ArtBistro

How do you price an original painting or drawing? You’ve just completed a new work and – lucky you! – there’s someone interested in buying it. But how do you price your work in a way that’s fair to both you and your collector? There are very few hard-and-fast rules in the art world, except when it comes to pricing, and ...

I was speaking recently to a young artist who asked me to take a look at her webpage. Despite having had it professionally designed and having spent countless hours getting everything about it just right, she found that nothing was really happening for her – she had no leads and had made no connections that she could connect back to the ...

It seems to me that there are two different kinds of artists in the world: Those who are quick to describe what kind of artist they are (”I’m a post-Marxist, Conceptual, feminist painter whose work is a inquiry into the notion of the organic…” ok, whatever) and those who just want to shrug and avoid the question all together by saying ...

As designers, we're responsible to come up with graphic solutions in all of our projects. There can be many projects at once and sometimes the creative juices can dwindle. It can be hard to come up with ingenious ideas all the time. We can all get tired and burned-out at times which is pretty normal and natural in all areas of ...

We see everyday how ethics come into play in big business and politics. Usually there seems to be none, but ethics do exist just the same. Of course, there are personal ethics that most of us have as well, and those are a personal choice. But, what about those grey areas of design ethics? How do we make sure we're practicing ...

I am often asked to give advice to aspiring designers hoping to make it in the industry. I have always found this to be an awkward question for me to answer because even after 10 years, I still feel like I’m an aspiring designer myself. So when I’m asked that question I tend to think back to my early days; I ...

Valerie - ArtBistro manager- asked me if I had anything in particular to say about education or perhaps even some sort of “How to survive art school” sort of talk that I could convey on this site. I have to say that I really don’t have such a thing just sort of stored up in my head and even wondered if ...

When I was in school, it was not uncommon for me to work throughout the night either studying or working on a design project. I found that at night, I could work much faster than I could during the day. In fact, I found that sometimes the quality of my work was better at night than it was during the day. ...

The field of design is wide open for new ideas, and numerous higher education opportunities exist for potential students. At private colleges and universities, as well as career-focused schools, the cost for a design education (tuition, room, and board, plus costs for books, supplies, and computer software) can reach as high as $40,000 to $50,000 annually. However, according to the College ...

Many people go to the college or university of their choice to get their education in their chosen field. A lot of these folks choose their main career the first time while going through the system of higher education. What about those of us who go back to school, sometimes quite a few years later? I went back to school about ...

Putting together a portfolio for graduate school can be a daunting task. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind to help guide you through the process. You can also apply these guidelines to your portfolio after you graduate and are applying for grants, residencies, and gallery shows. Step one: Get quality images that reflect your work well. You’ll need ...

Remember when you were a kid? At this time of year we would be excited to go out with Mom and get our school clothes and supplies for fall. Even though the summer months were filled with fun and swimming (in my case), the anticipation of getting new stuff for school made the waning days of the season worth it. What ...

I’ve recently started a new round of applications for grants and residencies, and in doing so I find myself depending heavily on the advice I’ve gotten from the new book Art/Work: Everything You Need To Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career (Free Press/Simon & Shuster, Inc, 2009). Written by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber (a gallery director ...

Deciding whether or not to freelance full-time after graduation is a decision that most designers face. Working as a freelancer certainly has a lot of benefits; being your own boss, working from home, and setting your own schedule are some of the perks that freelancers like to brag about, but freelancers will also complain about how hard it can be. Running ...

Pack that Portfolio When we get ready to graduate from those long days of design school, it's time to think about our portfolios. What do we include in there? What kinds of work should we show? Do we just throw every project in it? I have a few thoughts on this and want to share them with you. h4. The Best ...

A Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art is a professional degree that will prepare you to sell you work in galleries, graduate school or a variety of art related careers. The first year of your program will give you a foundation of visual art skills such as drawing, sculpture, color, and composition. In the second year you will typically explore different ...

Let’s say you’ve created a body of work and now you’re itching to get it out there and seen by the public. You’d like to be represented by a commercial gallery, but how do you get them to notice you? First things first: Make a list of a few – three or four – galleries you’d be interested in working with. ...

A Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design is a professional degree that will prepare you for the professional workplace of a designer. The first year of your program will give you a foundation of visual art skills such as drawing, 3-dimensional design, color, composition, and some computer aided design. In the second year you will typically explore different types of ...

Mark Simonson is a professional typographic designer who has designed many popular fonts such as Proxima Sans, Kinescope, and Coquette. Mark has been designing fonts since the late 1970s but spent much of his career as an art director and as a graphic designer. Today, Mark works full-time as a freelance type designer. Read on to learn more about Mark and ...

A Bachelor's of Fine Arts in new media /animation is a professional degree that will prepare you to work as web site designer and animator. The first year of your program will give you a foundation of visual art skills such as life drawing, 3-dimensional design, color, composition, and some computer aided design. In the second year you will typically explore ...