Susan and her husband, Nick Fader, founded Ditto Editions to cater specifically to artists who want to complement their originals with digitally-printed reproductions. "I think we’re unique," she says of the company they formed in 2003, following successful individual careers that exposed them to fine art, printing, prepress, graphic design, and marketing.

"Nick owned three companies—a design firm, a prepress house, and a workflow management firm," Susan recalls. "I owned a commercial design business in the ‘80s, for about ten years before I went into consumer brand marketing. We’ve both graduated from art school, and we’re both painters. Nick does oils, and I paint in watercolors. Although, ever since the business took off, we have no time to paint."

A mutual love for art—combined with his passion for technology and her marketing acumen—led them to their most recent business venture.

"When Nick had the prepress house, he became very tied to printing," Susan recalls. "He carefully watched all the digital movement and all the changes taking place in that industry, and he started to see the applications for fine art reproductions."

Enter Digital Inkjet Printing
Years before Ditto Editions was conceived, Nick Fader had experimented with inkjet technologies for his personal artistic endeavors. He had an Epson Stylus Pro 1200 installed in his art studio and started to play.

"He would take my watercolors—which were easier to work with than his canvases—flatbed scan them, and make prints," Susan recalls of her husband’s fascination with the technology. "They were dye-based, and he knew enough about the technology to know that they were not at all archival quality."

Fader later upgraded to an Epson Stylus Pro 2200, which used archival inks, and began to consider the future. A European prepress supplier offered to buy his businesses, and he and his wife started to imagine the career possibilities. "We thought we might own a design firm together, but we weren’t sure," she reminisces.

"Well, one day, Nick gets a delivery at his studio, and it’s the Epson Stylus Pro 7600. Now, his studio is his space, right? But still, I was having a conniption," Susan adds with a laugh. "He said that if we were going to open a design business, eventually we’d have to pull proofs. And I said, ‘Well, can we have some clients first?’ Of course, he knew exactly what he was doing."

Ditto Editions had modest beginnings—starting with just a few clients, mostly friends and fellow New England artists. "You know when you have kids and their friends come over to your house to ask if your kids can come out and play? Well, instead, it was grown ups with their noses pressed to our windows, asking, ‘Can Nick print something for me?’," says Susan.

They quickly created a business plan, the company was born, and business exploded. "He purchased the 7600 in October 2003," Susan adds. "By May, we bought an Epson Stylus Pro 9600, a BetterLight scanning back, and an Onyx RIP, and we opened a commercial space. We’ve grown from three to four artists knocking at the door to close to 100 now."

Marketing Fine Art Reproduction
With the help of three part-time employees, Nick Fader’s days are focused on the technology of fine art reproduction. He manages image capture, retouching, color management, and output, while his wife manages the front-office business, including sales and marketing.

Growing a fine art reproduction business, according to Nick, requires a blend of traditional and specialized marketing expertise. "We have a really great ad campaign running in Art New England, and we’re about to run in another publication, too. We also advertise in local art directories, art association newsletters, and such. We’ve definitely spent money on advertising, mostly in the last three to four months, but boy do we see the results of that. And, of course, we have our Web site, too, which we’re really proud of."

Equally as important as traditional advertising, Nick says that networking has been critical to Ditto Editions growth, and herein lies what makes their business unique. "We are artists, so we speak their language and have a respect for their world," he suggests. "We understand when they refer to a specific color of an oil paint they’ve used on their palette. I’m not sure that traditional commercial printers, who think they can work in this market, can speak that language."

Beyond promoting Ditto Editions to the New England art community, Susan says that it’s also been important to educate their client base on opportunities for selling their reproductions.

"Not only do I market our company, but I’m also really engrossed in helping our clients understand art marketing," Susan suggests. As an off-shoot of the reproduction business, Susan is in the process of launching www.myartmarketingcoach.com, which will serve as an artist’s resource, providing the community with must-know information and tips on selling reproductions.

Like its parent business, the site grew organically out of the Fader’s day-to-day conversations with fellow artists. "Artists would come to the studio to have Nick print a piece, and before I knew it, I would start offering my two cents about how they could sell them. I just couldn’t help myself!"

Susan’s free advice to clients provided the basis for a two-hour art marketing seminar she later developed and has now hosted for more than 350 artists across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Susan knows that the fine art reproduction business is confined by certain geographical parameters, largely because artists don’t like to let go of their art. "It’s their baby. They don’t want to send it away, and it’s so expensive to crate a good painting. They just don’t want to work that way," Fader suggests. "We do have a client in Zimbabwe and one in Minnesota, but most of our customers are based here in New England. What we’ve come to grips with is, yes, it is a regional business."

Evolution of the Process
By press time, Ditto Editions will have installed the new digital printer, an Epson Stylus Pro 9800, and soon after, will break through a wall and expand its manufacturing space.

