New Video Series Explores Artists’ Creative Processes

Pixels, a leading online art marketplace and print-on-demand technology company, is producing a series of videos called “Art / My Way.” The inspiring series tells the stories of modern American visual artists and how they established themselves creatively.

Each three-minute video provides an intimate look insides the minds of working artists and answers questions such as “What drives artists to do what they do?” and “How do their lives and their work inform one another?” The series speaks to overcoming the fear and adversity that get in the ways of lifelong dreams and illustrates how basic needs can drive innovation and entrepreneurship.

Beautifully shot by documentary filmmaker Jeff Bloom, the videos feature some of the most interesting artists who use Pixels to showcase and sell their work online.

The first two “pilot” episodes profile South African-born painter Jabu and landscape photographer Nicki Frates, who lives in Los Angeles.

Jabu

Jabu was born in the Alexander Township of Johannesburg, South Africa during apartheid and views Nelson Mandela as his hero. Jabu sees himself as an activist artist (“artivist”). As a youth, he was imprisoned for a year for making Mandela T-shirts. The video delves into Jabu’s artistic methods, some of his most prominent works, and what pop star he believes is as much of a leader as Martin Luther King Jr.

Nicki Frates

Daughter of renowned commercial photographer Dennis Frates, Nicki Frates grew up accompanying her dad on shoots. Initially, she pursued fashion as her creative outlet, but photography wouldn’t let her go. Now, she is an award-winning landscape photographer who braves extreme weather to shoot in beautiful, but challenging locations.

 

Pixels is producing the series to give art buyers a unique perspective into the artists whose work is featured on the Pixels.com website. The series is also designed to provide artists with ideas and motivation for building their own careers around their work.

According to Pixels CEO Sean Broihier, “Many of our artists have built their careers the same way we built our business — by creatively bootstrapping and not being anointed by a venture-capital firm or an art gallery. We are thrilled to give them a platform to explain how they do their art, their way.”

About Pixels

The Pixels online art marketplace showcases the works of hundreds of thousands of artists, photographers, graphic designers, illustrators, and iconic brands. The company has been helping artists sell wall art, home decor, apparel, and other products since 2006.

With just a few clicks, artists and photographers can upload their images to Pixels.com, set their prices for hundreds of different print-on-demand products, and then instantly sell those products to a global audience of online, mobile, and real-world buyers.

Pixels fulfills each order on behalf of the artists. They take care of the printing, framing, matting, packaging, shipping, collecting payments from the buyers, and sending profits to the artists. Each product is manufactured at one of 14 global production facilities and delivered “ready-to-hang” with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Education Technology Firm Uses Augmented Reality to Bring Alamo to Life

Designers and visual communicators with skills in creating augmented reality experiences will find opportunities in a variety of fields, including marketing, packaging, entertainment, gaming, training, and education. For example, the education technology company Experience Real History™ is using augmented reality (AR) to help change how students learn about history.

The Experience Real History: Alamo Edition is a series of interactive AR products that give users the power to visit the Alamo as it was in 1836. The products include two sizes of an AR-enabled Reality Board™ and interactive AR trading cards.

The collection of products in the Experience Reality: Alamo Edition are available on Amazon.com with prices ranging from $8.99 to $34.99.

Audiences who view the 3D augmented reality board through a free app on a smartphone or tablet can launch a 3D animated diorama and immerse themselves in history like never before. Thanks to stunning 3D photorealistic recreations, users can create their own personal journey through the Alamo. You can watch the epic battle unfold from different angles and proximities.

The colorful, two-sided AR trading cards feature key figures in history who “come to life” in 3D with full 360-degree animation when used with the free app. The cards provide facts about Alamo defenders such as James Bowie, William Travis, and David “Davy” Crockett, and Mexican Army Generals Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and Martin Perfecto de Cos and others.

Augmented reality provides an interactive window that doesn’t just tell a story, but also shows it. It’s like a living textbook, in which users can see and hear the battle as a narrator explains the saga taking place before their eyes.

“Experience Real History is utilizing technology to bring history to life in an accurate and engaging way,” said Michael McGar, president of Experience Real History. “We’re at the forefront of creating how history is shared for future generations.”

Experience Real History will release a set of products about the Civil War/Gettysburg later this year.

