A discussion of Edition in the context of hardcopy prints of digital art

[William Overington]

39 minutes ago, AdamStanislav said:

Because they are something any one of us here could create in two minutes. Indeed, some of them seem to be just public domain clip art. And to charge fifty pounds for them is undeserved.

But we didn't.

William

 

[William Overington]

28 minutes ago, VectorVonDoom said:

As far as public domain goes, not saying this is, I’ve no idea, I’m pretty sure you can do whatever you want with it including making a profit from it.

The business lists the artists.

If for both the framed prints and for the greetings cards one uses the Designer drop box on the page one can choose an artist or artist group to look at which designs are from that artist or group. In addition some are from their in-house artists.

For the custom ones I suppose that one could order a framed print of one's own artwork and sell it for a profit if one so wished.

I had not thought of doing that. Thus far I have only had my artwork printed as custom greetings cards yet I have for some time thought that if I ever could produce something really good I would buy a framed print of it.

William

 

[William Overington]

41 minutes ago, VectorVonDoom said:

The other thing, talking generally, is you don’t basically say your work is rubbish for a number of reasons. 1. The old “if you’ve nothing nice to say be quiet” just think it don’t say it. 2. They may be beginners, unless they tell you you probably don’t know. 3. Not everyone is good but they enjoy it never the less, same as people who enjoy singing but can’t. Simply telling them it’s rubbish isn’t helpful and doesn’t help them improve, more likely to give up if anything. Constructive  criticism is a different matter.

In 1969 or 1970 I saw a book Arists and Writers yearbook for 1970 in a bookshop, and I bought it.

In the front was a bit about for many years they had always said and repeated then to never pay to have your work published. If it were any good a publisher would pay you to publish it. If not your talents should be applied in soime other activity. This did not in fact have any influence on me as I got a research job and focused on that.

In aeound 1995 I noticed a copy of that guide for that year in a library. I had a look.

Ah, the same bit, yet modified a little. They said that various established poets had informed them that they needed to pay to get published to get started.

So I thought, ah, some people might have acted on their 1970 advice and given up.

So I take the view that if I want to have a go, I have a go.

I have wriiten a novel and self-published on the web. It is conserved in The British Library.

I know that two people have read it in full and several others have read some of it, anything from one chapter upwards.

It is free-to-read no registration asked or needed, so I have no idea how many oeople have read it.

Also I have published original song lyrics and three sound recordings of me singing. Those recordings are archived in The British Library.

I have not needed to convince anybody else of my output being good.

For some things I have needed to convince others, win some, lose some.

William

 

[AdamStanislav]

6 hours ago, VectorVonDoom said:

you don’t basically say your work is rubbish

I did not say they were rubbish (nor was I implying that), I said the price was a ripoff. Big difference.

Just compare those prices with those at zazzle.com (which also has a much wider choice of art).

[William Overington]

4 hours ago, AdamStanislav said:

Just compare those prices with those at zazzle.com (which also has a much wider choice of art).

I found zazzle.com and there was an amount in dollars and I found a way to change the setting to United Kingdom at the end of the page.

I have not yet found the art to which you refer.

Could you provide a direct link please?

William

 

[William Overington]

1 hour ago, William Overington said:

I found zazzle.com and there was an amount in dollars and I found a way to change the setting to United Kingdom at the end of the page.

I have not yet found the art to which you refer.

Could you provide a direct link please?

William

 

I still cannot find any indication of frames on that website.

Can anybody please?

William

 

[VectorVonDoom]

8 hours ago, AdamStanislav said:

I did not say they were rubbish (nor was I implying that), I said the price was a ripoff. Big difference.

Just compare those prices with those at zazzle.com (which also has a much wider choice of art).

No, it's not really different if you re-read what you posted.

[PaulEC]

From an artist's point of view, without wanting to sound unkind, I really see no point in worrying about limited edition prints. If you are a well known or popular artist, with your work in great demand, then there will be a rarity value in your work and that will increase the amount you can charge for limited edition prints. For the other 99.9 percent of artists, they are lucky if they can sell their work at all! 

