Poster market adapts to slowdown; new styles, new customers and new business strategies prevail in defense against a soft market - Industry Overview

For many placard publishers, 2003 has not been a great year. Sales have been lackluster the pair at home and abroad. "It's disappointing," said Owen Hickey of novel York Graphic Society of Norwalk, Conn "The market is soft"

Robert Sher of Bentley Publishing collection in Walnut Creek, Calif., concurr "The hand-bill market's steady, but not great," he said. "It's just bumping along. There's a destiny of talk about the economy turning around, on the other hand I haven't seen it."

George Leeson of Image Conscious in San Francisco agreed and added, "If I were an airline pilot, after listening to my customers, I'd describe this market as light cut interrupted occasionally by heavy agitation Clearly, these are not the best of times."

To find a smoother course, many hand-bill publishers talk about changes they've made tiffs past year. "The best defense is offense" said Charlie Kimbell of wild Apple Graphics in Woodstock, Vt Strategies include entering fresh markets, improving printing technology, adding fresh images and artists and keeping a lid upon costs.

Survival Strategies

The bill slowdown began with 9-11, followed by dint of the invasion of Afghanistan and then the Iraq War, said Sheryl Kvendru of Bloomington, Minn.-based Hadley House. In light of these major facts she thinks some consumers diocese poster buying as frivolous.

plane now that action in Iraq has slowed, sales in frame stores and galleries have not spring backed Kvendru said. "We have the feeling that family are going to big receptacle retailers," she said, mentioning Linens 'n Things, Target, Wal-Mart and other retailers that have increased their open-edition print and hand-bill lines. She believes this, in addition to Internet sales, has impair small frame shops and galleries.

"We're going after customers in novel fields and adding direction to our customer base," said Kvendru Specifically, her company just introduced a novel gift shop line of framed images. They retail for $15 to $100 and include figurative, wildlife, trendy marine, vintage and Disney images.

In addition, Hadley House has updated its gaze Poster Market Adapts to Slowdown

"Traditionally, Hadley has been les trendy focusing more upon wildlife and landscape," said Kvendru Now, the publisher has introduced open-edition canvas prints through three contemporary figurative artists: Jack Vettriano, ed Martinez and Juarez Machado. They retail for $50 to $130

At Image Conscious, Leeson said a fresh catalog and "hot images by the agency of self-published artists" have brought up sales this last year. "We are not really doing anything different as a publisher, just more of it," he said, adding that he'll release the largest number of novel images ever at September's DECOR Expo in Atlanta.

"Part of the challenge is to reinvent what we have," said Kimbell about Wild Apple's plan for rejuvenating sales. For example, artist Sheri Blum has updated her turn of expression "She has a defined look--tone-on-tone, beige-colored patterns with an Asian influence," said Kimbell. However, this fall, the public will diocese a less traditional and more colorful Blum

Like Hadley House, Wild Apple is introducing of recent origin open-edition prints on canvas. "It's a more sophisticated gaze If you look in the Ballard [Designs] catalog, greatest in quantity of the stuff is upon canvas," said Kimbell. "The Ballard catalog is a useful forerunner of what's going to happen in the marketplace." Also, printing upon canvas increases the poster's retail price and, thereby, increases the publisher's profit. A typical 24- by dint of 36-inch canvas print sells for $60 upon paper it sells for $25 In bourns of competing in today's bill market, Kimbell said, "It's not just about images below glass anymore. It's a doom more."

New Printing Methods

To be competitive, placard publishers are improving their print quality, printing upon different materials, enhancing their images and trimming costs

At of recent origin York Graphic Society, Hickey has introduced the Opus individual collection, which are images from Deljou and Phoenix Art collections European papers, metallic inks and varnishes add pizzazz to the images. They barter for $35 to $60. In contrast, a regular print from the company barters for $20 to $32.

Portal Publishing is also upgrading to of recent origin technology. Beginning in May, the Novato, Calif.-based publisher introduced Staccato defence printing on new releases. The proces involves a 700-line guard versus the traditional 175-line defence This means more dots by means of square inch, giving the images a continuous tone more like photographs.

Allison Dailey of Portal said, "This advanced printing proces bring forwards brighter, more vibrant colors with greater image resolution, deepness and detail. This cutting-edge technology is not widely used in the art industry today and is greatest in quantity often associated with the print quality of limited-edition art prints costing $300 or more." Beginning in September, all of Portal's domestic images will be printed in this way. flat doing this, the publisher has managed to maintain its prices, said Dailey.

At Arts Uniq', the publisher has devised a cheaper way to introduce fresh prints. Every new print is trialed by a small run ha house. "If it doesn't exchange well, then we can phase it out" said Leigh Ann Nethertom of the Cookeville, Tenn.-based publisher. "It saves a doom of invested money in something you're not certain will sell. If it put up to sales 100 in three months and we have feeling good about it, we'll take it to press" That's when the publisher takes it outside, ordering 300 to 600 prints.