You might recall that several times during the past few months, we asked community members for feedback and input regarding the state of stock resources on deviantART.  After much research, including digging through and taking into account each and every comment left by deviants, we’ve decided to start down the path of building a fully integrated commercial stock offering on deviantART.  In doing so, we will dedicate resources to accomplish this in a way that uniquely reflects the community and serves its special interests and needs.  

We’re starting off with two important initiatives: a partnership with Fotolia.com and the deviantART Stock Project (#StockProject).

We’ve chosen to partner with Fotolia, a leading microstock provider worldwide, for their extensive collection of commercial stock assets and their expertise.  Here’s why:

  it consistently offers the best prices for stock
  it consistently offers the best split for artists who make stock
  it has an international footprint
  perhaps most importantly, it has a management attitude that understands the importance to their business of developing community as resource -- a point of view not shared by any of its competitors

Starting immediately, Fotolia is making all of its stock art available to the deviantART Stock Project through a special portal.  Go, take a look, sign up, and browse over 10 million pieces of stock assets!  Their use agreements are simple, straightforward, and well-managed.  If you need commercial stock for your projects, the deviantART Stock Project on Fotolia should make your creative life a whole lot easier.

The second step we’ve taken on this exciting project is that we’ve put together a new group called the deviantART Stock Project.  We want this group to become the focus of discussion in the community about how we should design and implement a stock offering directly on deviantART, which started months ago with the first #hq blog post about stock on deviantART.  Our goal here is to find a way to maintain the incredibly vibrant stock community already active on deviantART, retain every deviant’s right to participate in that community, and also create a well-organized commercial stock offering.  People will come to deviantART to use our stock collections and that will focus attention -- and sales -- on deviants that produce stock.

We encourage you to take a look around the deviantART Stock Project group and participate with your suggestions and input.  We’ve posted some great educational materials on microstock, other articles of interest, and even a bunch of free stock images (totally free!) courtesy of Fotolia.

This is only the very beginning of a process leading to the best stock offering out there -- because it will be the only stock offering designed by artists for artists.  We may bump around a bit.  As we experiment here and there, we expect to make some minor mistakes. But we assure you we will work as hard as we can to get it right by keeping deviants directly involved in and excited about the deviantART Stock Project as it evolves.

      Get started!  #StockProject