Anyone who's been dying to own a really fancy t-shirt or coffee mug may be in luck; reports indicate that CafePress has acquired Imagekind, a sort of artists' community and marketplace.
CafePress offers posters and framed prints in addition to t-shirts and mugs, of course, and Imagekind's focus meets it there. Another instance of product overlap between the sites occurs where greeting cards are concerned. But while CafePress puts "Chairman Meow" and "I Want to Believe" images on display, Imagekind lists names like M.C. Escher, Andrew Wyeth, and Norman Rockwell.
To achieve this sort of "cultured" upgrade, CafePress probably paid in the neighborhood of $15 million or $20 million, according to Eric Eldon. Since CafePress now has a semi-lock on the low- and highbrow, he states, "The purchase also suggests that it may be too late in the game for new startups to try to create their own t-shirt, art, and gift-selling online marketplaces."
Keep an eye out for some sort of integration between CafePress and Imagekind in the weeks ahead. There's been no official word on the matter, though, and as the demand for Pierre Auguste Renoir boxer shorts is likely to be small, the two sites may continue to operate as distinct brands.
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Comments
Not truly archival practices
Cafe Press may have bought Image Kind to improve on their art print department, but they over paid if you ask me.
Image Kind has beautiful archival prints, that they mount on crap, thus making their Giclee prints practicly worthless.
Cafe Press is worse for the only thing Giclee about their prints is is just the ink process for neither their paper or mounting practices are archival either.
Both companies are decieving the public at large into thinking the prints they offer are true archival giclees, when they are not.
Not even the majority of their artist's know and the few that do, have protested to death ears.
Because it's all about profit margins. May I welcome the world of Art to Corporate America.
Where you don't get what you pay for.
WebProNews, Thanks for the
WebProNews, Thanks for the post!
To the commenter below, please note that Imagekind has made the switch to fully archival backing for all their custom framed prints. Please see the official announcement <a href="http://forum.imagekind.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2325">here.</a>
Redbubble ahead of Imagekind
Imagekind has fallen behind a faster and smarter competitor in Redbubble. It will be interesting to see whether Cafepress will be able to help Imagekind regain ground on Redbubble
Cafepress taking over Imagekind
This is going to be a wild ride in my opinion. Seems very settled at the immeidate moment but I feel this will end up to be an affiliate war between cj (curent Cafepress Affiliate) and SAS (current Imagekind affiliate) - No immediate plans to combine the 2 PODs but 2009 may bring aobut changes tha will effect both Cafepress shopowners and Iagekind gallery owners.
There have been many changes internally for shopkeepers, including limitations on shop size etc. One has to wonder if this was in the plans for this recent aquisition of Imagekind?
Interesting
I sell my art through both Cafepress and Imagekind, I'm really curious how this will all come together. I think it will be a good thing for Imagekind, Cafepress knows how to market itself and hopefully that will rub off on Imagekind.
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