Hi Everyone! Below is a progress update with some fun bits of info regarding how The Untapped Source is coming along…

Remember to use our suggestion box in the Artist Access Center and give us your thoughts or suggestions regarding the blog or any improvements you’d like to see regarding The Untapped Source.

Per usual, I’ve highlighted the main points in orange if you’re just a skimmer of text…

1.) New Upload Method/Upload Issues

2.) Paper Sample Program

3.) Thumbnail quality now upgraded

4.) Framing Service Development

5.) Changing your name on the site

6.) Prints Make Great Gifts For the Holidays!

1.) We have changed the old upload method for adding print files in The Artist Access Center. Some of you were having issues with the old browse button so we’ve updated things to solve that issue. Basically, it was an issue with the new flash update put out by Adobe…a lot of applications across the web were having some functional issues with the update.

With the new method we have in place, you can now queue up multiple images for upload…which is a nice little feature. Our ultimate goal will be to combine the “upload images” tab with the “add artwork” tab in the Artist Access Center, but we have other larger items to accomplish before we work on that convenience issue.

2.) We are in the final stages of preparation for the Paper Sample Program. It will be COMPLETELY FREE for artists at The Untapped Source to get paper samples for your own knowledge base. We feel it’s a good program to offer everyone so you can understand what it is we are actually selling in detail, and of course if you’re looking to buy your own prints for your own purposes (limited editions), it’s a good idea to have a visual idea of what the different paper types will look and feel like!

Contact us via email for now at artists@theuntappedsource.com with your paper sample request, and we’ll ship you out an Paper Sample Packet absolutely free of charge! Please just make sure you let us know your current address in the email, your name, and that you’d like to see the paper samples.

In the future, we’ll have a form/button in the Artist Access Center for requesting your free paper samples.

3.) In upgrading the quality of the visuals at The Untapped Source, we’ve upgraded the quality of our thumbnails by 30%! The thumbnail images still load just as fast as before and now they appear much clearer and crisper. It’s still not perfect, but we’re going to continue to tweak it until we find the perfect balance between beautiful visuals and blazing fast download speeds. Thanks to Raydianze and Jacky Gerritsen for this quality vs. speed upgrade recommendation (and to everyone really because 70% of our upgrades to the site are from the artists who populate The Untapped Source)

4.) Framing Service Development has now begun. We have found a supplier to make framing affordable and will hopefully have this program up and running in the next 6 months. We’ve done initial testing with images and framing with 75% of the sizes we offer! We’re still not sure how many sizes we will be framing, but we’re going to aim for at least 1 size frame for each ratio offering at The Untapped Source. Any images we use(d) to test framing will be bought and paid for by The Untapped Source.

5.) If you would like to change your name on the site to reflect a pseudonym or ‘web identity’ and you currently have your real name up on the site, feel free to let us know. This will be an automatic feature in the future in when the automation process is complete, but you can change your name in the Artist Access Center under the “bio” tab if you so choose. Please also send us an email at artists@theuntappedsource.com to let us know you’ve done this to make sure the necessary offline changes get made on our end (not absolutely necessary, but reminders never hurt;)). And also be sure if you have selected to be paid by check that we need to know your real name, so just add that info in the ‘pay to the order’ of section of the bio section in the AAC.

6.) It’s the Holiday Season, and what better (and more meaningful) gift is there than a print of your own artwork for your friends and family! Fill out the Artist Buy Print Request Form in the Artist Access Center under ‘Artist Buy Pricing’ and we’ll send you back via email an invoice with the cost of your order, including shipping…after that, you can just pay via paypal and we’ll ship the order within 48 hours. Please let us know with any questions.

Hopefully you are all doing well and succeeding both personally and professionally. We’re still working hard at the automation process, the Artist Buy Cart System (which is gonna be REALLY custom and cool) for all of you guys to use for inch by inch custom printing and credit card payments, and a whole host of other items I could go on and on about in dissertation form (I don’t have time and neither do you;)). As usual, if you’re curious about backlogged updates/blogs, you can check them in the archives to the right of this blog…they have a BUNCH of interesting tidbits in them.

