Instagram’s photo-focus tends to drive artists to the social network and one startup is working to help artists make some cash by selling those Instagrams as fine art prints. 8×10 is a new iOS app that aims to help artists and photographers sell their work on Instagram, eliminating the need to build a separate online store.
8×10 manages the sales, printing and shipping process, leaving the artist to just create the work and set up the sale inside the app in order to start selling prints. The app allows Instagrammers to sell their images as framed prints in limited-edition runs, creating a link for followers to order the piece.
Inside the app, artists upload a high-resolution image used for the print and the Instagram post. The app walks artists through the different options for setting a price, terms, and hashtags along with titling the work. Once finished, the app sends that information to the Instagram app, where the artist finishes crafting the post using the information pre-generated from the app. 8×10 can also create a graphic showing the image inside a frame to post, or users can simply share the actual image being printed.
The app also allows artists to sign the work using the touchscreen to add a signature, or by uploading a signature file or a graphic to use as a stamp instead of a signature. The limited-edition prints are also numbered. Images are printed on cotton fine-art paper with archival ink, 8×10 says.
Followers on Instagram will see the image, captions, and hashtags, along with a link to order the print.
Launched by the same people behind Recently, the app that creates a magazine from an iPhone’s camera roll, Scott and Elizabeth Valins wanted to create a platform to help artists monetize their work. The duo launched the company on April 12.
“What’s been transformative for artists like ourselves, is how Instagram has enabled us to reach a global audience that we couldn’t have reached otherwise. However, it is a complicated path between having a following and being able to sell and fulfill art purchases,” Scott Valins, said in a statement. “I cannot tell you how many astoundingly talented peers of ours consistently turn down requests from their fans because the process of fulfilling archival art is too complicated, too time-consuming, and cost prohibitive.”
8×10 isn’t the first platform to try to allow artists to sell Instagrams, but existing options like Twenty20 focus on selling the graphics as stock images, not fine art prints.
The 8×10 iOS app is free to download — the company earns their revenue by taking a portion of the image sale, a cut that is listed as artists set the price of the print in the app. The app is now available from the App Store.
