Licensing Art with Jehane Boden Spiers
Last week I had the pleasure of talking to Jehane Boden Spiers of Jehane Ltd about her role as an art consultant and how she helps artists license their work.
Here I write about eight things I learned from that conversation which you can hear in its’ entirety on the podcast here.
Jehane is pronounced with a soft J sound like Je suis not the harder J of Joshi or Juliet.
Anything can be licensed — music, jewellery, designs on sculpture or ceramics, as well as fine art, original paintings, illustration, prints.
Images are licensed for editorial, book covers and packaging or they can be licensed for products where the design is integral to the product such as the design on a calendar, greetings card or biscuit tin.
Payments are made as fees or royalties. Fees are advisable if the client is buying one image or two images. Royalties are advised when multiple images are used, and the artist earns royalties each time the products are sold.
Buyers are considering designs around 15–18 months ahead of the season they are looking to stock the work. For example, a business looking to produce work for spring 2019, they are considering the designs around the end of 2017 to early 2018.
Buyers of licensed images are making an investment in the designs. They have committed to production of often large volumes of the product and attend the trade shows to take orders from retailers and stockists.
Giving away copyright is a common pitfall of artists who self represent when they have little experience of licensing their art. Copyright belongs to the artist who created the work, and the best outcome is where they can increase the income from the image throughout their lifetime and beyond.
Artists are entitled to sell their work directly — for example at open studios- even if they have licensed the image for use on products.
You can learn more about the services that Jehane provides at www.jehane.com