Happy Holidays,

Drew

Artist/Admin/Founder

The Untapped Source

Check out what we’re working on: www.theuntappedsource.com/blog
ARTISTS: BUY YOUR PRINTS IN THE ARTIST ACCESS CENTER

October Updates

Hello my fellow creators. Below is what’s been happening over the last month. Informational highlights are in orange to make things easier to get through.

1. Artist Suggestion Box
2. Added Sizes 24×60 and 12×30
3. Esquire Gift Guide Update: SLIDE 8
4. Information Overhaul/SEO of
   www.theuntappedsource.com and
   www.theuntappedsource.com/aac 
   (or www.theuntappedsource.com/upload which leads to the Artist Access Center as well)
5. Artist Cart Update and Automation Stuff
6. BUY YOUR PRINTS FROM US! SAVE MONEY…and GET THE BEST QUALITY PRINTS from a printer who still does printing in-house and DOES NOT farm work out to warehouse print shops. Basically, we’re willing to work with you and help however we can. Start your own LIMITED EDITIONS and make sure you’re getting the best possible prints!
7. Work Updates…Removing Works…etc…

***************************************************

1.) You can now offer up suggestions while you’re in the Artist Access Center. Click on the FAQ tab (it’s near the top of the page) once you login. You can still feel free to email us too, just another option while you’re in the Artist Access Center. Suggestions can include pretty much anything you feel would benefit you or the site in general.

2.) We have recently added 24×60” and 12×30” to our repertoire of sizes on www.theuntappedsource.com. It will be added as a size to the Artist Buy Pricing very soon. If you have any works you have submitted which you believe would fit this size, let us know and we’ll check into it for you:)

3.) The Esquire Holiday Gift Guide, and our place in it can be seen here. It will become more prominent within the site as we move closer to holiday time! And congrats Jacky Gerritsen as being our ambassador…and on that note, congrats to everyone on the site for attracting views to your work and the work of other untapped artists:) Make sure to use your banners in the Artist Access Center for linking so we can keep bringing in exposure opportunities like Esquire!
IMPORTANT: WE ARE SLIDE 8 on the list.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/holiday-gift-advice-2008/gift-ideas-for-men-2008

4.) In our efforts to increase traffic through Search Engine Optimization work, we’ve begun to rewrite the entire site. Much is already complete, but the Artist Access Center is being worked on as we speak. We are being careful to write things correctly to fit our future plans of automation which will significantly increase ease of use and timely additions.

5.) The Artist Cart System for buying your own prints is still in the works…as with everything, we keep figuring out newer and simpler ways to get stuff done, but it’s always pretty complicated. In the mean time, we are still accepting order inquires by email (drew@theuntappedsource.com).

6.) TEMPORARY CART SYSTEM: A simpler version of the artist cart system is being created. It’s basically an order form and will be very self-explanatory. It will be up soon in the AAC under “Artist Buy Pricing”… REMEMBER you can still purchase work through us via email. Directions for purchase are located in the Artist Access Center under ‘Artist Buy Pricing’, which is our discounted prices section for purchasing your own work from us. Many of you have already seen the quality of our printing and our services and we hope you are all pleased with our service and the quality products we offer for your art reproduction needs. UPDATE - Order Form now available here. (You must login to the AAC from this link and you will be re-directed to the order form page)

7.) To ensure any updates you make to the works added to your gallery are completed, please make a note of what change(s) was made in “notes” and if you’re going to delete works from the site, just send us an email (artists@theuntappedsource.com or drew@theuntappedsource.com) to confirm what those are. We’ve said it a million times, we know it it’s tedious waiting for the automation to get done, but it’s complicated and we want to make it better than anything else out there. Lots of research is going into all of the this, so please bear with us.

Again, let us know with suggestions about anything, look out for future updates, and stay cool everyone, we’re happy to work with each in every one of you in order to get eyeballs on your work and facilitate your limited edition needs/sales. Hope everyone is doing well in whatever corner of the world you are…

NOTE: Subdomains are on hold for the moment…we’re working out another method. If you already have a subdomain, it will still work.

