Juggernaut, Bitch shirt comes to Art Life Collective

We continue to see a bunch of talented artists design custom shirts for Art Life Collective.
While there is no shortage of talent, occassionally a design just snaps. We have a couple of them right now.
Edward Ferrusquia has added Juggernaut, Bitch shirt, which is guaranteed to bring some interest to his section of the site. That's a double-sided shirt by the way.

Equally cool, olive47 has added a bunch of her designs to the site, also well worth the effort. If you get the chance, check out her personal Web page, buy some stickers, join a cult ... I did.

Peace

Not just designer t-shirts, it's about the music, baby, yeah

Now Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com, has added to our list of creative outlets. Yes, of course, custom t-shirts are still our mainstay, but a bunch of us involved, myself - but especially head guy Blair, are DJs and general music junkies.

So, ALC now has its own Web radio, WALC.

Jules, one of our forum administrators, explaines:

"Our man with the plan, ALC President Blair Hadley a.k.a. DJ Disco Super Chocolate, streaming the freshest of tunes to the internet airwaves 'cause he's just that f*ing cool.
Featuring a wide variety of music that will make you sing, move, remember, sigh, gasp and *sometimes* wish you were deaf.

Where else but Radio ALC can one listen to New York Dolls, Massive Attack, Paul Simon and the theme song from The Love Boat all in one day? No where.

He's so multi-talented it will make you sick.

Radio ALC can be found streaming though WINAMP on your SHOUTcast radio dial.
Search: WALC

If you are using itunes or another mp3 program, you can listen to the stream by pacing the url, "www.blairsworld.mine.nu:8000" in the field where you select radio stations. For example, on itunes, it is under the "advanced" tab at the top. Click "advanced" then "open stream" then paste the above referenced web address into the field.


This ain't no Cafepress corporate marketplace, baby.
Welcome to the Underground."

Though I was the first DJ in the family, both my brothers have far exceeded my meager abilities. I am working on getting Blair to add some of his and Chris' mixes to the list.

In other ALC news, we are still moving, sooner than later, to getting the Art Life Collective site revisions done, again, with an emphasis on making the site searchable. The on-site search engine has become a necessity, much faster than we had expected, since we have something like 84 artists and around 355 pieces of art on the site.We appear to have most of the upload bugs debugged, so, if anyone is still having problems, especially with formats that support transparency like .png, please let us know.
Peace,
Graham

Searching for designer t-shirts

Coming to Art Life Collective soon will be a way for everyone to search for designer t-shirts and by t-shirt artist. That's right. We have the Art Life Collective Forum up and debugged now, but we have not put in the front page links yet. The main reason is we want the artists and designers to use it first, then we will let the paying public in. This will give us all, those of us running ALC and keeping it healthy and our artists and contributers, time to get better acquainted.

It will also let us make sure the forum has no bugs before we go public with it. Right now, the forum can be found at www.artlifecollective.com/bb and a link exists on the Artist page.

That being said, it looks like the forum IS working well, so we have moved on to other things. First up, we are working with a new coder on a search engine for the site. We have something like 83 artists now and well over 300 art t-shirt designs on the site, so we are putting the search engine at the forefront of what we are trying to do here.

I also want to point out we have added some links in text on the front page to make it easier for artists - and customers - to get around the site.

So, all is going well so far. I can't begin to express my appreciation for everyone who has helped make Art Life Collective work so well, from the peopel who actually built the site to our photographer, Jules on the bb, and most of all to our contributers.
Kudos folks,
Graham

Where we are going with promoting t-shirt art

This is the latest from Art Life Collective guru and chief, Blair Hadley, for everyone involved in creating designer t-shirts:

Greetings All:

My, how we've grown - well over 300 images…80 plus artists! As Art Life Collective moves into the next phase of business development, with the upcoming implementation of a search engine for the gallery, additional site improvements and the recent creation of the forum, there are some other matters I would like to discuss with every artist who is featured on the site. As we continue to do our part to spend capital to develop the site and promote the business, I would like to talk with you all a bit about the nature of the Collective and my vision, which may be ambiguous to many of you.

There is a reason I chose to call the business the Art Life Collective. That is what I truly see it as being - a collective, cooperative effort designed to benefit all of us. That is why, when someone buys one of your images, I share roughly 25 percent of the revenues I take in directly with the artist. That is quite literally the biggest cut I can manage and still have the business model itself hold together. One of the big reasons I started this company was because I feel there is a great need to provide a resource such as this on the web, which is at the very least free to artists, and at the best a profitable venture. Although I have a business to run and I need to make enough money to pay my bills and be comfortable, that is about the extent of my own financial aspirations from this venture. Many of my motives for creating this are passionately philosophical and philanthropic in nature. I want you guys to have a good place to go to get exposure as artists. To this end, I seem to be succeeding, and receive requests fairly frequently for contact information on someone who is posting work on the site. I always pass this information on, regardless of whether the interested party buys a shirt or not. We want you guys to succeed.

