Interview: Anne Herbert

A wide range of artists have used the PhotoArtistry site including Jonathan Crown left-hand side) and Lucy Cullingford (right-hand side)

THE STORY BEHIND…

PhotoArtistry.co.uk

Canvas printing isn’t as expensive as you might think, especially if you use the PhotoArtistry site. We caught up with Anne Herbert to fi nd out how it all started…

Ideas for printing

What to use the site for…

01 Have your favourite illustration mounted on an MDF block. 02 Create your own fabric by printing images to polycotton. 03 Turn MDF blocks into printed screens. 04 Gather your images together to produce a photo montage. 05 Use printed MDF blocks for cupboard doors. t’s intensely satisfying

Ito create something in Photoshop, but it’s even more satisfying to print it out to admire at your leisure. For a really special touch, why not get a professional printing service on the case? Work can look stunning if printed to canvas, and one of the best services we’ve found is PhotoArtistry.co.uk. This UK-based company offers all sorts of options for anyone who has a photo or piece of art they would like to have printed professionally. In addition to art quality photo paper, the company also has an excellent range of more novelty printing options, such as stretched canvas, MDF block mounting and polycotton. In addition to the printed products, the company also offers a scanning service and will even clean up dust and marks before using the fi le.

If you’d like to know a little bit more about how the site works, we’ve got a special tutorial on using the service on page 56. PhotoArtistry has also teamed up with us to bring you an exclusive competition where you can get one of your own images printed to a stretched canvas.

In the meantime, though, we spoke with the company’s Managing Director, Anne Herbert, to fi nd out a bit more about the service and how it all started.

Tell us a bit about the website and the company in general. When was it set up and why? The website was fi rst set up in 2000. The initial site was something of a brochure site set up to invite fellow artists who wanted to reproduce their artwork to send them to me for printing. Fortunately it attracted photographers and digital artists and in 2002 we updated it and added an e-commerce back end. How has the service grown over the years? Has anything changed in particular? Well, we’ve pretty much grown in demand to our customer’s requirements. Initially we only provided a canvas printing service with prints rolled up into tubes and dispatched through the Royal Mail postal service. Customers began to ask if we would stretch the canvases over wooden stretcher frames and because I had experience of this from my days at art school, I was able to provide this as a service as well. After a couple of years we began to think about extending our portfolio of services and added MDF block mounting to our range of services.

Did you have a typical client in mind? Have you been surprised by who has used your service? Yes, I bought the printer to print my own artwork and thought I could attract fellow artists but instead got photographers and interior designers. Our client base consists predominantly of photographers who provide value added services to their clients. We are trying to expand into commercial outfi ts such as offi ces, hotel and leisure as well as retail outlets.

What’s the most popular product? The canvas print is still the most popular product, though this is followed very closely by the block mounts on MDF. Canvas prints are more popular with the photographers and private individuals. Commercial outfi ts prefer the block mounts because they are solid and more robust.

What’s the most creative thing someone has used your site for? We recently had a customer wanting to create a wooden ‘Rubic’ type cube. The block

This Philip Nash family portrait illustrates the wrapped canvas stretch option, where the print carries on round the side

was made up of images rather than colours. It was an interesting challenge and was needed for some children’s charity.

Are there any future plans for new services, or is it a case of building on what’s already off ered? Yes we have managed to create a very successful brand and are showing some leadership in the canvas printing industry. We have been able to successfully provide a very high quality product at an affordable price and the entire buying experience online is fairly straightforward and simple. We are trying now to position ourselves as providers of creative display solutions using innovative techniques and media. We will be launching an acrylic range in the autumn and will be looking at adding more functionality to the images by mounting them on screens and coffee tables, for example.

Turn to page 56 to fi nd out how to use the service and also get further details on entering our competition,

WEB | VISIT PHOTOARTISTRY AT WWW.PHOTOARTISTRY.CO.UK