How does fm® work?

friendmade® is an online platform by and for creatives; painters, designers, illustrators and photographers. A platform where art and creativity flourish, and where artists from across disciplines come together. It is a channel for you to showcase and sell your art. A label that stands for true creativity and art, created free from boundaries. 

Unlike at conventional art galleries, the friendmade® collection is not curated by just one curator. Here not us, but YOU define the friendmade® style and collection. Through online votings all connected artists collectively decide which creatives can join and offer their art at friendmade.fm. This is how you help friendmade® stay 100% contemporary and creative!

friendmade® was founded based on the ideas of designer, artist and entrepreneur Stijn van der Pol. We believe that when created in freedom, art is the most honest expression of human thoughts and emotions that can move and connect people in all layers of society. We believe that moving and connecting people is the true calling of artists and creatives around the world. That is why we challenge our friends, our peer creatives, to create art without boundaries and offer them a platform to showcase and sell their true art. 

By connecting creatives and taking them serious as artists, we allow them to join forces to compete with the established world of art galleries and curators, together, as an ever-changing international collective of artists. Whether you are a freelance photographer or designer or an unknown talented painter… make friends, create art, and see who your art can move.

friendmade® offers you a professional artist portfolio and a shop where you can offer and sell your art. We support you along the way from the moment you upload an artwork to the day you make that sale. After submitting your art, we set up your artist page, create your product images, and help you with marketing, sales and the production and shipping of your Artworks. This way, you can fully concentrate on what matters to you… creating your true art.

What forms of art you’d like to sell is up to you. One rule: if we can print it, you can sell it. Our main collection consists of digital art, photography, handcrafted art, mixed-media art and typographic art. Sure you’ll fit in there somewhere ;-). Next to selling prints, we often work on special b2b projects in which you can participate. On top we’d love you to participate and co-create for example our furniture and wallpaper collections.

At friendmade® YOU decide how we print and sell your art. Choose between various options, ranging from a simple poster or fineart print to innovative products such as backlit or handcast friendmad® gloss prints. All prints are of course printed in premium quality.

Depending on your artist level we offer you 5 to 15 printing methods to choose from.

At friendmade® we’d like to keep things open and fair. You create, we promote and sell. Two identically important jobs, that need each other. That is why we split all winnings 50/50. Every print you sell, contains a series of fixed basic costs (FBC) such as production, branding, packaging, shipping and for example a contribution to the artist’s social security fund (Abtrag Künstlersozialkasse). For each sale your and our gains (WIN) are calculated as a part of the Netto Sales Price (NSP) by the following simple formula:

[WIN = (NSP-FBC)/2]

As a curating artist you define your sales prices yourself. As an academy artist you can offer your art for fixed sales prices and gain fixed gains depending on the print method and size sold. These prices and gains are identical for each academy artist.

No. friendmade®’s services are 100% free of charge. All you need to do in convince our curating artist to join by being invited or participating in our online voting during the curation rounds. If you are invited, you’ll receive a free friendmade® account and can submit art at any time. For each item sold we take a commision fee of 50% of the netto gain. This way we only earn money when we sell your art and you never have costs.

friendmade® is a closed network of creative artists. Want to join? Here’s your options:

1) Get invited by a friend. All our curating artists can invite their friends and favourite artists to friendmade®. If you get invited, you are asked to upload three of your best artworks. These three works will be send for voting to three randomly selected artists from our network. Do 2 out of 3 vote positive… you’re in!

2) Join a curation round. Every few months we have curation rounds in which all artists vote for their favourite entries submitted to friendmade® during the previous curation period. Every round a select group of artists is invited to join.

All year through, we invite artists to introduce themselves to friendmade® by submitting three of their best artworks. Every few months a curation round is initiated in which all existing artists are asked to review all entries submitted to friendmade® during the period leading up to the curation round. Every round a select group of artists is invited to join, based on the voting results. Click here to apply, submit your 3 best artworks and convince our curating artists.

Of course we prefer to sell truly unique art. But since we are still at the start of our journey and we are aware the sales are not flying out yet, of course we allow you to offer your art on other platforms as well. Should you want to offer your art as limited edition however, we will need the exclusive rights to sell your artwork. We will define these rights in a separate contract.

Only as a friendmade curating artist you can sell limited editions. Please contact us for more information. For now, in the friendmade® academy we only offer unlimited prints.