Business of Art

About the Business of Art Blog

The Business of Art is a blog from the guys at Explainafide, a creative web design agency from Australia. Through our involvement with writers, painters, sculpturers, photographers and fellow creatives we were struck by the same problem- how do artists get discovered and fulfil their dreams.

Running any business takes so much time and energy, but when you’re constantly striving to be creative how do you balance the left brain/ right brain battle? This is our small effort to help creatives with some of the day-to-day mundane aspects of the art of running a creative business.

We aim to help by publishing regular articles on various topics all aimed at creatives. Marketing ideas, Software reviews, Intellectual Property Issues, Web Design for Artists and Interviews with successful artists.

No one said it was easy doing what you love.

Great Resources for Artists

7 Awesomely Creative Web Designs

7 Creative Web Designs We’re all familiar with the standard conventions in website design these days – you know: banner, menu, maybe a couple of squares around the page to click on. But here I have selected seven websites that have just that bit of extra creativity which can make a site stand out from [...]

Arts Open 2012

Well it’s been a busy few months for the Explainafide team, with web design and community events involvement, building to a crescendo in the last couple of weeks as we have been preparing for the upcoming launch of our latest project – the Arts Open Festival of Open Studios. What is Arts Open you say? [...]

Acronyms in Business

Acronyms as Logos Acronyms are everywhere in today’s society. The global use of emails and text messaging has heralded a whole dictionary full of regularly used acronyms, some of which have also made it into everyday conversations – OMG (oh my god) LOL (laugh out loud) ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) OTT (over the top) [...]

Why use an RSS Feed Reader?

What can an RSS Feed Reader be used for? RSS is a tool for getting information from people without having to keep visiting their website to get it. You can subscribe to their information, have it sent to you and read it whenever you like. Once you have set up your subscriptions, you can then [...]

How to use Excel in your Art Business

Using Excel to assist in your Arts administration productivity: Arts Administration – for many artists it’s the side of their practice they’d rather not think about, but in our economic culture it’s an integral aspect of any successful Art Business. Luckily with the advent of technology, we have tools at our disposal that can help [...]

Design Thinking: Tim Brown on TED

Another great talk by Tim Brown on Design Thinking or Creative Thinking. For many years we have viewed designers as people that make things aesthetically pleasing. Yet prior to that designers were responsible for solving major problems and hurdles that society needed solved. What Tim Brown discusses here is that ideas based on human centered [...]

Castlemaine Artist: Ben Laycock

Castlemaine Artist: Ben Laycock Think infamous artists in Castlemaine and immediately Ben Laycock comes to mind. Born with a paintbrush in his mouth, Ben has been a colourful member of this great arts community for close to two decades. But when I had the opportunity to interview him I didn’t know where to start. His [...]

Can your Business Name be used as a Logo?

Using your business name as a logo: Not all logos have to have a pretty picture or a mascot animal. A growing number of successful businesses are choosing to present their name as their logo. With the addition of a great font and a selection of colours, a simple business name can be transported into [...]

The 4 Big Internet Marketing Tips

Internet Marketing Tips & how they can work for you: What should I use to communicate with my clients? RSS, Emails, Twitter or Facebook? We are bombarded these days with the message that we must utilise new technologies to maintain communication with our clients. It’s all about staying in touch so that our clients don’t [...]

Something to Consider

I promised to try to share some information that might be useful to those of you that either already have a website, or soon will. So I thought I’d talk to those of you that aren’t yet convinced that you need a website, or if you already have one, perhaps you’re not convinced it’s worth [...]