Selling prints of their artwork is one of the most common ways for artists to monetize their work. But in order to attract buyers, you must show your printed art in an appealing manner. In this post, I have six tips for you how to display art prints for sale online that will help you make your work look good from all angles and generate sales!
Selling prints is a profitable income stream for many artists. Especially if you’re planning to start your own art business, it’s important to know how to display art prints for sale online.
After all, you want your printed artwork to leave the best impression possible, right?
Having a professional-looking portfolio on your website, or any other site for that matter, is one of the main keys to successfully selling your art. That’s why in this blog post, I’ve put together six tips how to display art prints for sale online that both traditional and digital artists can apply.
Here we go:
If you don’t have your own artist website and you’re not up to making a website for your art any time soon, there are other options to list art prints for sale online.
Some sites that will conveniently print, package and ship your art prints for you are FineArtAmerica, RedBubble, and Society6. Another popular online marketplace for all things art is Etsy. Here you have greater freedom of creative presentation, but you are responsible for print production and order fulfillment yourself.
Related: 10 Best Places To Display Digital Art That Every Artist Should Be Using
When I started my own artist website (the one you’re on now), I had no idea how to present my art for sale. I created an online shop using WooCommerce for WordPress, and then I would simply upload the finished piece plus a couple of close-ups.
That’s good for a start. But it’s definitely not enough to attract online art buyers.
Why not? Because people do not only want to see the finished artwork. They want to know what the piece looks like when hung up on a wall. They want to get an idea what the works looks like in different settings: in a living room, in a bedroom, in an office.
They want to have the real-life experience and see the art print they are planning to buy from different angles, before even hitting the “Add to Cart” button.
That’s why it’s imperative that you display prints of your art in a holistic and versatile way that includes something to everyone’s taste. But most importantly, your art print display must look nice, clean, and professional!
Why is it important to professionally display art prints for sale online?
Since we already talked about taste above, look at it this way: the appeal of food does not just depend on its flavor, but also on its visual presentation.
You know that we eat not only with our mouths, but also with our eyes. In fact, we experience food first through our eyes, and then through our taste buds. If the first impression looks promising, we are more willing to try the dish. Right?
But that’s not all.
A recent study from Oxford University revealed that diners were willing to spend three times more for food presented in a way that made it look appetizing—and appear to be more expensive.
For art, things work pretty much the same. That’s why we artists should make a similar effort to display art prints for sale online. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
What kind of art prints are there?
Before we’re getting into it, it’s crucial for artists to know what types of prints are actually available. There are major differences between the different print types—both in appearance and in quality.
Typically, art prints are made on archival photographic paper. Archival papers are especially sturdy. They resist deterioration and decay, ensuring that your art prints look good for a very long period of time of up to 100 years!
Archival art paper is acid-free, lignin-free, and pH balanced to prevent yellowing and fading. In other words, they preserve the original beauty and value of your art for decades.
The most used photographic papers for art prints are matte, glossy, satin, and metallic papers. Matte prints are commonly used for framing, while glossy and metallic prints also look great unframed.
A higher-quality type of fine art prints are Giclée prints. Typically, giclees are printed either on photographic paper, canvas, or cotton rag.
You can find more information on the different types of art prints in my following posts:
Some of the best and cost-effective online printing services for art prints on photographic paper are Printful and Printify.
For top-quality Giclée prints, I can recommend Giclee Today, FinerWorks, and The Stackhouse.
What is the best way to display art prints?
If you are a traditional artist, your primary goal will be to sell your original artworks. After all, original artwork has some of the highest profit margins.
Nevertheless, you’ll still need to display your original art for sale in a way that grabs the attention of potential buyers and looks appealing. That’s why traditional artists can benefit from the following tips on how to display art prints for sale online, too.
Apart from that, art lovers who cannot afford the original works will be happy to see that prints of your original artwork are available in your shop as well.
If you are a digital artist like me, it’s even easier to make your art look good for online presentation, because you don’t need to first scan or take photos of your originals. All you need to do is save your digital art for web use and you’re good to go!
Related: Best File Format For Printing Digital Art (Prints From Print Shop & Home)
With that being said, here are my six best tips for displaying art prints for sale online. Let’s go!
6 Tips to display art prints for sale online
Tip #1: Know Your Target Audience
Before anything else, you must know what kind of people are interested in buying your art prints. Are your buyers mostly young and trendy or a bit older and more conventional? Of course, this also depends on the type of art you create.
Tastes, emotions, and values play a huger role in the buying decision. People buy the art that they like and that speaks to them. If the artwork conveys some sort of story that resonates with them, they are more inclined to buy the work.
For more tips on how to figure out your target customers, read my post This Demographic Buys Art Prints (*Must-Know For Artists Wanting To Sell*).
