If you missed part 1 from last week, you can check it out here:
https://greetingcardgirl.com/blog/what-is-the-best-way-to-sell-artwork
Picking up where we left off, here’s exactly how I came to discover the magical world of art licensing:
After college I took my first “real” job as a graphic designer (which my Mom actually found for me listed in the NEWSPAPER!… not to completely age myself, but here we are lol). Well it just so happened that this job was at a greeting card company. My main role initially was to take all the beautiful card artwork the company bought and format it into card layouts, work with the text and things like that. In this process, I learned that the artwork I was formatting came from allllll kinds of different artists from around the world, and that we had “licensed” this art to use on our cards for a set amount of time.
Now at the time I had NO clue what licensing really meant. But I was immediately captivated! Everyday we had more and more beautiful artwork coming in and these artists were all being paid for it, and we were producing GORGEOUS cards with their art. We treated each one as a precious little masterpiece unto itself, and I was dazzled.
Then I had the opportunity to start attending trade shows to find new art. We would go and find artwork we liked and then work with the artists to help them shape their art specifically for greeting cards. We would work out a contract with them, get the card layouts JUST right, have them manufactured, and then we would send them samples of the finished cards and their royalty checks twice a year. It was this whole amazing world I had NO clue even existed!! And as an artist myself, I wanted IN!
I finally worked up the courage to ask my boss if I could try creating some art for cards myself, and she decided to give me a shot. This changed EVERYTHING for me! I started making artwork on my own time when I wasn’t at work in my graphic design role, and got to experience the satisfaction of collecting royalty checks for all of the cards the company produced and sold with that art. Now my entire life prior to this, I had been determined to find a way to make a living from my artwork. But I had no idea that this kind of world even existed!!
This cake is one of my first licensed greeting card designs.
Flash forward to current times, and I am still licensing my art for cards to this day, and I have helped countless artists get their art on cards as well. It felt like a gift that landed in my lap having worked at that job, and it feels like my duty now to share it with as many of my fellow creative peeps as I can, because I think this licensing world is confusing and largely unknown to so many people who could truly benefit from it!
Not only that, but for myself and many of the artists I know, greeting cards specifically have become our largest AND most consistent income stream, which makes it a world worth exploring for any artist!
If you want to check it out for yourself, be sure to check out the free resources I've put together for you that will help you get started!: FREE RESOURCES