are another part of Twitter which holds some interest for Julianne.
“Trending topics are quite interesting,” Julianne says, “I like to see what people are talking about in the rest of the world. I would like to see if my followers could turn my launch into a trending topic. Other people [on Twitter] have tried to get people to follow them by offering competitions and prizes, so I thought that could be a good strategy.”
Protecting your work
In the world of design it is essential that artists take steps to protect the re-use and distribution of their work. Julianne is generous with her fonts and elements – most requests for re-use are granted, just as long as her guidelines for personal and commercial use are followed.
“When you’re a designer, one of the first things you learn in design school is always to make sure you have the right permission. But the web is just one big resource, and people forget to check – and that’s where they can get into trouble.”
Julianne takes steps to ensure that her designs are traceable, and that the terms of use are clearly outlined.
“All designs come with a read-me file, which covers the terms of use… All my fonts also have my email address embedded in the file. So when you open the file and look at the properties, there’s my email address.”
The embedded email address is the one way that Julianne can ‘prove’ ownership of fonts which are being reused without permission.
Julianne also finds Google Alerts effective in notifying her of people who are using or re-distributing her designs online. She has an alert set up with the names of all her fonts, in addition to her own name.
All in all, Julianne relishes the fact that people want to use her designs in both their personal and commercial projects.
“People just need to ask. Nobody wants to be unreasonable. After all, you are creating something because you want other people to get enjoyment from it.”
Making the most of every opportunity
Julianne suggests that designers take every opportunity to promote their work. For example, enter competitions which are aligned with your creative focus. In 1997, Julianne was a runner-up in a competition. She designed an online tutorial on how to design a font using a Wacom graphic tablet. In addition to providing her with a new tablet, the online video had several thousand hits, and generated traffic to her website. Check out her video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lD9czVUGCY.
Evolving to meet the market
Next up is the re-launch of Julianne’s work. Taking advantage of her own shift in focus and an industry shift in trends, Julianne is working towards a new range of online design elements and fonts. The new range of digital and print quality products will be suitable for web designers and print publishers as well as her scrapbooking followers.
Julianne just keeps moving on with her business – creating and evolving to meet her own needs and those of her customers. She has some advice for those creative types who are wondering about the world of ecommerce – just give it a go.
“Everyone should just keep creating and plodding towards whatever interests them. It’s a lot of fun, it’s a learning curve and you just don’t know where it’s going to take you.”
ArtMama: http://www.artmama.co.nz
Urgent Artwork: http://www.urgentartwork.co.nz