Pond5 Expands Content Marketplace with 3D Models for Filmmakers

Pond5 is a global, video-first content marketplace. It provides production companies, creative agencies, and content creators with every type of media asset necessary for visual storytelling. Pond5 media offerings include video footage, motion graphics, music, sound effects, and more.

To help content creators complete sophisticated visual effects projects within ever-tightening budget, Pond5 has teamed up with the 3D marketplace TurboSquid to offer more than 100,000 3D models to Pond5 customers.

The royalty-free 3D models can be used in filmmaking, advertising, TV production, digital media, gaming, marketing, product design, and other applications.

Pond5’s library of 3D models includes categories such as: the human body, motor vehicles (cars, aircraft, boats), architecture, cities, furniture, science and sci-fi, and sports. Assets will be available in the following formats: C4D, OBJ and FBX.

About TurboSquid

TurboSquid’s primary mission is to save artists the time of making a great model. Customers save an average of 27 hours per model purchased, which can be a lifesaver in a time crunch. When customers spend less time making a model, they can focus on adding more on adding their own personality to their creations. TurboSquid’s secondary mission is to help some artists build careers as professional 3D modelers.

You have probably seen TurboSquid models hundreds of times without realizing it. TurboSquid models are used by game developers, news agencies, architects, visual effects studios, advertisers, and creative professionals around the world.

“Pond5 is committed to meeting the needs of all filmmakers by continuously evolving with the industry. The use of 3D models in filmmaking is growing, and with our TurboSquid partnership, filmmakers can now create an entire story using only assets from Pond5,” said Pond5 CEO Jason Teichman. “We’re thrilled to be expanding our collection with the highest quality 3D models from TurboSquid. We pride ourselves on being the most artist-friendly media marketplace and look forward to welcoming many more world-class artists to our ever-expanding pool of talent.”

The partnership between Pond5 and TurboSquid makes it easier for filmmakers to use 3D models to produce special effects shots.

Supply and Demand for 3D Models

The global 3D animation market is expected to reach USD 28.31 billion by 2025, with the media and entertainment end-use segment projected to account for around 35% of the total revenue share, according to a recent report by Reportbuyer, a leading industry intelligence solution that provides market research reports from top publishers.

In an article published in Variety magazine, a visual effects supervisor noted that the use of VFX shots has risen from 300 in the movie Titanic in 1997 to 3,000 in this year’s movie Avengers: Infinity War.

“The use of visual effects in film has increased exponentially, but there’s a significant imbalance between the growing demand for talent and shrinking film budgets,” said Teichman. “By providing filmmakers with an option for sourcing high-quality visual effects, motion graphics, and 3D models, as well as other vital media assets, we’re helping to narrow this gap, while also providing talented artists with another source of revenue for their work.”

A video about using 3D assets to build a scene in Cinema4D has been posted on the Pond5 blog.

 

New Adobe PDF Print Engine Helps Printers Keep Up With Creatives

Ongoing innovations in printing inks and inkjet printheads are creating opportunities to print designs in a wide variety of new surfaces such ceramics, textiles, packages, and labels. So, Adobe has taken steps to ensure that the PDF files you create with tools such as Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe InDesign CC, and Adobe Illustrator CC will continue to produce the type of print results you envision.

Adobe has announced version 5 of the Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE). The Adobe PDF Print Engine is a software development kit that converts PDF job content (graphics, text, and images) to rasters for driving digital presses, wide-format printers, label printers, and platesetters. APPE is the leading rendering technology at the heart of prepress workflows in the $900 billion print industry.

Adobe collaborates with market-leading software vendors to bring the Adobe PDF print experience to every type of printing, including commercial printing, publishing, signage, CAD, GIS, photography, packaging, labels, direct mail, textiles, garments, and product manufacturing.

The Adobe PDF Print Engine is deployed as part of prepress solutions deployed by companies such as: Agfa, Caldera, Canon, CGS, ColorGATE, Dalim, EFI, Epson, Esko, Fujifilm, GMG, Heidelberg, HP, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Océ, Riso, Screen, Sharp, Xanté, Xeikon, and Xerox.