As far as sites like Papier, Society6 and so on go, they have hundreds (thousands) of people uploading designs that they hope someone will want to buy. It is exactly the same with KDP books, there are thousands of books available, most of which no one will ever buy (or even find!). A bit like email scams the principle seems to be; "if you can send/upload enough of something, some "mug" will fall for it / buy it"!

Obviously a few people (a very small percentage of the total number) can make a decent living from such sales, some only make a little "pin money" and most hardly sell anything (or nothing) at all. 

At the end of the day collecting "limited edition" prints (or anything else for that matter) is just a waste of money, unless you are very selective and know exactly what you are doing. There is nothing intrinsically valuable about a "limited edition" – sometimes "limited editions" can run to thousands of copies! Certainly you will almost always lose money if you buy something advertised as a "limited edition", from a website, magazine or TV ad, with the assumption that it will increase in value.

Unless you are a serious collector of something, including artwork, it is best just to go for what you like, as long as it is a fair price, and don't expect something to be a good investment, just because it is described as a "limited edition".

 

[William Overington]

33 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

As far as sites like Papier, Society6 and so on go, they have hundreds (thousands) of people uploading designs that they hope someone will want to buy.

I have not known of Society6 before reading your post.

In relation to Papier, I do not know if people buying from Papier are trying to make money, it is possible, but I get the impression that most of the framed prints from a result of uploading an image are likely to be photographs of weddings, and so on that are for use within a family.

I think that my use of the photo greetings card facility to produce hardcopy printings of my artwork is, whilst not unique, a minority activity. I am not certain but I would not be surpised that most of it is for birthday cards and so on for relatives and friends.

33 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

At the end of the day collecting "limited edition" prints (or anything else for that matter) is just a waste of money, unless you are very selective and know exactly what you are doing. There is nothing intrinsically valuable about a "limited edition" – sometimes "limited editions" can run to thousands of copies! Certainly you will almost always lose money if you buy something advertised as a "limited edition", from a website, magazine or TV ad, with the assumption that it will increase in value.

Well for collecting something with a view to reselling it at a profit that may well be true, yet collecting things, including limited editions, with a view to keeping it permanently for the pleasure of owning it, collecting can be a good thing.

33 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Unless you are a serious collector of something, including artwork, it is best just to go for what you like, as long as it is a fair price, and don't expect something to be a good investment, just because it is described as a "limited edition".

Yes, I mostly agree, though I suggest that someone can be a serious collector of something with no intention of selling what one has collected.

It depends what is being collected. some things that get collected are very expensive, yet some are not very expensive at all, and some are intermediate in price.

William

 

[PaulEC]

11 minutes ago, William Overington said:

In relation to Papier, I do not know if people buying from Papier are trying to make money, it is possible, but I get the impression that most of the framed prints from a result of uploading an image are likely to be photographs of weddings, and so on that are for use within a family.

I must admit that I only took a quick look at Papier, I assumed it was like Society6. From what you say you can upload your own artwork and then pay for it for your own use. I was really referring to people who upload artwork for sale, hoping someone else will buy it.

[PaulEC]

On 12/29/2021 at 4:30 PM, William Overington said:

Well for collecting something with a view to reselling it at a profit that may well be true, yet collecting things, including limited editions, with a view to keeping it permanently for the pleasure of owning it, collecting can be a good thing.

Well that is really, as I said, buying it because you like it. The problem is that a lot of people are led to believe that buying something labelled as a "limited edition" will be a good investment (which it usually isn't!). I've often bought things that are "limited editions" or "collectables" because I liked them, not because I hoped they could be resold at a profit, as some people do!

[William Overington]

I know that this might be straying off-topic, but well.

Amongst the various custom things from a photo upload (or in practice a compatible file of artwork) is mugs.

For example.

https://wWeww.tescophoto.com/personalised-gifts.html

Well, they advertise as "gifts" but presumably one can get one for oneself.

I wish they would have those mugs without a hadle.

William

 

[Wosven]

Sorry William,

I was intentionaly away from the Internet, and didn't saw your post. It didn't happen in a long time, but yes, I can live at least a week without!

 

On 12/28/2021 at 10:59 PM, William Overington said:

I remember seeing something once, I don't remember what it was, but it was seeking orders for a limited edition.

It then went on to claim that there were two traditional ways of having a limited edition. One was a fixed number and the other, used by them, was the number of people who subscribed.

