Archive | Art

Painting a Picture

One of the products in the gift shop at this year’s sold-out Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is a licensed plush figure depicting Dick Bruna’s rabbit character Miffy as Vermeer’s The Milkmaid. This is the latest in a small but growing group of collaborations, mostly taking place in Europe or Asia, whose design inspiration […]

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Down to a Fine Art

The concept of “artist series,” consisting of in-and-out collections featuring the imagery of a variety of artists, has been with us for decades. But the strategy is certainly experiencing a surge in recent years. Apparel, accessories, and footwear are the most frequent sectors where artist series take place; however, marketers in a growing number of […]

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State of the Art

Museums, from the V&A in London to MoMA in New York, have been involved in both inbound and outbound licensing for a long time, and several players have been entering and expanding their licensing activities at a fast pace over the last two years. Institutions including The Met, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Oxford University’s […]

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Gnome Décor

Gnomes have been an integral part of home décor, and popular culture in general, for decades, always an evergreen presence with waxing and waning popularity over time. Sales are currently in the midst of a long uptrend, with the latest resurgence ongoing since the mid-2010s. Google Trends, which measures interest based on the number of […]

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Design on Demand

The increasingly important role of print on demand in art licensing was one of the topics discussed in the “Spotlight: Art Licensing” session at Licensing University in late August. Licensing U was produced by Licensing International and took place alongside Licensing Expo Virtual. Print-on-demand platforms have had an ever greater impact as the technology has […]

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Museums Mark Mid-Autumn

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a celebration of the Harvest Moon that takes place in China and other parts of Asia, this year on September 21. In the lead-up to this big holiday, designers and fashion labels, chefs, hotels, corporate brands, characters, and video game properties have increasingly partnered for gift sets containing mooncakes, a delicacy […]

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Color Schemes

A number of museums have recently worked with licensees or collaborators on products that feature a work of art’s color palette as the core design element. This is in contrast to incorporating a full representation of the original work or a pattern or element inspired by it, which is the traditional route taken by most […]

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The Many Facets of Diamond Painting

Modern diamond painting—a craft in which the user applies tiny colored resin “diamonds” to a canvas in a process sometimes described as a hybrid of paint by number and cross stitch—is a relatively new hobby, introduced in 2015 in Asia and brought to the U.S. in 2017. Its fast pace of growth has quickly turned […]

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