Bagelfather
TMF Master
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2001
- Messages
- 855
- Points
- 18
Hi there everybody. I am throwing this out to the forum because someone may actually have an answer.
My friends and I are starting a t-shirt business. We're going with a printer first and then eventually print our own. My question is how much should we pay the artist. Before you all say "as much as you can or a million dollars, etc." let me say that I know it comes with experience and what type of art etc.
Here is the information I know that may help.
1) The artist we may be using is not an established artist, but talented.
2) At this time we are not working on strict deadlines.
3) Money is tight, but we want to be fair to the artist.
4) There is a difference with 1 color and full color. Right now lets stick with 1 color, 2 color, 3 color and full color art for pricing.
5) The art will be hand drawn and not in a program for determining color layers for silk screens at this time.
6) It is t-shirt size so we are talking about 8.5x11.
7) We feel that one idea is to pay a rate for work for hire plus payment per shirt sold to keep initial costs down and possibly bring in big money for the artist. Just an FYI this is what was done for artists for Magic the Gathering in the beginning and some artists made a lot of money with cards with a high print run.
Then comes the rights. If the artist comes up with an idea and thinks it would be a good idea for the shirt we would license the art for a shirt run. If it is an idea we came up with (including general layout and character ideas, text etc) then we would own exclusive rights to the art.
For those not familiar the difference gets technical like North American Rights vs other countries, what type of media etc.
I feel this would be fair in that if we come up with the idea it is a work for hire. If the character becomes popular and Nickelodeon picks it up or something then we'd have that money because it is our concept. If the artist has a character idea and thinks its a good shirt, becomes cult classic etc we make money on shirts but when Cartoon Network picks up the rights then we stop making shirts probably because the artist would retain all rights in that case.
Confused. Yeah me too a little. We want to keep this simple as we are a basic start up. Any feedback is welcome.
I know there is a book on the subject but I can't remember the name of it. If you have any URLS or book references for this I'd appreciate it.
PS: These are not tickling/bondage/fetish or religious shirts. They may be geeky but more of a general populace level of geekdom.
My friends and I are starting a t-shirt business. We're going with a printer first and then eventually print our own. My question is how much should we pay the artist. Before you all say "as much as you can or a million dollars, etc." let me say that I know it comes with experience and what type of art etc.
Here is the information I know that may help.
1) The artist we may be using is not an established artist, but talented.
2) At this time we are not working on strict deadlines.
3) Money is tight, but we want to be fair to the artist.
4) There is a difference with 1 color and full color. Right now lets stick with 1 color, 2 color, 3 color and full color art for pricing.
5) The art will be hand drawn and not in a program for determining color layers for silk screens at this time.
6) It is t-shirt size so we are talking about 8.5x11.
7) We feel that one idea is to pay a rate for work for hire plus payment per shirt sold to keep initial costs down and possibly bring in big money for the artist. Just an FYI this is what was done for artists for Magic the Gathering in the beginning and some artists made a lot of money with cards with a high print run.
Then comes the rights. If the artist comes up with an idea and thinks it would be a good idea for the shirt we would license the art for a shirt run. If it is an idea we came up with (including general layout and character ideas, text etc) then we would own exclusive rights to the art.
For those not familiar the difference gets technical like North American Rights vs other countries, what type of media etc.
I feel this would be fair in that if we come up with the idea it is a work for hire. If the character becomes popular and Nickelodeon picks it up or something then we'd have that money because it is our concept. If the artist has a character idea and thinks its a good shirt, becomes cult classic etc we make money on shirts but when Cartoon Network picks up the rights then we stop making shirts probably because the artist would retain all rights in that case.
Confused. Yeah me too a little. We want to keep this simple as we are a basic start up. Any feedback is welcome.
I know there is a book on the subject but I can't remember the name of it. If you have any URLS or book references for this I'd appreciate it.
PS: These are not tickling/bondage/fetish or religious shirts. They may be geeky but more of a general populace level of geekdom.
