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PortSort, founded in 1997, is an experienced, member-controlled cooperative organization. We offer you, the illustrator, and your potential clients, an alternative to the corporate pay-for-display Web sites that are influencing -- and trying to dominate -- our industry as well as our professional organizations.
-- We want to become the place where the finest illustrators display their portfolios and compete for projects.
Concerned about the loss of stature and respect the art and craft of Illustration has endured the last few years? PortSort is the place for you!
There's no cost to you, the illustrator, for inclusion in this database of creative talent. By becoming a PortSort member-illustrator, you're granting permission for a salaried agent working for the membership of PortSort to promote, negotiate, contract and invoice projects, as well as deduct a 25% commission from the proceeds.
READY TO APPLY?
Selection for membership in PortSort is determined by your "saleability" within the advertising, publishing, entertainment and other illustration buying industries. As a PortSort member-illustrator, you're expected to possess a professional attitude; to present your best images; to optimize their presentation; and to supply clean, crisp, professional scans.
Send your samples, either in disposable form or with a SASE (if you want them returned) to:
Or, email your digital images (smaller than 100K, please!) to:
Or, upload them to our FTP site at:
Access our ftp site with any ftp software, or use your wen browser to go to:
If you're selected for PortSort membership, you'll get (via email or fax) an invitation letter with further instructions.
YOU'RE IN! NOW WHAT?
You'll be expected to declare a specialty within a subject and style category, and to be competitive with other illustrators in that specialty. Your portfolio must contain 12 images that professionally reflect your specialty. You can submit multiple portfolios -- as long as each has 12 images in a separate and distinct specialty. As a PortSort member-illustrator, you'll also be expected to update and keep current your contact information and to periodically provide new images for your portfolio.
PortSort is a non-exclusive agent. Here's what we'll do for you:
PortSort.com makes no claims to copyright ownership or reproduction rights in any images appearing within its database or on its web site, and will aggressively protect the intellectual property rights of its creator members.
PortSort charges a 25% commission only when it finds a project for a member-illustrator. Within this model, project commissions from the most successful illustrators help to support the free display of new, emerging talent, as well as the advertising, marketing, and branding of PortSort.com to art directors and art buyers -- creating more project opportunities for member-illustrators.
We don't personally promote individual illustrators, but do spend our resources promoting our entire database of hand selected professional illustrators as an easy-to-use tool for finding the best talent for any project. We also use individual illustrator images to promote PortSort in mailings, web site "decoration" and advertising that will benefit the selected illustrator with additional exposure.
POSITIONING YOUR PORTFOLIO
Art buyers using PortSort will often Seach by theme or subject" to find the illustrator they need. It's up to you to carefully choose the most accurate, appropriate "keywords" that will lead an art buyer directly to your portfolio.
Review the list of keywords on the "Search by theme or subject" list for the subjects found in your images, (such as landscape, decorative, animals, portraits, etc.) Next, check the lists under "Style" and "Media" and -- accurately and honestly -- chose the keywords that best describe your work. Need a new word added to a search list? Let us know and we'll add it!
Art buyers frequently require that we overnight "hard" portfolios for their own internal selection process. Because of this, all PortSort members must supply a 4in.x 5in. transparency portfolio for work having 'texture' or extreme detail, or a high-quality 4in.X 5in. (trimmed exactly) print portfolio for work with flat colors and less detail. (We'll mount these in our own presentation holders.) If you don't have a hard portfolio in our office, your portfolio pages will not indicate "portfolio availability" and won't be included in most presentation opportunities, seriously reducing your chances of getting projects.
All PortSort artists must also supply 72dpi scans (at 360 pixels to the image's widest or highest measure) for each portfolio image submitted. Format any media you send, to a PC or Mac/PC format.
JOIN THE BEST!
Some of the top illustrators in North America are already members of PortSort.com, and new members are coming on board daily. PortSort.com national advertising has appeared in "Creativity Magazine;" in direct mail to 18,000 art buyers; and in Internet visibility programs.
PortSort.com reserves the right to remove talent from the database (for reasons explained within its "Rules and By-Laws") at any time in order to preserve the integrity of the database and its member-illustrators.