Drew Grundfor
Artist/Admin/Founder
www.theuntappedsource.com

Hi fellow Untapped Artists. It’s your friendly admin and fellow Untapped Artist Drew back with another Newsletter to let you all know how we’re progressing with the site, and what were doing in general to further our goals to become the best Artist Resource Site on the web. Please read on for details.

NOTE: For those with a tight schedule, I’ve taken the time to make the highlights pretty obvious:)

Topics For Discussion This  Month:

1.) Esquire.com 2008 Gift Guide
2.) Artist Buy Program Price Now Up In Artist Access Center
3.) New Banners With Updated Code
4.) Added New Categories And Category Definitions
5.) Cropping Overlay And Gimp Tutorial Link
6.) Projects In Development

1.) We’ve been told by an associate editor at Esquire.com that they are going to be recommending The Untapped Source as a great place to buy high quality artwork in their 2008 Holiday Gift Guide. This  is something that will begin on October 15th of this year, and I assume will run through the holidays. I’m not sure much more needs to be said on this…Esquire is a HUGE publication circulated worldwide by Hearst Publications, and being on their .com will be a very good thing for bringing in viewers.

2.) We have added a new tab, titled “Artist Buy Pricing” in the Artist Access Center especially for our artists to have as a resource for buying your own prints at a discounted price directly from us for your Limited Edition purposes and what not.  It consists of a price sheet as well as the papers we offer exclusively to the artists which are not available on the site for general purpose. Please log into your account and check out the great prices, extra sizes, and extra paper types we are now offering for purchase.  This is still an email order based system where you will let us know what you wish to order, we send you an invoice, you pay the discounted printing rate via paypal, and we send out the order promptly.

Regarding the Artist Cart System, we’ve finished the basic cart, which basically does the same thing as what I’ve explained, except it eliminates the need for email communication and will be credit card/paypal ready at the time of purchase. In addition, we are creating a custom option which we think is actually pretty damn cool:) In short, you will be able to get upload prints that you don’t offer on the site, and have them printed at the sizes you wish. You will also be able to get ANY SIZE YOU WANT to the inch!…meaning, you can get a print that is 2×24, 6×31, 14×32, etc…it’s a VERY FLEXIBLE system that calculates by the dimensions you input in the width and height fields. It will all be a little clearer when we’re finished with this custom option and finally go live with it, but we think it’s going to be a very useful resource for everyone involved with The Untapped Source.

NOTE: This will not replace ordering by email, it is a supplement method. We are a resource site, and we want to remain as personal and not mechanical as possible.

3.) We have added new banners for linking purposes in the Artist Access Center, separate from those we offer on the regular site in the FAQ section, that signify you as an Official Untapped Source Artist! This is also part of our Search Engine Optimization effort in order to make us more accessible to those who search through Google, MSN, Yahoo, and the like. The new code is available in the Artist Access Center as well. Please log in, and use these new banners and the new code for linking…it will make your work easier to find for possible customers and will promote the site collective as a whole.

4.) We have added 4 New Categories to the site:

-Childrens
-Nautical
-Collage
-Rural

We have gone through your galleries and have tried to populate these as best we can.

As a benefit to artists on the site as well as general browsers and customers, we’ve also taken the time add coherent, objective definitions of each of the categories on the site. These are available in the Artist Access Center and will soon be available on the general site as well.

5.) We’ve added a Cropping Overlay Tool to the Artist Access Center. It’s a very simple .psd overlay file that will aid you in cropping your files to meet certain sizes. It’s basically a transparency that is adjustable in size that you can drag over another image to determine size with the look of the image in mind.  We think it’s a very useful tool.

Regarding the GIMP image editing tool link we have provided in the Artist Access Center, we’ve taken the time to add a link to GIMP TUTORIALS as well to aid you in using the software. It’s really a quite powerful, free piece of software for image editing.

