As you may have guessed from the name, CollegeArtOnline.com is a site that sells artwork created solely by college students and professors. Actually, anyone who has attended art school in the past 3-5 years may sign up to sell their work.
Though the site specializes in selling student artwork, it is far from amateurish in look and feel. The design of the site is solid, and in general the artwork is very strong. Anyone looking to purchase original, contemporary artwork (especially on a budget) should include CollegeArtOnline.com as one of their resources.
Joining CollegeArtOnline.com
CollegeArtOnline.com is completely free to join and there is no limit to the amount of art you can sell. Sellers are free to set their own price, though it must fall somewhere between $100-$3000.
When setting their price, sellers should be sure to take into account the 25% commission that CollegeArtOnline.com charges when a piece is sold.
From an artist’s perspective, all the standard selling features that you’d expect are included. When you sign up you are provided with a profile page to which you can add your location, school, birthday, artistic inspirations, and bio information. (This is also the page that houses all of your artwork thumbnails.)
One unique feature that CollegeArtOnline offers is the ability to put your art up for auction, if you so choose. You can set the minimum amount that you’ll accept, and once that price is met, bidding remains open for one week before it is sold.
After making a sale, CollegeArtOnline pays sellers either by check or direct deposit.
Effectiveness of design and layout
The design of CollegeArtOnline.com is appropriately simple and easy to navigate. Personally, I appreciate when the design of an art selling website doesn’t compete with the artwork it’s trying to sell, and that’s the case here.
The navigation is consistent from the homepage throughout the rest of the site. Most of the real estate on the homepage is devoted to art that can be found around the site.
If you see something you like, you can click on the image from the homepage, or use one of the search options found in the navigation just above.
CollegeArtOnline.com has a nice orange and gray color theme, and overall is one of the easiest-to-navigate sites that I’ve come across.
Finding and buying art at CollegeArtOnline.com
There are several ways to find art on CollegeArtOnline.com, and all of them are accessible from the main navigation bar.
Rolling over “Browse Art” reveals a submenu with several searching options. Customers can search by category (paintings, works on paper, photographs, sculptures, mixed media, prints) look at recently added pieces, search by artist, or see selections made by the CollegeArtOnline.com staff.
There’s also an Advanced Search option which provides all of these search methods on one page as well as searches by color, size and price.
Finally, CollegeArtOnline’s “Curated Exhibitions” is a feature that allows selected individuals to choose pieces to be included in their own searchable gallery on the site.
In summary:
CollegeArtOnline.com fills a very specific niche. By only selling artwork created by students and professors, they are able to offer great artwork at an affordable price. The design is clean and the site is extremely user friendly.
It’s still a new site, but the guys running it (Vincent de Sarthe and Adam Rosepink) seem very enthusiastic and committed to making it a success.
If you’re in art school, just graduated, or an art professor, I see no reason not to join CollegeArtOnline.com. Head on over and check it out!