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Author Topic: Best selling VECTOR sites?  (Read 49350 times)

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helix7

« Reply #50 on: June 27, 2011, 10:06 »
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Maybe i  think differently than you do but clipart has a cheap ring to it because the artwork i saw back in the days werent as good as illustrations. A company with money hires an artist to illustrate their idea or product. A company on the budget goes through a book full of thousands of generic cliparts. Times have changed and some amazing artists are producing stock imagery.

I think this is 100% accurate. Clipart has a cheap connotation. Old clipart catalogs and multi-disc clipart collections were loaded with thousands upon thousands of low-quality imagery. All simple stuff, often 1-color, and all the sort of stuff that would most likely be rejected by microstock agencies today.

The general terms buyers tend to use these days are "vectors" (as surprising as that is since it's a more technical term for these images), "illustrations" or just "stock graphics" or "stock images" (lumping all stock assets under the same general category of "design assets"). Graphic designers don't say they're looking for clipart when they talk about microstock images. If a designer says they're looking for clipart, they're most likely talking about the low-end stuff from the huge collections.

The odd thing about the name ClipartOf in the context of what clipart brings to mind is that Jamie appears to not want her company to be know for anything that clipart is associated with. Namely being a vast catalog of simple images and being low-end. It sounds more like she wants only the best stuff from any new artists, and very clearly doesn't want a large collection.  

FYI, I was a buyer long before I was a contributor and used to browse those clipart catalogs for graphic design projects. The term "clipart" was used mostly for the large, cheap collections, and was often used with complete disregard for licensing restrictions, if any such restrictions even existed. The guys doing the more complex stuff back then that is common in microstock today weren't calling their work "clipart". Even in the 1990s "clipart" had a certain negative connotation and many people were avoiding labeling their work as such.


« Reply #51 on: June 27, 2011, 10:35 »
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I can see the connotation. As I think Kenny pointed out though, clip art is a pretty heavy traffic keyword on Google. Considerably more than illustration, vector, stock art, etc. I suppose in the end I don't care what people call my work as long as they are buying it.  ;D

« Reply #52 on: June 27, 2011, 15:00 »
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Interesting, by the way, how Google, Bing and Shutterstock spell the word differently
 - "Clip art"
 - "Clipart"
 - "Clip-Art"

So which is it ? :)

Ive also seen the term 'Clip Arts' used.

Bing & Yahoo process all the variations of that term without displaying "Did you mean: Clip Art" in the results.

Google prefers 'Clip Art' and so do I :)

Screen capture:


I'm with helix7 when it comes to marketing illustrated graphics. If I had to choose between the terms; Clip Art, Illustrations, and Vectors, ... Vectors would be the primary term I market.

- - - - - - - - - -

Another stock vector site  available to illustrators is Draw Shop, http://www.DrawShop.com/. This site was developed by stock illustrator, Poul Carlsen. More information about why he started this site at the about page, http://www.DrawShop.com/aboutus.php

Currently they are paying out 50% commision on stock illustration sales and 85% commision for any custom orders you do. Sign-up and details available at the registration page, http://www.DrawShop.com/registration.php

« Reply #53 on: June 28, 2011, 18:49 »
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Well, that would be great, but none of my clients can afford RM prices. They are all just small businesses. They don't "expect" anything, but I do what I can for them by trying to find them images that have low download numbers to decrease the chance for duplication, for my own piece of mind. There is enough selection in microstock that this is usually possible. And sometimes I do work directly with artists and photographers.

However, the issue I was addressing was the limitations of ClipartOf's library to the same downloads for all their customers by excluding fresh work from new contributors. I'm not trying to rip anyone. I'm just stating a fact. Without new content in the genres, it would only be the same stuff constantly being offered to all customers, right? Or am I missing something? Also, wouldn't some of the stuff become dated after a while?

I look for artists who contribute on a regular basis, not just offer their existing portfolio and then that's it. Most of our artists send us fresh content weekly, if not daily. I also love it when artists are available to offer alterations upon request so clients get what they need.

Good for you helix! I hope more artists start representing themselves and moving to their privately owned websites.

Regarding our name, ClipartOf is just one of our hundreds of sites that completely took off that attracted customers. We focused mainly on other sites and for some reason, ClipartOf was the one that ended up taking 200% of our focus. It wasnt what we expected.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2011, 18:52 by jvoetsch »

Microbius

« Reply #54 on: June 29, 2011, 01:29 »
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I think that the value of Clipart as a search term has more than proved itself. I think that CAO relies quite heavily on SEO for traffic as opposed to ads in mags etc. (Jamie, chime in if this is incorrect) and they seem to be doing very well for their contributors in terms of downloads, no?

« Reply #55 on: July 02, 2011, 01:02 »
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I think that the value of Clipart as a search term has more than proved itself. I think that CAO relies quite heavily on SEO for traffic as opposed to ads in mags etc. (Jamie, chime in if this is incorrect) and they seem to be doing very well for their contributors in terms of downloads, no?

Correct on that Microbius.

« Reply #56 on: August 26, 2011, 18:53 »
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I'm a newbie here trying to learn the ropes. This site is really helpful.

Is there a demand for the more traditional hand-drawn clip art? I still mean vector, but with cartoony hand-drawn lines.

« Reply #57 on: August 27, 2011, 04:34 »
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Is there a demand for the more traditional hand-drawn clip art? I still mean vector, but with cartoony hand-drawn lines.

Sure. I think there is a big demand. But you should check the agencies to find topics which are not well covered.


 

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