6.) Major Projects in Develpment:

-Automation: for immediate uploads, immediate bio updates, gallery structurizing, and immediate, on the fly price changes and size/paper offerings -Estimated Time Of completion: Quarter 2, 2009

-Artist Cart System w/ Custom Features: explained above -Estimated Time Of Completion: Oct/Nov 2008

All in all, things are moving along well, and a lot of the projects we’ve been working on for a LONG TIME are coming into focus. Please let us know with any thoughts, questions, or suggestions as usual, and expect a lot of little changes over the next few months which were not explained above.

Best Regards,

Drew Grundfor
ADMIN/ARTIST/FOUNDER
THE UNTAPPED SOURCE

August 2008
The Untapped Source Newsletter topics
 
1.) Moved into new office
2.) New 44” Image Prograf 8100 Printer
3.) Goals to become THE artist resource site
4.) More Paper Types For Artist Buy Program
5.) We’ve added fully integrated Pay Pal Payment Method
6.) Search Engine Optimization Update
7.) Payment Options
8.) Being On The Artist Page
 
1.) We’ve moved into our new office and are putting the finishing touches on everything. Not much else on this, but we’ll be adding pictures of the new office, along with the different surfaces we print on to the site on the “About” page soon.
 
2.) We’ve acquired a new 44” Image Prograf Canon Line Printer (best printer on the market, 12 inks, photo/matte black inks…amazingly fast and accurate)
           
+Let us know if you want new prints larger than 24” width (smallest dimension), the artist shopping cart should be available within a month or so, but we have been taking orders through email and using paypal as a payment system. Give us a shout if you need any prints of your own work…
 
+We’re still not sure if we’ll be offering anything larger than 24” in width for general purchase through the site, but with the Artist Buy Program (where you would purchase your own work through the Artist Access Center and you’re personal shopping cart) you’ll be able to purchase whatever you need and forward that onto your customer, which in the end, will result in more profit for you and a signed and numbered print (if you so chose) for the buyer. Developing relationships with clients is very important in our experience while selling our own works (we’re all artists working for The Untapped Source by the way, if you didn’t know.
 
3.) In staying unique, we’re moving forward with our ideals to be the first true “Artist Resource Site”…there are plenty of social art networks…we want to help you with services. Let us know what you feel would be useful.
 
4.) We’ll be adding more paper types for the artist buy program (where you buy your own prints for much lower than retail prices!)…please let us know if you have any media types you would like to see in our repertoire and we’ll look into it.…we’ll also have the ability to do custom sizes not available on our site…we want to be as accommodating as possible to satisfy your printing needs.
 
5.) PayPal has of course been added for convenience. It will also be included in the your personal Artist Shopping Cart system.
 
6.) We’re neck deep in our second month of SEO work. This work consists mainly of rewriting the site, and working hard to get us up high in organic Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. rankings. This is being done in house by one of our web design team, specifically, Mike. We’re gonna be making blog features for all of you to take advantage of, but it’s always helpful if you have other blogs to mention The Untapped Source.
 
7.) Payment Options for print sales note
International Certified Checks
    -Currently we get charged $6.00 USD per certified bank check we send out of the continental United States. We don’t charge you guys anything for that. The point behind mentioning it is this…we’ll never charge you anything to be on The Untapped Source web gallery pages (check fees, web fees, etc…) unless we have the proper services and value in place to do so (as is, we’re quite a ways off from our goals, which are pretty lofty). On that note, let us know of any services you feel would be useful and we’ll work on implementing them. We want to be a valuable, professional, artist service center for custom, high end printing and web space. All of you will always have a place with us, not matter
 
8.) Being on the Artists page:
-In order to be on the artist page of The Untapped Source Gallery, you need to have submitted and have up at least 5 works in your gallery. The page is too cluttered at the moment with artists showing 1 or 2 works. Your work will remain in the gallery, your personal page will remain active as well, but there will be no link to you in the Artist Page. We have to do this at this point, sorry if this is objectionable to any of you.
 
 
The Future:
I hope you all appreciate what The Untapped Source is trying to achieve. I also hope each and every one of you that is reading this knows how honored we are to have your work in The Untapped Source Gallery. It’s everyone’s site, so as usual, we’re always willing to listen to any ideas you may have. Nearly everything implemented so far has been a suggestion by one of the artists in the gallery, so your thoughts are truly taken into consideration…of that you can be assured.
 