So basically uit seemed that the offer was advertised and that when the offer closed that that many would be made and no more after that.

I know that for some people, who may or may not buy limited editions as an investment due to the limited number, value linited editions because they are limited.

For me if is a matter of whether I like the art, not whether it is a limited edition. I also tend to like the information content most, so a relatively inexpensive greetings card with the image is often fine for me.

Limited editions can be due to high cost, using better paper, way of printing, etc. It can be logical to give each one a number. The first edition of some rare books are always more valuable. It's the same idea.

For subscription, it can be used for small edition of books, like local historical ones, since the author(s) and the printer don't have funds to produce them.

It can also be done by design. Fr example we produce with a friend a book with illustrations from famous or less illustrators for another one as a Christmas present. Whatwas at first a small project became a 56 pages book, that we printed in 2 versions, a simple booklet one for thanking some of the illustrators that help the project, 3 nice issues for us, and a PDF version for each one. We expect the printer to not keep the plates or the file, and for the book to stay a small and personal one. Perhaps it'll be really valuable in the futur, but it wasn't mean this way, only for a personal, friendly and sentimental value

 

About the "art":

On 12/28/2021 at 11:30 PM, VectorVonDoom said:

If he can find people willing to pay £50 then why shouldn’t he regardless of what we think of it, good or bad?

Yes, some of us candosuch design or better, but whynot sell it... Irecently notice also that some frames — long time I didn't bought one — were sold with some printing inside, but it's just to give an idea of the result, in the verso there's instructions to properly set the different parts of the frame.

Long ago, a young buisnessman asked me why I spend so much time drawing or painting, when it was so easy doing "collages" to get patterns or decors for decorative objects that just need to be printed and sold...  Craftsmanship or industrialisation, the question has been raised for some industrial revolutions, and the answer is never easy, since beautiful things for all and particular ones have both their appeal.

 

7 hours ago, PaulEC said:

Unless you are a serious collector of something

Probably most of the limited editions are just for collectors, or fans... and it can give ideas for presents, always usefull in such period.

 

6 hours ago, William Overington said:

Amongst the various custom things from a photo upload (or in practice a compatible file of artwork) is mugs.

There's a lot of possibility, but it often looks like Mother's days presents... and their multi-coloured noodle necklace, etc. It's the trend to give personalized presents, but really, I can't find any interest in having lamps with the children names' or other fast delivery Am*** "gifts".

Like for the "art", it depends of the buyer... with a bit of luck, he/she has good taste, or one similar to our!

[William Overington]

On 12/26/2021 at 12:42 PM, William Overington said:

So I am wondering if anyone produces artwork using one or more Affinity products and produces prints, either for sale or otherwise, and if so does anyone number them and sign them (in pencil or pen?) and possibly add something like a small sticker with a hologram on it for provenance of authenticity, or emboss the paper with a seal such as some certificates use or even specially watermarked paper, or some other method.

In that part of the first post in this thread I asked the above question.

Thank you to those people who have replied.

Can I now ask some more questions please?

Do people who produce artwork using one or more Affinity products produce, or order from a print house, a hardcopy from their electronic artwork?

If so, what is done with the hardcopy output?

For example, framed and displayed, framed and stored, put in document folders in a portfolio, placed in a Solander box, placed in a box file.

My answr is that I have printings made as if photo greetings cards by Papier. Most are framed, three await framing, two of the framed printings are disp;layed on walls in my home, the rest are stored as I have no spare hooks on which to display them at present.

William

 

[Ali]

If I wanted a hard copy of any image, it would be printed by a print house (such as Vistaprint) as either greetings cards or part of a calendar.

I have, for many years, owned a digital photo frame that reads images from a photo card: I can load my favourite images (photos in my case, which may or may not have been tweaked in Affinity Photo) and have them playing as a slow slideshow, or have just one image displayed at a time.

[AdamStanislav]

2 hours ago, William Overington said:

Do people who produce artwork using one or more Affinity products produce, or order from a print house, a hardcopy from their electronic artwork?

I create mostly clipart, so there is no point of printing it out (and I have no idea what anyone who uses my clipart does with it).

As for my fonts, I use them in some of my videos, but have never used them for anything to print.