Art Life Collective hits century mark

Damn straight, Art Life Collective just added its 100th custom t-shirt artist. Actually, ALC added its 100th and 101st, but, whose counting.

Also, the intrepid Mr. E has uploaded a new I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch shirt, replacing his old, and amazingly successful, previous Juggernaut design. This one is equally cool.

We continue to have a great level of diversity at Art Life Collective and appreciate all the effort the artists have put into their designs. Also, props to everyone who gives us feedback on the Art Life Collective Forum. Believe it or not, it's a huge help to those of use who keep ALC up and running. I also lets us know, not only where problems are, but also what you all want the site to be. This is a continual work in progress and the input from all the artists gives us some idea how to best direct our efforts.

Also, there have been a few questions about the increase in the cost of the double-sided shirts to $24 and some change. The motivation behind this is simple -- we were taking a beating, both in supply costs and in the time it takes to print double-sided t-shirt images. As a self-supporting artist collective, what we can't afford, especially now in the early stages of this thing, is to violate the first command of fiscal responsibility - Thou shalt not spendenth more than thou taketh in. It just comes down to simple math.

If anyone has any comments on this, please let us know.
Again, thanks to everyone who is working to make Art Life Collective such a huge success.

On a side note, check out the forum under the art section; Jules and a couple of other artists have posted some helpful -- not to mention interesting -- links.
Peace y'all.
Graham

Custom designer t-shirt database now searchable

At Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com, we are continuing to expand services for our contributing custom t-shirt artists. And, with the advent of the search engine, we hope to make the site more accessible for customers and our member artists.

Despite the ongoing development of ALC, including the creation of the Art Life Collective Forum, we are maintaining the site free of charge to artists who upload their work.

A couple of notes about the forum: It is a place for artists and graphic designers to network and share ideas and even promote their work outside ALC. For that atmosphere to remain conducive to such productive exchanges, we require people to behave accordingly. As a rule, we have almost no real rules for the forum -- and are very liberal about what can be uploaded to ALC, copywright issues and pornography excluded, of course. However, for people posting to either www.artlifecollective.com or the forum, www.artlifecollective.com/bb, please keep in mind, we allow no spam or flaming or other nasty behavior. It makes life difficult for those of us lurking behind the scenes who keep the gears turning and pull the levers that make Art Life Collective work.

Also, we have several new artists and some of our current members continue to upload new work, so check it out. The best way to see what's new is by clicking latest under the artist menu or new to old under the gallery listing.

Also, props to everyone who is helping promote their own work in blogs and places like Craigslist and Myspace. We do take great efforts to promote what our contributors bring to the site, but we need everyone to do their part here to make this work.

What's especially encouraging is the huge diversity and range of the submissions to ALC, from simple graphic-text logos to fine arts and photo prints. There is really some great stuff posted on the site. Good job. Also, if anyone stumbles on a marketing strategy that works well, post it to the forums so other artists can follow you lead.

Blair, Jules and I are working on yet another facet of ALC, though that's going to be something of a surprise -- sort of a foray into dadaist expression -- so keep watching the site.

Thanks again for everyone who has made this collective effort a growing success.
Graham

ALC user has great site ... especially for artists

For everyone at ALC and anyone interested in art in general, one of our contributors, Mindy, has a fantastic blog, Groovy Inclinations, up promoting her artwork and the scene in general.

It's also a very good template for other artists who are looking to get their work out there and discuss it, so I highly recommend everyone take a look at how Mindy has hers set up.
http://groovyinclinations.blogspot.com/

More functions on Art Life Collective

Blair just sent out a mass email to all our custom t-shirt designers at Art Life Collective. New features and new colors on the way. If you have not done so, got to the Art Life Collective forum and vote on what color shirts you want us to add.

