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| Case Study: Dolan Geiman |
| "It's tempting to consider Printmakers Chicago a secret gem in the art world that I want to keep all to myself." |
| – Dolan Geiman, visual artist, speaking about Prntmakers Chicago |
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Ways to Increase Profits
Growing up on a Virginia farm, artist Dolan Geiman made his own clothes and ate home-canned vegetables from his grandmother's garden. The simple life suits him. But he paid his dues in the art world and has no desire to be a stereotypical "starving artist."
Geiman and his partner, Ali Walsh, brainstormed ways to turn a bigger profit. Their idea was to produce economically priced prints of original artworks and offer them as wholesale sets to home décor and gift shops. "Generally, fine art prints are done on stretched canvas or paper," Walsh says. "It was important for us to do something with a unique twist so we'd stand out in the market."
Print on Wood
Printmakers Chicago, a division of Digital Imaging Resources, Inc., satisfied their unique needs. Division Manager John Cisco scanned images of Geiman's Back Porch Bouquet series, featuring vivid flowers against bold backgrounds, and printed them on birch-veneered plywood.
"It was John's idea to print on wood, which demonstrated to us that he understood Dolan's folksy, rustic aesthetic," Walsh says.
Cisco's stroke of genius was made possible by Printmakers Chicago's partnership with Digital Imaging Resources, Inc., which expanded his technological capabilities.
"DIR has an inkjet printer used for producing outdoor signage, and I viewed it as a challenge to use the machine for some type of fine art application," says Cisco, a master printmaker who specializes in serving the digital imaging needs of artists and photographers.
Innovative Turnkey Solution
His innovation and initiative didn't end there. Cisco researched wood species for cost-effectiveness and dreamed up ways to make the prints — produced 19 at a time on 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood —all the more special. Printmakers Chicago nails slats to the back of each print so it protrudes from the wall for added dimensionality; installs hangers; and uses a wood-branding tool to mark Geiman's logo on each piece. The turnkey production and distribution will include printing tri-fold brochures to market the prints, as well as packaging and shipping orders to retailers.
"I look for opportunities to serve my clients in the most efficient and broadest way possible," Cisco says.
Geiman is delighted. "It's tempting to consider Printmakers Chicago a secret gem in the art world that I want to keep all to myself," he says, "but instead I encourage other artists to utilize its tremendous scope of services."
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Case Study:
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