We also want the business to succeed. So far we are doing ok and it looks like we'll be around for a good while, but if you are interested in the success of this venture as well as making money and getting exposure, you need to start self-promoting. Advertising dollars go only so far, and reach a mixed audience. But you guys have the direct ability to drive traffic to the site and more specifically to your work by taking advantage of the web. This can be done in many ways. The best way is to start blogging and posting in forums about the site, your work, and what ALC is about. The best way to DRIVE CUSTOMERS DIRECTLY TO YOUR WORK is to paste the url of your artist page into a link, like this: http://artlifecollective.com/shop/index.php?main_page=detail&cat_id=28 . Ok…that is a really nasty looking link to my artist page! But, although some of you may know how to do this some of you may not, there is an easy way to clean that up and make it nice to look at. To take a link like that and make it look pretty on a forum or blog, all you have to do is this - these are called html tags - and the following ones are UNIVERSAL for turning a link like that into something nice:

< href = " LINK HERE "> WORD (or words) HERE < / a >


What that does is this: Blair Hadley

What I just did is insert my artist page URL into the first field and my name into the second. The only thing that will appear as a clickable link is my name - Blair Hadley - much better looking than that big, cumbersome link above. Put anything you like into the second field. My name was just an example.

I know a lot of you out there know how to do that, but some may not, so there it is just in case.

Art Life Collective is something we are all a part of. It is my life's work at the moment, not yours, and I appreciate that. You make the art. I'll make the shirts. But, its success depends on those who care about selling their art here helping themselves and the company by self promoting. We've created the resource and will, of course, continue pounding away at improving the site and increasing its visibility. All we are asking is that you pitch in, for your own sake if nothing else. Also there is a link to the new ALC forum (www.artlifecollective.com/bb) posted on the artist registration/login page. That will be the primary means by which we get news out to you guys from now on, so I hope you will register and check it periodically. It is also a good way to network and communicate with one another and ALC staff. Also, we will be adding features to the forum such as shirt giveaways and featured artists, etc., so it really is imperative to at least register.

Finally, thank you all so much for being a part of this adventure. We have together created a site and a business unlike any other on the web. We are way cool. Go us!

-Blair

Time to work on promoting your own artwork

Sorry it has been a few days. Special sections at the newspaper have been keeping me living there most of my waking hours.

Good news for Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com, we have topped 80 artists and 340 t-shirt designs have been uploaded. I also put the Design your own shirt section through its paces, doing a one run of a photo of a local crazy on a t-shirt as a going away present for one of our young reporters who is moving on to a bigger paper. It turned out great and I may add the design to my page, since a bunch of locals have been asking for copies. Go figure, I actually end up making money off a photo of a guy who goes around pretending to be nuts for a living. Regardless, I should have a picture of Amanda in her shirt on the forum, www.artlifecollective.com/bb, in the next few days.

Way to brain burned from nutso work hours to add more tonight.
There is a bunch of other stuff going on at ALC, so I will hopefully have another update tomorrow night.

Peace,
G

New stuff coming for Art Life Collective

First things first. Blair is moving ahead with a search engine for Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com. It will allow customers to search for favorite artists and t-shirt art, by work, title and topic. At least that is what is in the works for now.

The reason for this is we have had 78 artists sign up and something like 325 custom t-shirt designs on ALC already. So, given the scope of what we have already, which has by far surpassed our expectationw, we figure making the site searchable is the next logical step.

If anyone has any suggestions, please give us a heads up, either at info@artlifecollective.com, graham@artlife.com, or the new forum at www.artlifecollective.com/bb

Also, we have a bunch of new artists, including Olive47, who has gained something of a name for herself in the art world. Her work is some of my personal favorites, but then again I joined her cult last year. Check out her designes on her page here: http://artlifecollective.com/shop/index.php?main_page=detail&cat_id=213

Also, if you go to http://www.olive47.com/, it will take you to her other site, where you can see loads of cool stuff, especially if you need stickers, which you do, and, of course, join her cult. Also Google her, since she has stuff in online magazines and other places.

Any way, it looks like things at Art Life Collective are gaining momentum and all is well. Keep spreading the gospe.

Peace,
Graham

My appologies ... bad links and such

Someone informed me today that the link from one of our ads to this site is bad. That has now been fixed. I typed the thing on my word processor and pasted it over. While I was writing it, the copy editor in me took over and put periods at the end of the link, like it would appear in print (I realize AP style says not to do this, but I think sentences without ending punctuation look dumb.)

Anyway, the problem is fixed.

Just a reminder, we are beta testing the forum and a bunch of artists and designers have started using it. For once, it seems all is going without a hitch. Anyone who needs tips on how to use Art Life Collective, the best way to design images for printing on shirts or who just want to share art trade secrets can get on there. There is no link on the page yet, since we are still beta testing, so go to www.artlifecollective.com/bb to get to the forum.