I hope you are all well personally, and as always, we look forward to see more of all of your works!
 
Best Regards,
 
Drew Grundfor
Artist/Admin/Founder
The Untapped Source

The Untapped Source Newsletter topics

1.) Moved into new office
2.) New 44” Image Prograf 8100 Printer
3.) Goals to become THE artist resource site
4.) More Paper Types For Artist Buy Program
5.) We’ve added fully integrated Pay Pal Payment Method
6.) Search Engine Optimization Update
7.) Payment Options
8.) Being On The Artist Page

1.) We’ve moved into our new office and are putting the finishing touches on everything. Nobody, including myself, takes home much money from working at The Untapped Source, as we’ve all agreed to put back what small profits we’ve made into the company to create something truly special for everyone involved. Since we’re not a huge company, it’ll just take us a little longer than other operations, but we’ve got the talent, desire, and most of all the artistic sense to create something truly useful, and of value to all of you.

2) We’ve acquired a new 44” Image Prograf Canon Line Printer (best printer on the market, 12 inks, photo/matte black inks…amazingly fast and accurate)

• Let us know if you want new prints larger than 24” width (smallest dimension), the artist shopping cart should be available within a month or so, but we have been taking orders through email and using paypal as a payment system. Give us a shout if you need any prints of your own work…
• We’re still not sure if we’ll be offering anything larger than 24” in width for general purchase through the site, but with the Artist Buy Program (where you would purchase your own work through the Artist Access Center and you’re personal shopping cart) you’ll be able to purchase whatever you need and forward that onto your customer, which in the end, will result in more profit for you and a signed and numbered print (if you so chose) for the buyer. Developing relationships with clients is very important in our experience while selling our own works (we’re all artists working for The Untapped Source by the way, if you didn’t know.)

3.) In staying unique, we’re moving forward with our ideals to be the first true “Artist Resource Site”…there are plenty of social art networks…we want to help you with services. Let us know what you feel would be useful.

4.) We’ll be adding more paper types for the artist buy program (where you buy your own prints for much lower than retail prices!)…please let us know if you have any media types you would like to see in our repertoire and we’ll look into it… we’ll also have the ability to do custom sizes not available on our site…we want to be as accommodating as possible to satisfy your printing needs.

5.) PayPal has of course been added for convenience. It will also be included in the your personal Artist Shopping Cart system.

6.) We’re neck deep in our second month of SEO work. This work consists mainly of rewriting the site, and working hard to get us up high in organic Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. rankings. This is being done in house by one of our web design team, specifically, Mike. We’re gonna be making blog features for all of you to take advantage of, but it’s always helpful if you have other blogs to mention The Untapped Source.

7.) Payment Options for print sales note
International Certified Checks

• Currently we get charged $6.00 USD per certified bank check we send out of the continental United States. We don’t charge you guys anything for that. The point behind mentioning it is this…we’ll never charge you anything to be on The Untapped Source web gallery pages (check fees, web fees, etc…) unless we have the proper services and value in place to do so (as is, we’re quite a ways off from our goals, which are pretty lofty). On that note, let us know of any services you feel would be useful and we’ll work on implementing them. We want to be a valuable, professional, artist service center for custom, high-end printing and web space. All of you will always have a place with us, no matter what.

8.) Being on the Artists page:

• In order to be on the artist page of The Untapped Source Gallery, you need to have submitted and have up at least 5 works in your gallery. The page is too cluttered at the moment with artists showing 1 or 2 works. Your work will remain in the gallery, your personal page will remain active as well, but there will be no link to you in the Artist Page. We have to do this at this point, sorry if this is objectionable to any of you.

The Future:
I hope you all appreciate what The Untapped Source is trying to achieve. I also hope each and every one of you that is reading this knows how honored we are to have your work in The Untapped Source Gallery. It’s everyone’s site, so as usual, we’re always willing to listen to any ideas you may have. Nearly everything implemented so far has been a suggestion by one of the artists in the gallery, so your thoughts are truly taken into consideration…of that you can be assured.

I hope you are all well personally, and as always, we look forward to see more of all of your works!