New Printers for All Types of Materials

The new version extends Adobe’s PDF Print Engine’s reliable color reproduction with new capabilities to harness the full potential of today’s digital and conventional presses. PDF Print Engine 5 will maximize color impact in the coming generation of textile presses, industrial print stations, and digital presses for label and packaging production.

The Adobe PDF Print Engine 5 is optimized to precisely render graphically rich jobs created in Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, and Illustrator CC for printing on flat and contoured surfaces including paper, plastic, fabric, metal, ceramic, glass, and food products.

The new color features in PDF Print Engine 5 strengthen support for Expanded Color Gamut (ECG) digital presses with ink sets that go beyond the traditional four-color base of cyan, magenta, yellow and black to magnify the visual and tactile effects of brand messaging.

“Brand managers count on accurate reproduction of vibrant designs to connect with customers,” said Adil Munshi, vice president and general manager, Print and Publishing Business Unit, Adobe. “Print jobs that are authored in Creative Cloud, reviewed in Adobe Acrobat DC, and proofed and output by Adobe PDF Print Engine 5 will now deliver the fastest rendering, best-of-breed color imaging and predictable results every step of the way.”

Why Designers Should Care

Printing has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. Despite all of the focus on improving  digital channels of communications, printing continues to be relevant. New types of printing can be used to: customize products and apparel; decorate homes, offices, and event spaces; and create interactive branding, educational, and entertainment experiences. Different types of prints can help you win the attention of key audiences and stand out in a crowded media landscape.

When designing graphics, you want to push the creative envelope with the latest functionality in Adobe Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, and InDesign CC. But sometimes, this results in graphically rich files that are increasingly complex to print.

In an article entitled “Rendering for Creatives,” Adobe experts explain why rendering your PDF file for printing can be one of the most critical stages of prepress. As the text, graphics and images are broken down into press-ready instructions, transparency, knock-outs, and other complex effects will be simplified.

The article notes that,”Your rich palette of carefully selected hues will be funneled into a small number of separated printing colorants, each of which will be screened into half-tone dots. The rendering stage performs these operations at high speeds, producing billions of pixels in a continuous stream that instructs the inkjet printheads or laser beams when and where to apply color to the substrate.”

By enabling your printing firm to use the same algorithms for job management and final rendering that you used for content creation, Adobe is increasing the level of predictability in final results and lowering the chances of discrepancies. They claim that “If your printer uses the Adobe PDF Print Engine, you can rest assured that your artistic vision will print as expected – no surprises!”

Agfa Graphics, which makes wide-format printing equipment that can print on many types of rigid boards and flexible substrates, will be one of the first companies to incorporate APPE 5 into their prepress workflows. (Photo: Agfa Graphics)

Research Reveals In-Demand Creative Skills

New research from The Creative Group staffing firm shows that digital initiatives will drive hiring of creative professionals in the second half of 2018. According to a survey of more than 400 advertising and marketing hiring decision makers, the greatest need is for people with expertise in web and mobile development, web production, user interface and interaction design, and creative development.

The research also points to a shortage of talent in these areas, too. When asked which creative roles were hardest to staff, the top responses were web and mobile development, creative development, user interface and interaction design, information architecture, and user experience.

“Many companies want to bring on creative and marketing professionals to support digital initiatives. But they face an extremely competitive hiring environment and low unemployment,” said Diane Domeyer, executive director of The Creative Group. She advises employers to develop realistic job descriptions, provide attractive pay and benefits, and move quickly to extend offers to top candidates.

Overcoming Recruiting Challenges

Advertising and marketing hiring decision-makers use a variety of tactics to source creative and marketing talents. Nearly half of respondents (48 percent) said they reach out to their network for referrals. More than four in 10 (43 percent) become more flexible on skills requirements to drum up candidate leads. Nearly nine out of 10 respondents (89 percent) said they would welcome back a former employee who left on good terms.

Forty-seven percent of those surveyed admitted they divide work responsibilities among their existing teams while they continue to search for an full-time hire. But Domeyer said, “Asking already-busy employees to take on more work while a role remains open is a recipe for burnout and turnover. To avoid a prolonged candidate search, hiring managers should focus on finding people who possess the most critical skills and a passion for learning. Providing training to new hires can even boost engagement and retention.”

