From Pitch to Publish: Getting Your Calendar from Idea to Final Licensing

What You Will Learn?

• Have you dreamed of being one of those outstanding artists whose work is featured on calendars, such as Robin Pickens, Mary Kate McDevitt or Leigh Standley? Calendar manufacturers tend to license art year-after-year from the same artists if the calendar sells well, and these artists set a gold standard for all other hopefuls. This class aims to take you through the entire process with the guidance of an artist who has published a calendar successfully! .
• You will be guided step-by-step through the process, from initial selection of art through to the layout and finally to the finished art. You will use the Adobe programs Photoshop, Illustrator and inDesign and will get some helpful tips along the way. You will get verbal guidance that will help you be sure your art style is completely different and also that the manufacturer senses they can add your style of calendars to their product line. Creating a niche theme rather than a standard theme will help offer on-trend design that might be just the ticket to your success! The manufacturer may be willing to take a chance if they think your idea will sell in the current market. I was successful in licensing my Great Day Calendar to Trends International with my mixed media journal art as discussed in this course, so you never know! I have since submitted new designs for the upcoming year using the same theme!.
• In this course we will go through specific concepts in 6 lessons that cover:.
• • Inspiration and selection of your art and choosing a theme.
• • Scanning, cleaning up, and formatting your art.
• • Line art drawing techniques in Adobe Illustrator.
• • Compositing raster and vector artwork into final art in Adobe Photoshop.
• • Production of custom monthly labels and final layout.
• • Finishing and packaging your final layouts in the inDesign program.
• You will get the bonus of….
• • over 40 minutes of direction from an instructor who has been successful in publishing an art calendar.
• • a template to use for preparing your final art to submit and instructions for it’s use.
• • a checklist of steps to successfully implement your plan.
• • a list of manufacturers accepting artist submissions.
• At the conclusion of my class, I encourage you to try out my methods, and participate in the guidance offered while sharing in the projects section. Get involved in the process and benefit from constructive advice of fellow artists! If you are new art licensing, this is probably the most relevant guidance you need to get up and running. So what are you waiting for? Start the Pitch to Publish class NOW!.