Best Regards,

Drew Grundfor
Artist/Admin/Founder
www.theuntappedsource.com

Hi Everyone!

First, check out the new build of The Untapped Source…below you’ll find out about what we’ve been up to in trying to make the site a better place, and since this is a site for everyone involved, we’d like your input! Please feel free to let us know what you think, and if you run across any bugs or glitches in the site.

Before I start, I just want to mention that our Search Engine Optimization program will be beginning in the next few weeks or so. This will hopefully bring in more casual customers looking for prints through Google and Yahoo and the like. Right now, views are coming generally from other pages you guys are promoting us on, and a few of you are generating a lot of the actual traffic. So thanks to everyone and remember to link to your work whenever possible to help the chance people will see and possibly purchase some of your work as high quality prints from The Untapped Source!

We’ve been hard at work updating the interface of the site, which is the first step in creating the foundation for giving you full control over your gallery, without having to wait for us to process everything, so check it out using our notes below as a “what to notice” guideline:

www.theuntappedsource.com

Things to notice:

1. Homepage:
   1. We’ve added a few new ways to easily access the Categories on the site. Click the categories button at the top to see the new navigation method. The Categories page can be accessed like this from anywhere on the site. You can also click the “view samples here” link at the bottom of the Categories dropdown menu for a different view with samples under each category title.

    

   2. New Artwork:+All recently added artwork will cycle through the “New Artwork” page for extra visibility of new stuff you guys want to add.
2. Once inside the gallery, you’ll immediately recognize the thumbnail boxes/squares are gone, replaced by the full image thumbnail.

 

3. Click on some artwork or yours or another Untapped Artist, and see how we’ve reworked the artwork details page. The viewing is now different, much more protective of your images from pirates, and the Magnifying Glass is a new and interesting way for close up viewing of artwork!

 

4. Artist Page:We know, it’s getting a little bit much, and we’re trying to think of how to creatively break it down a bit. It does expand and contract now in terms of width. It will even stretch across 2 screens if you have them!

There are other changes you might find, so look around!

Once we’ve gotten your feedback on how things have changed and now look, and use that feedback to refine what’s already there, we will begin the complicated, yet beneficial process of Automation…So you have complete, immediate control over you gallery. We’ll be adding new functions in the Bio section to make it more like a personal page for you where you can blog and such, as well as more imaging techniques for you to show off your work better.

WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK, SO EMAIL ME AT
drew@theuntappedsource.com with your thoughts.

THE UNTAPPED SOURCE Topics:

1. Switching Servers
2. SEO strategy
3. Cosmetic Updates
4. Automating the Site

Hi Untapped Artists! The topics above are all hit on below in a short and sweet manner? Please feel free to contact me (Drew) at drew@theuntappedsource.com with any questions, comments, or concerns.

1. Switching Servers:
We are in the process of re-formatting the site so that it can be switched from GoDaddy (really generic hosting platform) to Media Temple, which will help a lot with some of the issues we have in terms of upload errors as well as server speed. This is basically a move that will take us to a hosting platform more suited to our needs…we’ll let you know when it happens, and have some of you test out the Artist Access Center’s functionality in it’s new form.

2. SEO Strategy:
Even though we are growing in total number of unique hits by 20-30% each quarter, we think it’s time to start pushing things marketing wise a little bit since the site internally is starting to take better shape in terms of the things we have going on our end. With that in mind, we are shopping around for Search Engine Optimization companies which will, in the most basic of terms, be working over the next 6 to 9 months to get us a 1st or 2nd page ranking in the organic listings of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc…) for site specific keywords. For example, when some types in say “fine art prints” The Untapped Source will be ranked highly in Google and other major search platforms. A majority of our traffic is currently coming from the inbound linking of you, the artists, and this will start to get us outside what we call the “artist bubble” (cool industry lingo term we came up with) and bring in some more general buyers and art lovers. This is an expensive process, but since obtaining more funding from art benefactors, we feel it’s an expense we should incur for the good of all involved.

