Building a Career in Illustration: Explore Print-On-Demand | Learn with Society6

Transform your creative career with print-on-demand in this beginner-friendly, 25-minute class.

Print-on-demand websites like Society6 give artist Cat Coquillette the freedom to travel the world and grow her creative business, all with the stability of a monthly paycheck. After a customer buys from Cat's Society6 shop, Society6 handles the production and shipping and sends royalties to Cat for each order, so she can leave the logistics to the experts and focus on her work.

In this class, you’ll learn how to maximize your success with print-on-demand platforms like Society6. From creating color palettes that sell to connecting with potential customers all over the world, this class is jam-packed with tips and tricks to help you develop your business. You’ll learn how to:

• Create art that sells consistently, month after month
• Optimize your work for print-on-demand products
• Use promotion effectively to sustain bestsellers

After taking this class, you’ll have an arsenal of strategies for maximizing your success through print-on-demand, giving you the flexibility to build a creative career you love.  

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What You'll Learn

• Introduction. If you’ve ever wondered, “How do I sell my art?” this class is for you. Cat Coquillette will tell you how she went from painting as a hobby to selling her work and maintaining demand for it. You’ll learn all about print-on-demand while Cat lays out her process, marketing techniques, and tips on how to identify potential bestsellers.
  
• Creating art to sell. You’ll learn the two umbrella categories for selling your art — active vs. passive. Cat will take you on a deep dive by exploring the best channels to sell your work. You’ll learn what print-on-demand companies can do for independent artists and how to diversify your channels.
  
• How to sell with print-on-demand. You’ll get a sense of how to make artwork that works on a variety of products, from T-shirts to phone cases. While Cat opts for vector-based designs to make her work wide-reaching, you’ll see that you can use a number of techniques to make sellable art. You’ll get digital painting tips as well as suggestions for creating work that has mass appeal, and you’ll learn to make smart decisions about where and when to sell your work. You’ll also get a grasp of Google Analytics and other online metrics to assess marketplace trends and establish bestsellers.
  
• Prepping your work to sell. While it’s important to learn how to paint with watercolor to create work like Cat’s, it can be just as important to learn how to edit your watercolor creations. You’ll learn how to edit watercolor paintings in Photoshop by cleaning up imperfections. Cat will teach you best practices for scanning your work and editing it for maximum versatility. For instance, you’ll change your design’s composition so it fits a variety of products and alter your color palette by playing with hue and color balance in Photoshop. Next, you’ll take a look at editing a digital painting and see how to experiment with overlays.
  
• Uploading to Society6. You’ll learn how to navigate the Society6 platform, the print-on-demand company through which Cat sells her work. You’ll see how Cat determines the price of her work for customers and her own personal profits and how she navigates Society6’s set prices. You’ll also get to see how designs look when adapted to various clothing and household items and how to add metadata to help people searching on Society6 easily find your products.
  
• Marketing your work. You’ll learn how to grow your brand and get your name out there! Cat will show you how she uses various social media channels, like Facebook and Instagram, to showcase her work. You’ll check out an array of digital artist portfolio options and see how to vary your social media presence as an artist, by posting not just finished works but also process videos, photographs of your supplies, and more. Ultimately, you’ll figure out how to meaningfully interact with your followers and make it easy for customers to purchase your work.

Start building your own creative business on Society6.com: s6.co/StartSellingss.

Society6 is an online marketplace where 200k independent artists design and sell premium, everyday products for millions of customers worldwide. Every product is custom-made to order and every purchase pays the artist who designed it.

Additional Resources:

• Here are the supplies I recommend
• Follow me on Instagram
• Check out my website
• Subscribe to my newsletter
• Get $15 off your first purchase on Society6

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Interested in licensing your artwork like I do? Check out my Skillshare class:

• Introduction
• Creating Art to Sell
• How to Sell with Print-On-Demand
• Prepping Your Work to Sell
• Uploading to Society6
• Marketing Your Work
• What's Next?