PAINTCOLLAR

India, the home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world, has an abundance of beautiful art forms. Most of these art forms are either forgotten, or still live on as they are and some have been molded to fit the needs of globalization.

However, with the advent of globalization, the value of aesthetic moments has changed. While culture and traditions give us a sense of belonging, it only represents the outward appearance of things instead of their inner significance. Hence, in order to preserve, promote and protect the art in India, there are various NGO’s in India that realize the importance of creating awareness about it. In this piece, Paintcollar brings to you, five Indian non-profits that have been successful in promoting Art through creative methods.

1. ST+ART

St+art India is a non profit organization that aims to make art as accessible as finding it on the streets of India. Through their art festivals in major cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Bombay, they work towards changing the visual landscape of a city through installations, murals, screenings, tours, workshops and more. In their Delhi edition of the festival, which was held in February 2016, St+art managed to rope in more than 25 artists from across the globe. They were successful in transforming Delhi’s Lodhi Colony into India’s first public art district. In an attempt to resume the use of street art as a social and participatory action, issues like women empowerment and Clean India Mission were also addressed.

The next edition is going to be hosted in Bombay in October! Don’t forget to sign up and witness this initiative promote art.

2. The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA)

An Indian non-profit organization, FICA aims to widen the audience for Indian contemporary art, increase prospects for artists, and develop an ongoing dialogue between arts, artists and the people through various events, education and public art projects. One of their primary events is “young at art”, a program that gives autonomy to children’s creativity and imagination, while familiarizing them to art and its historical perspectives. They also have various national-level awards, scholarships and grants to promote emerging artists and their art work. FICA understands the grave need for quality research in India and through the FICA Research Fellowship, they aim to recognize, support and inspire researchers, writers and scholars working in the field of visual arts.

Artists interested in Media Arts can apply for a residency program organized by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. You will get to stay in Tokyo on an all-expenses paid trip, with an aim to not only support the creation of significant artworks but also to stimulate cross-cultural dialogues. Deadline: September 19, 2017.

3. Very Special Arts India (VSAI)

Established in 1986, Very Special Arts India (VSAI) is a non-profit organization that works to create a platform where all those with disabilities can come together in order to create, learn and enjoy the arts. They firmly believe in their motto: to fortify the belief of those less privileged, that, no mental or physical challenge need ever limit the human potential to create and excel. Unlike other organizations working with the disabled, VSAI uses remedial art therapies including visual arts, dance, music and crafts. “Art as therapy” embodies the idea that art making is, in and of itself, therapeutic and that the creative process is a growth-producing experience. Art is used by VSAI to support, maintain, and improve the psychosocial, physical, cognitive and spiritual health of individuals of all ages. They believe that art, in any form, enhances the health and has a positive effect on the quality of life.

Anyone can volunteer to generously contribute their time and skills to help run the activities to help the children and youth, through art.

4. Indian Institute of Cartoonists (IIC)

The Indian Institute of Cartoonists is a one of its kind organization, that has been established with the sole aim to promote the art of cartooning in India. Based out of Bangalore, this organization aims to provide recognition to talents in cartooning, reward them and give them an opportunity to showcase their artworks. IIC has done commendable work in order to preserve this art form for the future generations, guide the budding cartoonists and primarily to promote this art among the masses. Presumably, IIC is one of the few organizations that successfully works in the field of cartooning. They organize cartoon galleries for budding artists every month, host various cartoon workshops and have numerous awards that are bestowed upon those who have excelled in the art of cartooning.

The organization will soon be starting a one-year certificate course in Cartooning. The candidates will be training in spheres like basics of cartooning, caricatures, political and social cartoons and even be educated about the business and advertising aspects of cartooning.

5. Happy Hands Foundation

Happy Hands Foundation is a non-profit organization that is dedicated towards the revitalizing of traditional or folk arts and crafts, that will assist in empowering rural artisans and promoting community development. Sorrowfully, more than 200 Indian crafts are on the verge of extinction today and many artisans have switched to other labor jobs. Through the process of industrialization and globalization, the life of craftsman and artisans has been reduced to extreme poverty. Today, Happy Hands foundation markets arts and crafts as distinctive and unheard of as Sujini, Dhokra, Cheriyal, Bidri, and Sikki grass. Through their various programs, Happy Hands has successfully introduced artisan products for corporate gifting, helped Indian artists to inculcate more through international exchange programs and inspired artisans to start their own ventures and sell their products online.