3. Cosmetic Updates:
It’s not really that huge of a deal, but the site will be going through some cosmetic updates in the near future. By the middle of April (rough estimate…of course) we’ll be adding things like a ‘recently added work’ page, better, more enticing ‘galleries page’ with images and examples of categorical work, as well as more functional items and tools for you guys in the Artist Access Center. The artist shopping cart is still in the works but has been delayed up until this point due to us having to work out switching servers and a few other major stumbling blocks of annoyance. Let us know if you think you have any good ideas on making the site prettier or more functional…

4. Automation Process:
Our line of business for the 2nd quarter of 2008 will be dedicated primarily to the automation of the site. Basically, as it stands now, we have to do a lot of processing work before submitted work and, to a lesser extent, bio updates, get added to the site. We resize every image manually, and look over and approve all the info that goes on the site (yes, it’s a lot of work). By this, we intend to give you:

1. Immediate control of your bio page, with extra areas for information to be posted
2. Immediate control over your pricing and size options
   Note: sizing is really complicated over the web, so we are still planning this out…any thoughts or ideas are welcome of course as the cropping on the web is complicated, and though some sites do it quite efficiently, they aren’t too eager to help us out with it.
3. Immediate addition of work to the site, with automatic web image sizing features, and perhaps we can find a way to keep the “close up” feature and give you control of the function.

The above control issues will not only make our lives easier on this end so we can work toward more of the promotional aspects, but inherently you will also see more immediate results and have more control over your gallery.

Drew

It’s Drew, your administrative utility man and fellow artist from The Untapped Source! Below is the final bulletin for the year 2007. Your thoughts as always are welcome.

Topics:
1. New Categories!
2. Working Out The Kinks
3. Artist Cart Update
4. Subdomains
5. Thoughts on Music

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1. New Categories:
We have added two new categories:
   1. Still-Life
   2. Beauty Glamour
If you believe you have an image(s) that would fit into these categories, we are willing to take on suggestions as to what those might be. As always, we try to categorize so that visitors can navigate properly, so let us know if you believe you have work on the site that would fit the above categories. Also, any suggestions on new categories that aren’t super specific or rare are welcome.

2. Still Working Out The Kinks:
Upload Method:
So it seems that we are going to be trying out a new server/hosting company in order to finally alleviate the now and again troubles with uploading, which from what we can tell, have no real rhyme or reason. Big files, small files, png or tif, it’s becoming abundantly clear that godaddy (our hosting company) is just not cutting it. We are currently testing things out with a company we believe to be a step up, Media Temple. Just as a way to get some numbers on how many have been affected by this nuisance, please send an email to drew@theuntappedsource.com with a simple statement of an upload problem for you. As the site is a collective and for everyone, all the info we can get to make it the best it can be is greatly appreciated.

3. Artist Cart System:
This entirely separate cart system for you guys to purchase your own artwork at reduced prices is still being worked on, and has been on the backburner due to a few reasons out of our hands (for one, some of our staff related to this were displaced due to those horrible fires in Southern California last month). For now, and many of you have already taken advantage of this already of course, feel free to send us an email regarding purchasing your own work at the reduced price, and we can do transactions in a number of ways unrelated to the new cart system being worked (paypal, modified prices at particular times on the actual sites normal cart system, etc….we’ll work with you.)

4. Subdomains:
If you don’t have a subdomain yet, please let us know, we’ll get that setup for you. Since at this point we set these up all manually and in batches, it is possible for a setup mistake here and there.

Continuing to spread the good word about the artists that inhabit The Untapped Source is vital in our initial phase of operation, and as we move forward. Our plans for marketing and such cannot take place until our completion of the site, which is still a little ways off. So keep linking to your work at the site, which in the end is not only good for you, but for everyone involved as a whole. And as always, we love suggestions from you guys, and keep submitting new works as they come.

5. Addition of Music:
So we’ve been thinking about adding music to the site in some facet or another. Not in a way that would be profitable directly necessarily in terms of sales of tracks, but more so to add a little more content and stuff to do when visiting the site and sifting through all the great artworks on display. If anyone knows of a company that would maybe be able to supply music for listening purposes on site while viewing the artwork, we’d be happy to hear about it. It seems that the more content and cool stuff on display both for viewing and listening at The Untapped Source can be nothing but beneficial to the gallery experience, and having control over both sounds and visuals as a viewing seems to be a proper first step in this direction. This idea is very general in nature at the moment, so all ideas will be entertained. So exercise that obvious creative nature in you and let us know what you think!

