Turning Your Animal-themed Art Into a Business

By Paula Fitzsimmons

Entrepreneurs with creative ability are finding a market for their animal-themed art. With current technology, it is possible to turn your own art into merchandise that people are willing to buy. Think t-shirts, totes, mugs, and more.

The profile below is of Marianne Helm, artist and owner of Tangy Design, a store that specializes in t-shirts, totes, and other bird-related merchandise for people.

Marianne has always loved to create artwork, and in 1995 she began drawing birds. After perfecting her skills for four years, she began transferring her images on to tote bags, t-shirts, and other gift items. Her line now consists of a wide selection of parrot-themed items such as calendars, cards, mousepads, framed art and a CD of bird illustrations. She also offers customized work to her clients.

Marianne's wares are available for sale through her website, but she also takes the initiative to seek out customers; she rents tables at bird shows, works with nonprofit organizations, advertises to target markets, and sells her wares on a wholesale basis to retail shops.

Creating beautiful art is just one aspect of Marianne's business: "My responsibility as owner and operator range from customer communications, artistic work, production, equipment maintenance, fulfillment, accounting, taxes and paper work."

She recommends that artists start by writing a business plan. It could address such topics as defining a market, advertising and publicity plans, and assessing the initial investment.

A production plan is also important. Marianne invested in all the equipment and transfers the artwork herself. She says it was a huge investment at first, but "considering the lowered cost overall to produce the shirts and the increase in quality, it was worth it in the long run."

She says that knowledge of computer graphic programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or CorelDRAW is important. If you plan to transfer your work on to textiles, you need to learn sublimation, which is the heat and ink process used to transfer designs to textiles.

If you are not able to invest in all that equipment, consider using a service such as CafePress. They allow you to sell a variety of merchandise based on your art. You can even set up a free online store at CafePress to promote your products. This is also a good way to test the waters, to see if there is a market for your work.