Welcome to your quarterly update for the Retail Trends Design Challenge. As part of our ongoing effort to connect independent artists with major retailers, this challenge invites you to create designs inspired by the current trends our retail partners are exploring. With opportunities to see your art featured in popular stores like Hot Topic, Urban Outfitters, Spencers, and many more, this challenge is a great way to grow your brand and reach new audiences. Participating in this challenge not onlyRead more
Posts filed in: Design Trends
The Bad News
‘Design’ isn’t just about what images you choose to sell on art prints and apparel. Design trends concern everything from the typeface you use, to how your online shop looks on mobile. Just because minimalism and Helvetica Neue are in one day that doesn’t mean they will be the next. What’s in and what’s out are changing and evolving and keeping up has never been harder. The amount of art and design created each day results in information overload and too much noise.
The Good News
The good news is we’re here to help. you stay current with the shifting and changing of design trends. Keep up with the latest in design news and happenings by reading these latest articles.
Summertime Vibes: Creating Trendy Summer Collections for Your Merch Store
Summer is a time of warmth, adventure, and endless possibilities. As an Artist Shop owner, summer collections and product drops enable you to tap into the vibrant energy of the season. By aligning your shop with summer trends that suit your brand, you can capture the attention of a wider audience and evoke a sense of relevance and connection. This helps you establish a stronger rapport with your followers, which leads to increased engagement, repeat purchases, and a loyal fanRead more
10 Answers to the Question “How Do I Get More Sales?”
After you’ve spent all that time making your homepage look awesome, tweaking your shop’s SEO, and setting up all of your social media accounts, it can feel discouraging when your products aren’t flying off the shelves like you want them to. So what’s an Artist Shop owner gotta do to get more sales? That’s the question of the century. Back in 2017, our team shared 8 Reasons You Might Not Be Seeing Sales, offering tons of advice that’s still helpfulRead more
Art Trends: Basquiat’s Rise to Global Notoriety
The last Art Trends post covered the work of 15th century Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. Now, we’re exploring more contemporary art as we dive into one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings. The late Basquiat is a well-known artist typically associated with Pop artist Andy Warhol. However, despite his close connection with Warhol, Basquiat himself was not a Pop artist. In fact, he was a Neo-Expressionist. Why are we talking about Basquiat in an Art Trends post in 2021? Well, on MarchRead more
Art Trends: Botticelli’s $92.2 Million Dollar Painting
For our next installment of Art Trends, we’re taking it back to the 15th century. Yes, thus far I’ve mostly referenced contemporary art, but now it’s time to switch things up! In the art market, trends don’t always involve contemporary work. Sometimes old documents resurface or new studies emerge on the “masters,” which result in their paintings selling for high prices at auctions. An art canonical “master”can also trend in the market when paintings previously stowed away in private collectionsRead more
World Building: Queer Black Artists and the Portrayal of Desire (Warning: NSFW Images)
CAUTION: This post on queer Black artists features art depicting nudity and sexually explicit acts, as well as photography with partial nudity. In honor of Black History Month, I want to focus on a trend within a specific group of artists, rather than the art market. It is important to note how Black artists, especially queer Black artists, have created their own spaces and modes of representation in the art world. Their contribution to the development of contemporary art isRead more
Art Trends: Surrealism and the Work of Leonora Carrington
Who comes to mind when we think about Surrealism? Salvador Dalí? Andre Bréton? René Magritte? Or maybe Max Ernst? These are the most common names one associates with the movement. They are the Surrealists we frequently see in museums, contemporary references, and art history books. What about the artists we don’t see? In other words, what about women? It took many years of art history courses for me to learn about women’s presence in art before the late 1940s. ItRead more
Art Trends: The Resurgence of Post-Impressionism
Art movements stem from a desire to break away from the confines of previous artistic conventions. For example, Impressionism is a departure from realism, not only in technique, but also in composition. The expressive brushstrokes of Impressionist works emphasize how light hits the planes of a particular subject. The artists of this movement also created in-the-moment impressions of their subjects, further separating themselves from realism’s true-to-life depictions of the world. Therefore, Post-Impressionism is a departure from the spontaneity and useRead more
The Foolproof Guide to Email Marketing for Beginners
I don’t care what you’ve heard, email marketing is NOT dead. In fact, you’re losing out on a huge percentage of revenue if you don’t have an email strategy set up! Neil Patel quotes email marketing at an estimate of 23% of a total business revenue. The good thing is, it’s not too late to build your email-marketing strategy. So if you’re a beginner and want to learn about email best practices, this is a great place to start. 1.Read more
New Product Update: Introducing Greeting Cards!
As you may have heard, Greeting Cards are now available in your Artist Shop! While we’ve all received cards in varying degrees of banality and awesomeness, how can YOU make amazing Greeting Cards that will delight your customers and fans and prompt them to purchase? While you have your art game on lock, we’re here to give you some general ideas that may prompt moments of design clarity as you populate your Shop with new or tweaked designs perfect forRead more
Add New Designs and Promote them Frequently for Artist Shops Success
Want to know one of the biggest keys to success we’ve heard from thriving Artist Shops owners? It’s not just dialing in your audience and really understanding who you’re designing for (though that’s important). It’s not simply hosting a bunch of giveaways on social or constantly running sales (though both of those things are important). It may seem obvious, but regularly creating and promoting your new designs is the best way to drive sales and growth for your Artist ShopRead more
Give Customers Holiday-Ready Designs
Help your customers get in the holiday spirit with designs perfectly paired for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other yuletide occasion. It’s as true for the winter holidays as any other major holiday (St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Valentine’s Day, the list goes on), people want to celebrate wearing holiday-themed apparel. Make brand-new designs this season, perfectly crafted for cozy apparel, that embrace your favorite (or least favorite) parts of the holidays. Create ugly sweater designs, cross-stitch or knitting inspired art,Read more