Here is the update from Blair, the real brainpan behind ALC:

Greetings All:

Well, the company is reaching all sorts of new milestones these days, the most important of which involve our ongoing efforts to streamline the site to help customers find your work. The first of those big steps has already been taken, and the artist database is now entirely searchable by name and includes a drop-down menu for quick browsing. The next step in the development of the site in terms of directing customers to your work is to make the database of images searchable by keywords. We are now ready to do this, and to do so will require that you guys update your accounts. Here's how it works:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Select an image by clicking on the thumbnail.
3. There is a new field on your admin page that says, "Description." Write a SHORT paragraph or sentence that best describes the image you selected. Information such as genre, media, and ESPECIALLY subject matter are important. Keep it straight and to the point. Do your best to summarize in words what you think the image is about. The search engine will do the rest.
4. Click "save layout." THERE IS NO NEED TO DELETE YOUR OLD IMAGE OR RE-UPLOAD IT. DO NOT DO THIS! Remember, you're just adding some new info for the search engine.
5. Repeat for each image.

Another feature that is now, alas, working properly is the fact that artists are all instantly notified via auto-confirm when one of their images sells, so there can be absolutely no confusion about whether your work is selling or not. Also, artists may now use an alias instead of their real name if they choose to do so, and may also edit their account settings and update information once they have logged in. As you guys can see, especially those of you who have been here since the early days, we are making tremendous strides to make this site the premier place on the web to accomplish the company's fundamental mission statement, which is this: To provide artists a good place to get exposure, market their work and profit substantially from the sales of their designs. We are truly a collective, working towards a common goal - though our ideas and perspectives on self expression are unique - to share our creative efforts with others and hopefully not starve in the process.

Also, be it noted to all of you now - Two-sided designs are now $24.95 each. This is a simple matter of business and finance and must be done, particularly with those of you who choose to cover both sides of a shirt with an 11.5" x 17.5" image. By the way, let me give a design tip here - they don’t sell well at all. Good elements of design incorporate the use of negative space. Smattering a shirt with ink is not often the best way to go! No business model, however good-karma the intent, could fly with the profit share we give and the cost of ink as well as the time it takes to print a double-sided shirt of that nature. Please understand this is not punitive, but is a matter of ALC remaining profitable. If you really have a good, solid two-sided design, GO FOR IT! It will still sell. It was my personal decision on this one, and was a matter of the bottom line. Thanks for understanding. The customers will also "get it" that two-siders cost more.

Finally, we are adding a new shirt color to those currently available. We have narrowed it down to two colors based on both customer and artist feedback. The final choice is being left up to you guys. You will all have a vote on the new color. Your choice is brown or army green. To vote, all you need to do is log on to the forum, register and then cast your vote. The address for the forum is www.artlifecollective.com/bb. The address for the specific string to vote is under General Discussion, but is located at http://artlifecollective.com/bb/index.php?topic=97.0 - just to make life easy. There are images of models wearing each of the shirts, so you know exactly what you are voting for, and yes - the colors will be the same for women and men even though it's a male model ala Derek Zoolander. I think this look was Blue Steel, but it's hard to tell with the crop.

Oh - coming soon…2XL sizes.

Thanks everyone for being a part of the Art Life Collective. We really are doing things like no other company out there on the web, and are proud you are a part of this experiment in capitalism with a conscience. Best wishes to all!

Sincerely,
Blair Hadley

President
Art Life Collective

Art Life Collective shirt sizes

Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com, is up to 97 artists who have contributed customt t-shirt designs -- three away from the 100 mark.

There have been a few questions about the shirts we use and the sizing available. Art Life Collective uses American Apparel shirts because they are made in America and are pretty strict about fair wage and other issues that are core values important to us.

Shirt sizing is available at the American Apparel site: http://store.americanapparel.net/sizing.html

Also, we are one step close to having the site searchable by artwork keywords. ALC is already searchable by artist and we are about ready with the artwork coding. As soon as that is ready, all of our contributors will need to go back to their admin page and add keywords for each piece of art they have contributed. Anyone posting additional work to the site will get to do that when they upload their image.

You don't have to do this, but it will help direct customers to your work, which means more exposure as an artist and selling more of your designs.

If anyone has any questions, let me or ALC guru Blair, blair@artlifecollective.com, know and we will do our best to help out.