Avoid Knock-Offs & Support Authentic Art
Tips to avoiding knock-offs and supporting authentic art.
The trick to avoiding pitfalls or dangers in your travels is to research and familiarize yourself. It's also true for art!
While you may love the art people are sharing, you must always be careful you're not in unfamiliar territory where tricksters are at work. So many great artists are the victims of infringement and the sad part is you'd probably never know it. Sometimes the seller doesn't know it either.
Why it’s important to be aware
It’s important to support artists and their work as many are single-person businesses with their only source of income being their art. They’ve also spent time & money in creating their works; From their education and failed experiments, to materials and programs used to create them. When you purchase from them, you’re directly supporting their ability to make a successful living at it and help them invest in future projects.
So, having said that, if you’d like to know how to avoid art fraud & support your favourite artist, here are a few tips.
Get Familiar with the Artist & their Work
Being online, you can never guarantee that what you're seeing is someone's actual work - even if they’re selling you an expensive commercial license or you’re buying something that has really good photography and no watermark.
Review their portfolio
Are they showing process shots?
Is there a backstory about the inspiration of the work?
Is there a consistency in style & theme or does it jump around a lot?
Most artists will have process shots, sometimes even video, a backstory to their work and follow-up of what's happening with that piece they painted or tshirt they designed. They'll also be somewhat consistent in their theming or style. If you don't see any of this or each post is jumping around from paintings to logos, cartoon characters to realistic still life, be warned.
Take Liam Ashurst, as an example. His style is consistent throughout his feed and very unique to him. Since this style has grown in popularity, people start mimicking it or blatantly stealing it and claiming it as their own.
Shop Direct
One way to ensure that 100% of your hard earned money is going to support the original artist is to buy direct from their website.
By doing a quick Google search, you should be able to find their "home" on the web, whether it's their website, Behance portfolio, Instagram feed, or a combination of sites. Through that portal, you can then figure out where they are selling their art or you can contact them directly.
Shop Local
Some artists list stores that stock their product (stockists) somewhere on their website so before you go shopping, you can always check this out.
These shops find the artists online and purchase their product in bulk to help stock their stores. Buying local is one great way to support both artist and the smaller shops.
When shopping, ensure that tags, branding, or some kind of credit to the artist is visible in some way. If it's not, the shop owner should be able to tell you who the artist is. If not, you can conduct further research before you purchase or find another store to purchase at.
Beware of Alibaba & AliExpress knockoffs!
Many people purchase from these cheaper wholesaler websites to get a better deal. However, be warned that you may be purchasing knock-offs. I have found MANY examples of my art being sold there without my permission and has proven to be very difficult to have removed.
Avoid Big Box Stores
Unless you’re certain an artist has a deal with a big box store (like Cat Coq clearly states on her website), I would avoid box stores for authentic art. Some have actually been accused of having "design scouts" who go to tradeshows to steal ideas and artwork. Yikes!
Big box stores tend to require very quick turn-around on product in the cheapest way possible. Instead of researching an artist they'd like to support, writing up a license agreement, and paying the artist fairly (which would be a reasonable sum of money given their size and distribution), they look to warehouses overseas that can replicate it much cheaper and faster.
This only steals potential income from hard working artists.
Online Shopping
Shopping online is tricky since everyone is online these days. Even the copycats.
If you follow the previous steps, you should land on the original artist and be able to find out where their work is being sold. Don't be fooled by the cheap offerings on Amazon or eBay as they may be knock offs. But again, it all comes back to a little leg work.
See? Say!
So what if you were accidentally "had" by one of these sellers? Or what if you see something that you know is not someone's original work? Contact the original artist right away so they can take legal measures to have the item / design taken down and avoid that website at all costs next time. If they do it for one design, there are likely more designs that weren't properly licensed.