Happy Holidays from The Untapped Staff!

Hey fellow Untapped Artists!

This is Matthew from www.theuntappedsource.com with an update for all of you on what’s going on with the site lately. Here is a quick run down for you of what is in this bulletin.

1. New look!
2. Advertising
3. Business cards for you!
4.  Protecting your work
5.  Banner for our website
6.  Misc. Thoughts

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1. New Look!
Please check out the new home page and gallery if you have not been on the site lately. Press the refresh button on the main page to see various images from the site appear, as we have made it so all artwork on the site has a chance to show up on the front page at one point or another. We now have separation by digital/traditional/photography. And we have begun to help push the artists with the new “Featured Artist” on the main page, we will be interviewing all of you for this feature in a bit so everyone has a chance to get to be a featured artist. However, if you want to get that status, you must have at least 10 pieces in your gallery at The Untapped Source. We are going to have a news section soon too, which will have our press releases and other important info that we want to share. There are many new features all over the site, just look around and see for yourself. And as always, any suggestions you have are welcome. If we are all to benefit from The Untapped Source as the company grows, we should all be involved!

2. Advertising
We are working to advertise everyone’s work. We have a consistent and comprehensive plan that will soon be taking effect. In the meantime, referring those interested in buying prints of your individual work is beneficial to you and the site as we offer the best profit sharing model available (and quality control and customer service, two things many other sites do not offer). We feel we have a great base developed regarding our website and are always looking to improve. If anyone has any ideas to help get more exposure, sites to link with or whatever, let us know. Everyone gains from site traffic.

3. Business cards
We are now offering business card templates to members of our site for FREE. They are customizable and can easily be taken to a local printer for printing. If there is a lot of interest in this, we will begin to add some other perks for you for being a member. Check them out in the FAQ page of the Artist Access Center, and tell us what you think of their usefulness and whether or not you would find a use for them in promoting yourself. We offer this as a first step in supplemental promotion for member artists. For example, a good use for the business cards would be, if you didn’t want to have your subdomain on your personal business card, this could be a useful and professional piece of reference material for use at conventions or handing out to friends in passing. We have more unique ideas in store for the future, which we hope will be useful to our artists.

4. Protecting your work
I have heard a few emails from artists worried about images on the site being too easy to be taken off the site. The larger images on the site cannot be saved via right clicking, and we are going to be adding watermarks to each larger image to prevent those who would take screen shots. The images are saved through web optimization tools, so the quality of the images appearance goes down almost unnoticeably, but the ability for others to use the image for printing purposes becomes nearly impossible. So no worries, your artwork is safe at www.theuntappedsource.com.

5. Banners
Remember, you can advertise yourself by putting our banner in your myspace pages, personal websites and wherever else it might be useful! The banner is found here on the FAQ page or you can just copy and paste this code after copying the image of our banner.

6. Random Thoughts
Please keep in mind when uploading images to keep them close to normal printable size ratios (ie, 12×33 is not good). If you submit a size like that, we will most likely bounce the piece back to you and ask you to crop the image or add an unobtrusive border. If you are close enough to a printable size, we will fix it but anything way off we will not accept.

We are currently having issues with .TIF file uploads. So for now, please upload your work as either .png or .jpg (.png preferably, as it is a lossless format). We will have the issue with .TIF files fixed soon. The .TIF’s do usually come through, but for some reason, a few of you are having issues getting them to upload properly. We are on it.

A lot is happening at our site, we are off the ground and growing! So stay tuned as we continue to expand our viewership and thanks to all who have been helping us work out the bugs in the upload process, it’s much appreciated! If anyone has any suggestions or comments feel free to email me. See you next bulletin, and as a side note, myself and the rest of The Untapped Staff are working toward a more conversational and fun to read format for our bulletins.

Matthew