Digital inkjet printers have, at long last, provided artists with accurate, reliable, and cost-efficient means for reproducing their work—and making money.

"Right this minute, Nick is trimming a very large print for an artist who will probably sell it for $1,800," Susan confides. "His originals go for about $25,000, so it’s great for his fans who can’t afford that type of investment.

"We have a client who’s a school teacher, with two kids of her own, and she loves to paint," Susan adds. "She’s built a very nice little art career based on selling her prints privately and to local art galleries. We’re also seeing charitable groups profiting from this technology. The most recent project we did was for a local hospice group that commissioned an artist to donate a painting for an auction. The original went for $8,500, but then they sold 50 limited-edition signed prints of the same image for more than $100 a piece. I wish that they’d talked to me first; I’d have told them they could sell them for so much more!"

Portraits prove to be another genre that can benefit from digital print, according to Susan. "Clients can order extra copies of the portrait for grandma or whoever, and they can get a high-quality print on canvas. That’s an additional product that painter can sell," she advises.

"In my mind, this process is absolutely revolutionary," Susan says of digital inkjet printing. "There has been nothing like this opportunity for the arts—ever—in history. When you think about it, art reproduction started out with people like Rembrandt, who would take his work to an etcher, who would then create a plate to copy a painting. Look how far we’ve come!"

A Special Kind of Print
"I might have a different story to tell if our business was based in New York City or Santa Fe—one of the larger art communities," Betty Leader prefaces, when asked about her company’s fine art reproduction business model.

Leader and her husband own and operate Printing Prep Inc. and Leader All Surface Printing, both based in Buffalo, New York. "Buffalo has a very vibrant arts community. There are a lot of great artists here," she explains, but notes that it’s not as large of a market as in other regions across the country.

Fine art reproduction is but one of the services Leaders’ companies offer, but she says it’s not at all their "bread and butter." Instead, the bulk of their revenues are generated from large corporate clients seeking commercial and large format print manufacturing. And it’s to this demographic that Leader says she concentrates her marketing efforts. However, she says, fine art reproduction is a great complement to these services.

Working with artists on fine art reproduction, can also open up new opportunistic doors for commercial jobs.

"We’ve worked with artists who then come back to us for things like postcards to announce an opening. We have a Xeikon printer that allows us to do short-run digital printing for jobs like this. It’s very cost effective for up to 500-piece jobs. We’ve also done special catalogs for artists and galleries. We produced cloth banners for displays during their shows. There are a lot of other types of print we can do for artists, besides your traditional print of a painting," Leader explains.

If a print supplier wants to break into the fine art reproduction market, Leader suggests choosing their technology wisely. The initial investment in a printer is only but one expense. Maintenance and consumables can turn out to be even more costly.

"We had a beautiful machine several years ago. It was an inkjet printer that could produce archival prints. After a while, we realized that we couldn’t support it. It had high maintenance costs every month and very expensive inks. So, it was hard for us to keep it going. We just didn’t have enough people coming in for fine art prints to make it a worthwhile investment," Leader cautions.

Later, they installed a Leggett & Platt Technologies’ Virtu grand format printer, and it’s been a more sound investment. Besides fine art reproductions, Leader is able to produce a wide range of other print applications on the machine.

"[Recently,] we did a beautiful cloth banner that had a photograph of a sculpture printed on it, and the artist hung it in the gallery behind the actual sculpture," she remarks.

"We did another series of projects for a union whose members had taken a collection of B&W photographs," Leader adds. "We printed them on cloth banners, too, and they hung off a gallery balcony. When the banners—which were slightly translucent—were hung together, it created a breathtaking exhibit."

Reproducing fine art requires both an understanding of the creative process, as well as the ability to apply printing sciences. It’s a whole different ball of wax than commercial printing, Leader proffers. To break into the market requires more than just an investment in a digital printer. Print businesses that want to service the art community have to be prepared for many challenges. Marketing has to be targeted specifically to artists and art associations. To be successful, a printer must speak the language of art.

She offers this analogy: "I think that our artist clients are like the space industry compared to the commercial airline industry. Artists are the trendsetters. They are usually quite obsessive about their work, and have keen attention to details. The work we do for them is always our most challenging, and we love to collaborate with them."

Leader remains very involved in the Buffalo arts community. She, herself, works in watercolors, pastels, and mixed media. "Prior to two years ago, I had been a graphic designer," Leader recalls. "But when my husband installed the Virtu printer two years ago—and the business had grown—I decided to lend a hand."

Getting Started
It is clear that printers can benefit from artists’ desire to reproduce artwork. Prints can offer a similar color quality at a lowered price, providing a great solution for both the artist, and their fans. When entering the fine art reproduction market, there are clearly come challenges to overcome. But as Ditto Editions and Leader All Surface Printing explained, there is a large customer base out there eager for your reproduction services.

Oct 2005, Digital Output

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