Join them and indulge in the journey of the forgotten significance of heritage and culturally rich arts and crafts, artisan empowerment, youth leadership and entrepreneurship in arts, and cultural exchanges.

There are two kinds of people in this world- the ones who feel and the ones who think. Thankfully, there are various non-governmental organizations who feel as well as think and strive towards helping and promoting a cause for the greater good.

T-shirts and other apparel are among the most popular ways in which people express their love for a particular artwork or design. So it comes as no surprise that T-shirts are one of the most highly sold products on Paintcollar. Given the popularity of T-shirt art, it makes sense to understand how to create the perfect T-shirt and put in a little extra effort to make sure that your designs come out great when printed. Here we have put together a collection of simple tips and tricks that you can use to create fabulous T-shirts on Paintcollar. Any designs you create using these tips can also go on other apparels like hoodies that are available on Paintcollar.

Background

T-shirts look best when your design has a transparent background and the colour of the T-shirt comes through. If you have a background colour it will be printed as a rectangular block and will not always look good. Here’s an example:

As you can see, the image on the right looks much better on a T-shirt than the one on the left. The one on the left might work on a black T-shirt but not on other coloured T-shirts while the one on the right will work well on many different T-shirt colours.

To fall in the Awesome T-shirts category, always upload a PNG image with a transparent background. Since designing on a transparent background can be hard, you can fill the bottom most layer with a colour and hide it before saving the design.

If you have a hand painted artwork that you want to upload on a T-shirt, you will first have to digitize it and remove the background before uploading. You can either vectorise your artwork using Adobe Illustrator and then remove the background or if your artwork cannot be vectorised you can view this step by step tutorial to remove the background and save as a PNG file.

Colour modes

You might have noticed that sometimes the colour that appears on a printed T-shirt is a bit different from the colour you used in the original design. This happens mainly due to the difference in colour modes. Here’s how you can understand and solve this problem.

RGB and CMYK are the 2 major colour modes available to designers. The graphic below shows the range of colours available in each of the colour modes.

As you can see, out of all the colours visible to the human eye, RGB mode covers the most while CMYK covers a smaller range. If you are designing something that is going to be viewed on a screen, RGB is the best mode to use. However while designing for printing on apparel it is highly recommended that you use the CMYK mode. That is because printing on apparels happens only in CMYK.

If you design in RGB and look at the design printed on a T-shirt (in CMYK) you may notice some difference in colours. The colour wheels below show how RGB colours look in CMYK mode.

As you can see, the bright blue, green and yellow colours have changed the most upon conversion to CMYK. To avoid such differences between your design file and printed product, Paintcollar recommends that you design for apparels using CMYK colour mode.

However, please note that designs created in CMYK colour mode cannot be saved in the PNG format required for apparel uploads. After designing you will have to change the colour mode to RGB before saving in PNG format. There will not be any change in colour when you do this since the range of CMYK colours falls within the RGB colour range. When we print your design we will convert it back from RGB to CMYK. There will be no change in colour with this.

Image size

Paintcollar’s recommended image size for T-shirts is 2125 x 3000 pixels. This means that an image of this size will exactly cover the maximum T-shirt printing area as illustrated below.

You can use the Scale feature in the Creation Engine to scale the image down to fit within the bounding box if required. Note that the scale feature will only enable you to reduce the size of the design, not increase it. Or if your artwork is quite detailed and you need to work on it in a larger size, you can reduce the size before saving and uploading.

Placement

Placement of your design on the T-shirt is another important factor you should consider. Your design might be great but if it is placed awkwardly it might not get any takers. When you upload an artwork by default it goes in the center of the bounding box. If your design is in a portrait aspect ratio this default placement might work well for you.

If your design is closer to being square or circular in shape or has a landscape aspect ratio, it is advisable to move it towards the top. This will ensure that the design is printed on the chest region. If you keep the default placement for such a design it will be printed on the stomach region which looks awkward. You can adjust placement by clicking and dragging the design within the bounding box. The difference between the two is shown below:

We hope this guide helped you design your next T-shirt perfectly. If you have any questions or would like to suggest a few more points please feel free to write to us at [email protected]