Tip #2: Offer Art Prints In Different Sizes
Not everyone has a huge wall to fill and the budget to spend on large prints. That’s why you should offer—and display—your art prints in a number of different sizes. For example, you could offer each print in a small, medium, and large size.
In fact, the size of an art print can influence its popularity. It’s always a good idea to stick to the standard fine art print sizes, because that makes it easier for people to find a frame, in case they want to frame your piece.
Read my other post to learn more about standard printing sizes and The Best Size For Art Prints That Sells The Most.
Always offer your art prints in different sizes, so there’s something for everyone’s taste and budget. I consistently offer art prints in small, medium, and large size of all my works. In the screenshot, you see ‘Cat & Mouse‘ from my Surreal Stories Collection.
Tip #3: Display Your Art Prints In Various Settings
We all live in different types of homes and may want an art print for a different room. Keeping that in mind, you should make sure to display your art prints for sale in different settings and different rooms.
Show your print in a cozy living room, a modern bedroom or office, a downtown apartment or rustic country house. When you show your customers that your art looks amazing in a variety of interiors, you will give it a broader appeal and increase your chances of making a sale!
Displaying art prints in a variety of settings is important, because we all live in different types of homes. In the image above, I’m showing ‘Faithful Bunny‘ and ‘Scarlet Bunny‘ from my Headshots Collection in a modern living room.
Tip #4: Display Your Art Prints From Multiple Angles
Just like displaying your art prints in various settings, you should display them from multiple angles. The better an interested customer can imagine what your print looks like from different perspectives and in different rooms, the more likely they are to buy it.
Give them an idea of what the print looks like from different angles when hung on a wall, placed on a shelf, or standing on the floor. This ensures that your customers get a holistic view of the product and a true-to-life impression what the print actually looks like in their own homes.
Tip #5: Add Some Close-Ups Of Your Artwork
It’s always a good ideal to not only show the final artwork as a whole, but also add some close-ups of the details.
I love adding subtleties to my digital artwork that are not immediately obvious. Regardless of what type of artist you are, I’m sure there are some intricacies in your work, too, that deserve a closer look. This may be delicate color gradations, brush strokes, contours, textures, and other visual details.
The details are like the beating heart of your artwork. Marketers know that showing customers an abundance of in-depth details that help them understand the product’s features and benefits can positively influence the buying decision and encourage conversions.
So, if marketers already figured out how it works, why not apply their knowledge throughout your art prints display to promote your work?
More about art promotion: Why Marketing Is An Art & How To Market Your Art
I love adding subtle details to my artwork that are not obvious at first glance. While the bowman in the lower left corner of ‘Moonlight‘ might still be easy to spot, the clouds in form of jumping dears (circled in the close-up) are comparably harder to discern. The image is from the Making of ‘Moonlight’, where I speak more about the subtleties and the meaning behind the work.
Tip #6: Keep It Neat
My last tip for you on how to display art prints for sale online is to always keep the focus on the artwork itself. You should make sure to avoid any clutter in the background that could distract from the art.
Of course, furniture, plants, and other similar items can show in the image. However, the overall setting should be neat and tidy. When you keep everything nice and organized, your artwork will grab the immediate attention of the viewer—just the way it should be! ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
The best mock-ups to display art prints for sale online
Luckily, you don’t have to print out every single artwork of yours, hang it on wall, in different settings, and photograph it from different angles to make your art prints look good for sale online.
There are way easier options.
If you are a traditional artist, you’ll only need to have one good, well-lit photo of your painting (from a straight angle). As a digital artist, saving your digital creation for web is sufficient.
With that done, all you need to do is get a mock-up that looks good with your artwork. Decide in what kind of setting you’d like to display your work—I’m sure you’ll find a nice, customizable room mock-up for art print size you’d like to display.
Most mock-ups come as PSD files that you can edit in Photoshop or any other app capable of handling PSD files (→ TOP 4 FREE Alternatives To Photoshop). To put your own artwork into the premade scene, all you need to do is double-click on the Smart Object layer, paste your own image, hit save—and there you are!
Of course, you can also change lighting, hue, shadows, etc. in Photoshop. Everything can be customized to your liking.
In case the mock-up is meant to display your art print from an angle, you don’t need to worry about the perspective, because it will be adjusted automatically. That’s how easy it is.
Two great places to get art print mock-ups allowed for commercial use (i.e. for displaying your art prints for sale online) are Creative Market and Etsy.
On Creative Market, you can get find lots of high-quality wall art mock-ups at affordable prices. Oftentimes, you can purchase them as bundles at a discounted price.
Two beautiful and versatile art print mock-up bundles that include a variety of settings are the Kingas Room Mockups and the LA Poster Mockup Scenes that I recommend taking a look at on Creative Market.
If you like to shop on Etsy, check out the Living Room Mockup Bundle that includes 15 high-resolution files to display your art print in a range of exquisite settings.