About the Research

The online survey was developed by The Creative Group and was conducted by an independent research firm. It is based on responses from more than 400 advertising and marketing decision makers in the U.S. who work full-time at agencies with 20 more employees or companies with 100 or more employees.

The Creative Group (TCG) specializes in connecting creative, digital, marketing, advertising and public relations talent with the best companies on a project, contract-to-hire, and full-time basis.

New App Helps Independent Fashion Etailers Avoid Size-Related Returns

In the U.S., the online clothing market is valued at about $72 billion. Even so, about 32% of consumers don’t purchase fashion online because of uncertainty about size and fit. And, about 70 percent of the online apparel returns each year are due to improper size, and 32 percent. 

A new mobile-measurement app called MySizeID™ can help independent fashion etailers who use third-party e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Magento avoid these problems.

Registration for retailers is simple and can be completed in less than two minutes. (PRNewsfoto/My Size Inc.)

The MySizeID™ app is a turnkey solution that helps any merchant’s customers choose the appropriate size for that specific brand, based on the shopper’s real measurements. With the app’s innovative technology, consumers use their own smartphones to take their measurements. When they shop with an online retailer that has incorporated the MySizeID app, the online store will automatically match the correct garment size with the customer’s own measurements.   

According to Ronen Luzon, CEO of My Size Inc., “The problems of sizing and returns for online retailers is not new. While large retailers are better equipped to withstand the high cost of size-based returns, these costs are a far bigger burden for smaller and independent retailers.”

The MySize solution gives any internet retailer a more accurate and efficient sizing solution to increase sales and minimize returns.  

If you sell apparel through Shopify or Magento, you can add the MySizeID app to your storefront. MySizeID will provide full back-office services and data security and a process for consumers to create their own personal sizing profile. 

To watch a video about how the process works, visit the company’s website or  YouTube.

Large-Format 3D Printer Creates Models for Events and Exhibit Promos

If you want to design some head-turning decorations for a big event, consider what’s possible with the Massivit 1800 3D printer.

Larger-than-Life Skeleton

Mexico-based print service provider, Moti Digital 3D printed this towering, head-turning skeleton for the Mexican Festival of Light celebrations in Guadalajara.

The four-day event explored how light and art work in perfect harmony and encapsulates the culture of Guadalajara. Moti Digital used its Massivit 1800 3D Printing Solution to create a model that would ‘wow’ visitors to the event and demonstrate the impressive capabilities of large format 3D printing technology.

 

Measuring 27 ft  long and 11 ft high, the breathtaking skeleton was produced in just four days. The painted skeleton was positioned inside the Plaza Tapatía fountain pool and illuminated at night, where thousands of festival-goers were able to sit in its arms.The experience generated huge amounts of conversation and photos that featured prominently across social media platforms.

Life-Size Triceratops

METROPOLE, a visual-communications company in France, used a Massivit 1800 3D printer to produce this ultra-realistic, full-size triceratops to promote a paleontology exhibition at the Museé national d’Historie naturelle in Paris. Measuring 5.9 ft. wide x 7.6 ft. long x 9.8 ft. high, the dinosaur model is currently displayed at the Gare d’Austerlitz railway station adjacent to the museum.

Thanks to the 14-inches-per-hour print speeds of the Massivit 1800 3D printer, the visually striking dinosaur was brought to life in just two days. The model was printed in eight components. Once assembled, Metropole’s production team strengthened the construction with ballast to guarantee its ability to withstand sustained interaction with the public. The cinematic artistic team at Metropole covered the dinosaur with a textured surface to replicate natural-looking skin. They also produced realistic eyes to enhance the appearance.

“When it comes to producing giant attention-grabbing models that truly turn heads and capture people’s attention, our Massivit 1800 is the solution of choice,” said Denise Zanet, executive partner at Metropole. She says the museum staff “was completely blown away by how astonishingly lifelike our 3D-printed triceratops looks. It’s generating huge buzz at the train station with many passengers asking how it was created.”

The Massivit 1800 3D Printer is the first of its kind to produce super-size, crowd-stopping signage, displays, and props for visual communication. Offering unprecedented printing speed, can build objects up to 57 inches wide, 44 inches deep, and 70 inches high.

Massivit 1800 3D Printer
Massivit 1800 3D Printer