Graham
www.artlifecollective.com

Letter of greetings from Art Life Collective chief guru

Blair sent this out, hope it clarifies what we are working on with the Art Life Collective form for all our t-shirt designers.
Again, went to the forum today, since as ALC PR guy, I get administrator access, better make sure I know what is going on, and all looks good.
Anyway, without further delay, Blair's letter:

Greetings All:

As promised, the ALC forum is now up and running. Although we are still tweaking a few features, it is time to get started with some hardcore beta testing. There are a wide variety of topics to post in and the forum will also become an easy way for us to get vital news out to our artists and customers. Right now the forum is exclusively for our artists to communicate with each other and staff members, but will soon be expanded to become a general forum for customers and artists alike. The best thing, of course, is that this is a safe way for all of us to get together and talk about improtamt matters while protecting our privacy.

That stated, get out there and make your voice heard. Links to this page will be visible on the site later this week. For right now, just bookmark www.artlifecollective.com/bb. That is the forum URL for the moment. It will probably change when we post the link on the site. Also, if you are interested in bacoming a moderator, the ALC forum will be policed by its own artists, so please drop me an email.

General forum rules apply. Play nice out there, gang. No cussing and no spitting.

Sincerely,
Blair Hadley

President
Art Life Collective
www.artlifecollective.com

Forum Live, mostly

Hmmm, seems I spoke too soon about the what and the where for the Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com, forum.

Yes, the forum is now live, and you can see it at http://www.artlifecollective.com/bb/, and we have already had several artists and t-shirt designers posting there.

Where I was off the mark is exactly where the site can be accessed from. We don't as yet have links from the ALC pages to the forum and are debating what sections to put them in.

Also, the forum is still in something of a beta testing mode, so we need artists and other contributors to Art Life Collective to get up there, post and use the site so we can fix any problems - hopefully - before we put the links on the site for the general public.

Again, the Art Life Collective Forum is up and running now at http://www.artlifecollective.com/bb/, so go check it out.

Graham
www.artlifecollective.com

Art Life Collective forum going live

Just talked to Blair and he says our artists and t-shirt designers will be able to communicate via the Art Life Collective forum either later tonight or early Monday morning. Again, we hope that this will give everyone a better medium than the ALC email newsletters and this blog - which is not going anywhere despite the forum - to communicate, share ideas and information on image processing, whatever.

It will also give everyone who has contributed their work to ALC a better way to give us a heads up over problems or ask questions about the site. So, in the next few hours or so, check the site and register for the forum. I think, but don't quote me on this, that registration for the forum is a seperate process than registering for ALC as an artist. This will allow customers to also log on and give their feedback. They can also request specific designs from various artists. So, in that regard, we also hope the forum will help promote your work and maybe act as a medium for people to get in touch with you.

That will be especially helpful for artists who have not put their personal Web links in the biography sections.

Graham Hadley
www.artlifecollective.com
graham@artlifecollective.com

More Art Life Collective features coming

Blair is doing more than churning out shirts, working with artists and designers, and keeping the wheels turning at Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com. I talked at length with him the other night - journalists never sleep - and he showed me a preview of some of the things to come.

One of the things he and our Web designers are laboring away at is a forum. An Art Life Collective forum will not only allow us to better communicate with the growing community of artists who are contributing to the site, but it will also allow everyone involved with the project communicate with each other.

This means people will be able to share tips and techniques on everything from design to making their graphics software work better. It will also hopefully bring more of a community atmosphere to Art Life Collective.

I have to say, after talking with many of you and exchanging emails, we have a great group of people who have come together for this project. The forum will hopefully give each of you the opportunity to get to know Blair and I better and each other.

Blair and our Web gurus are still ironing out a few bugs, but the addition should be up an running soon.

Also, I realize and appreciate that many of our new artists have come on board because some of our veteran members have been spreading the work. Thanks and keep up the work. The more artists we have and the greater the diversity of the artwork on ALC, the more attention customers and other artists will pay to the site.
Again, I appreciate everything everyone had done to help keep this site going. Blair and I know there are still a few bugs to be worked out and some improvements we can make, such as a search engine for ALC. Those are coming. Have patience.

If anyone has any suggestions or is having problems with the site, please feel free to email me, graham@artlifecollective.com or Blair at info@artlifecollective.com or through the contact page, http://www.artlifecollective.com/contact.php, on the site.
Graham

Transparencies and art

A most excellent couple of days. We have had a bunch of new talent joining Art Life Collective in the past couple of days. Great t-shirt designs.

One pointer to our new, and existing, contributors: Some of your artwork would probably be better set up without a background around it. This makes a huge difference in the look of some images, especially when printed on dark or black t-shirts. Check out the green face on My Page and play around with the shirt colors to see what I mean. Depending on what software you are using .png and .tif should support transparency backgrounds.

Some older software has problems doing this, especially when uploading to the site. If you have any problems or questions about uploading an image that are not covered in our upload guide available from either the Design Shirt page or from your Artists page, let Blair or I know by email, either to graham@artlifecollective.com or info@artlifecollective.com.

Thanks,
Graham Hadley
www.artlifecollective.com