How did print-on-demand technology change the art business in the late 1990s?

In the late 1990s, wide-format inkjet printers became available for individual artists to purchase—in sizes like 17, 24, and 44 inches. This was revolutionary because previously, artists needed large publishing companies to invest in print runs of their work (using lithography or serigraphy), which required guessing which images would sell and buying inventory upfront. With print-on-demand, artists could make prints one at a time of any image in their catalog, in their own studio or through small local print shops. This meant they could bring 30, 40, or 50 different images to an art fair without massive upfront investment, and they weren’t limited to just one or two images that a publisher chose to represent.

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Asked by a podcast host · Answered by Nick Friend · art-marketing-podcast · 2023-05-22