Growing up in Victoria I have known and met so many talented artists over the years. As a working artist for many years, I have very much enjoyed creating my art, but found it difficult to learn how to reproduce and professionally market. There are many galleries and places for artists to show and sell their creative endeavors, but one thing was lacking. There are few businesses or services available to the public with the skill set or passion to: photograph, reproduce, document, design and help artists understand the complex world of fine art file management, printing, and marketing. There is a need to encourage artists to work directly with designers to fine-tune their images and provide the best quality colour reproductions. Consultations are free and provide the artist with information, prices, samples, and specific marketing advice directly aimed at their work.
Art Ink Print offers graphic design, high-quality giclee (limited editions) & digital press printing. Prints are mostly for resale and thus must be technically precise (critical colour matching) and contain no irregularities or defects. This high level of quality is available to artists and the general public for the first time in the history of printing. Only 15 years ago, an entry or mid-level artist could never afford to have their works reproduced due to now antiquated printing technologies and poor quality. Artists were expected to lay down tens of thousands of dollars for print runs with minimums of no less than 1,000 to 5,000. A very small percentage of artists were ever able to enter the print market and ended up being dominated by a few established artists with deep pockets. Today, the print technology is vastly superior (archival pigments and paper) and artists are able to order only the prints they want and need, our proofing service and record keeping means artists can start off with just a few prints, yet have the peace of mind they can order more knowing they will match exactly; eliminating the need to order a whole ‘print run’ up front. There are many economical ways to get your work out into the world, whether you only want a few prints for your family or if you are producing a whole series of prints for sale.
Art Ink Print has been operating in the downtown core for over eight years (corner of Government and Yates). We are the only print & design shop dedicated solely to printing, designing, documenting and archiving fine art for working artists and the community. Next time you are in the downtown core, look up, many of those second and third story buildings house small businesses that directly support and add to the diversity of what makes downtown Victoria special.
“Without art, we have nothing to frame.”