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR CAREER
As an illustrator concerned with intellectual property rights, your own career and the future of the illustration business, it's in your best interests to support PortSort.com in the same way you support other artist-controlled organizations like The Illustrators Partnership of America (IPA); The Society of Illustrators; The Graphic Artists Guild; and Slantville. It's in organizations like these that you'll find people advocating for your rights as creators.
PortSort.com empowers its member-illustrators by giving them voting rights to control management and their compensation; to effect changes; to modify and improve policies; and determine the quality and professionalism of their own membership. (Member-illustrators become voting members after one year of portfolio display.)
This is truly activist territory! Power previously centralized with a few individuals is now being exercised by the creators themselves, proving that you can take control of your own destiny.
NEED MORE CONVINCING?
The profession of illustration has endured a multi-decade loss of stature due to changing market forces, trends, and new technology. Corporate mega-mergers have consolidated corporate power. Multinational corporations have the resources, technological capabilities -- and the will --to exploit image makers (that's you!) by dominating the market and creating a dependence on them for your income merely by controlling the content of image databases.
"Stock image" companies, such as the recently merged Corbis-Getty, threaten the hard-earned rights of creators by hoarding images, grabbing all rights and driving down prices. Art Schools and printed creative source directories have created a glut of emerging talent, who, with too few new project assignments, are all too eager to give their work away for a pittance. Clients regularly demand buyouts and "work for hire" agreements -- in exchange for fees that haven't changed in 25 years! The need to organize has become apparent.
Ask yourself: "How are some existing business models working against me, and other illustrators?
The numerous printed creative source directories (a.k.a. "doorstops"), while incredibly successful for the publishers, have outlived their usefulness for the illustrators. "Pay-for-display" web sites direct more of their advertising budgets to contracting new illustrators that to finding art buyers to look at the increasing numbers of portfolios.
Successful artist agents serve too few of the industry's talent to have much effect on the big picture. (The bad agents are another story altogether!). Art directors and art buyers don't have time to "shmooze" anymore. And they change jobs so fast it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. Just type the word "Illustrator" into a search engine, and you'll see half-a-million (and counting) reasons why you're having such a hard time getting "found" with your own personal web site.
But can these same market forces, trends and technology work in YOUR favor? Yes!
The answer is artist-controlled, cooperative businesses that compete with the powerful corporations on their own turf while cutting out the middle-man. With this model, illustrators can take control of their own intellectual property, images and careers and thrive as part of a competitive, quality, creative resource for art buyers.
HISTORY LESSONS
The concept of organizing people of shared interest into businesses is not new. "Seikatsu" is a Japanese term for this kind of organization. Remember the Amana Colonies and the appliances they made? Another successful cooperative in action.
Alaskan salmon fishermen empowered themselves by building this kind of organization. As individuals, salmon fishermen would return to the docks and individually negotiate prices for the fish in their holds. Time was against them, though: they needed to sell before the fish went bad.
The buyers would hold out to make the fishermen sell at lower prices. When the fisherman finally organized, they collectively agreed to negotiate only as a group and only before they went fishing. Now the buyers that didn't want to pay fair market prices would find themselves without fish. Advantage? Salmon fishermen!
And now, you now enjoy the same advantages as a member of an artist-controlled, cooperative business organization: PortSort.com!
GET INVOLVED
When we decided to build an Internet database of creative talent, we wanted to make PortSort.com as perfect a tool as could be imagined. We wanted to ensure that PortSort.com would be extremely useful for those that used it, as well as those that displayed images on it. We wanted to offer illustrators a valuable business service, as well as the negotiating advantage of a powerful member organization. We wanted the database to be self-sustaining, self-regulating, and easy to use. We wanted it to involve a democratic organization that would primarily function as a business, but also advocate for its industry's future. We wanted the database and its structure to be flexible enough to evolve as new technology brings new challenges.
We think that we have achieved those goals and, if we haven't yet, we can easily make changes through our built-in democratic processes. If you have a promotion idea, let us know. We want to keep all of our names in the minds of art buyers! Please support us as we will support you.
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