I spend a lot of time researching. Whether it be looking for reference images for me to base my illustrations off of, or how to make something, it all has to be gathered information. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to have a resourceful colleague giving me sweet droplets of pure concentrated aged wisdom. But most of the time I'm on my own to find things out for myself.
So I've gathered a lot of hopefully useful information and mainly links for all you DIYers out there. Links of services I'd like to use and of services I have used. I'm not being paid to recommend them, I like sharing good finds and hopefully it will save you time.
I've been wanting to publish a catalogue for enfu prints for a while and I am currently looking into options on how to do this. I don't think I can do this any time soon, but its always good to keep your eyes out for places that do this.
I had made a photo book for family photos using Blurb and after seeing the end results I highly recommend them. Everybody takes photos, and many people have digital repositories of family photos on their drives somewhere. But there is still something satisfying about flipping through actual pages. I don't care how many Kindles, iphones, or other e-readers are out there, photo books are like personal archived pieces of history embodied in turned pages and separated chapters. Nothing can replace print!
Another service I just read about ON MY IPHONE was about MagCloud. Okay so I just contradicted what I wrote. I read my news mainly on my iphone. No more news on TV. No more weather on TV. I've not had a newspaper delivered to my home since I lived with my parents. Every time I go back I see a newspaper lying around and I pick it up mostly because of nostalgia of touching the print. So print newspaper is on its way out I wonder what else....
I haven't used these guys yet, but I plan to when I start making stickers. Sticker Robot. Guess how I found out about these guys? On Twitter via iPhone. Yea. This is proof enough for me that if there is a guy like me looking for services and finds them on Twitter, there may be some person out there that may find enfu on Twitter too. Well what sold me on Sticker Robot (before I've even used them!) is their professional looking website, and their straight forward 'why we should use them' blurb.
Another service I've liked but have yet to implement on this website is Zoomify. Take an extremely large image and break it down into a small flash viewer a user could zoom in and out of. This is great because you don't have to post a HUGE original size image, but can load a small flash player. The suck part of this is I don't know how to get this working on my site using Squarespace.
Okay so that is a weak segway into Squarespace but these guys rock. You know how Wordpress blows Blogspot out of the water? Well Squarespace blows Wordpress out of the water. In terms of DIY artists, Squarespace is really really really easy to set up. Go there and check it out you'll thank me later.
If you're looking to make fine art prints I highly recommend using Belleuve Fine Art Reproduction. Scott Moore runs this out of his house here in Bellevue, WA. He is I would call the opposite of Kinkos. He cares. Ouch. No, but he does. He will take your piece and make high quality giclées of your work. He does all of my giclées AND stretch canvases.
If you're wanting to make poster prints. I recommend using G.A.S. The make great digital poster prints which make it economically possible for me to provide these for the casual collector.
My earlier Enfu prints were all screenprints. Something I plan on getting back to doing. D&L screenprinting is located in Ballard, WA. These guys are really great people from all over the US have their work printed there. I'm fortunate to live within driving distance from these guys. Take a look at their site to see all the cool artists that have made gig posters with them.
For all my clear plastic bags that protect my limited edition works I use clearbags.com. They are straightforward, no need to go to a brick and mortar store to get these. And for my other packaging needs I go straight to ULine. They have anything you'd want in packaging.
Well there you have it. If you have any useful links you'd think I'd like please send them my way.