Art Sales Board
The sales board is a huge poster approximately 2m wide by 1m high that includes a small photograph of each artwork in an exhibition along with its details. Produced using colour management the images are an excellent reproduction of the original artworks. The sales board has become an essential reference for buyers and sales people.
Looks Like This
A sales board comprises a grid with a cell for each artwork in an
exhibition. The cell contains a small photograph, 5cm on the longer
side, and details of the artwork. The details included are the catalogue
number, the artist's name, the artwork dimensions and the price.
The grid is arranged in catalogue number order, starting at the top left
corner.
The sample at the right shows one grid cell from the 2006 Canterbury Art Exhibition sales board, for an artwork by Amanda Brooks.
Sales Board Example
Here you can see a sales board scaled down to about a tenth of the full printed version.
How a Sales Board is Used
The sales board is placed in a prominent location in an exhibition where it can be conveniently reached by buyers and sales people, probably close to where sales occur.
The most important function of a sales board is to indicate which artworks have sold and which are still available for purchase. Sold artworks are indicated by placing a red sticker on their grid cell.
For buyers the sales board is a super catalogue which gives them an overview of the exhibition at a glance. You can expect to find quite a collection of people standing around the sales board, checking sales progress and planning the next tour of the art.
For sale organisers the sales board is an essential tool. It can compliment accounting systems to make sure that the right art is sold and that it is sold only once. It can help keep sales staff on top of every question that comes in from buyers and vendors.
Best of all ... so much art spread out over a large poster is a colourful and appealing site. A drawcard for any exhibition and sale.
How a Sales Board is Made
A sales board is produced automatically from the Lagado Art Services System. The system manages administration of many aspects of the exhibition and is fully controlled using standard web browsers.
An essential function of the administration of an exhibition is managing the catalogue of art. The catalogue maintains a database of information about each artwork including a photograph. The exhibition organisers manage the data entry process in conjunction with artwork suppliers.
The exhibition photographer adds photographs as they are shot, via the web interface. The system is designed to streamline photography processing, with most operations automatic once configured by the photographer and operations such as cropping performed using any web browser. The streamlining is designed around supporting an artwork exhibition that has access to a large amount of art for a very short time. It is possible for one photographer to studio shoot and process approximately 100 artworks per day. This is with no compromise on quality.
Selected details and the photograph are combined in the layout of the sales board to produce a print ready PDF file. This PDF file can be transferred for direct output at a commercial large format printer.
The Lagado System uses colour management throughout all aspects, from image capture at digital photography, through screen display on web catalogues, proofing and final printed output. This is the only way to achieve consistently high quality artwork reproduction in a range of media.
Output to Commercial Large Format Printer
To make the final printed Canterbury Art Exhibition sales board a single page, print ready, PDF file is transferred to the commercial large format printer All About Graphics. They do an excellent job supporting the full colour management process, assuring colour consistency and with a fast turnaround.
Published 9-June-2006