Staying home can be quite hard, we know it. If you are an artist, working with photography, design, or films, chances are you may struggle to find the right way to spend your time these days.
We at Picter work in the creative industry and share your same interests, but we’re also a remote team from day one, so we want to give you a list of resources and tips. We hope this will be helpful to make the most of your time at home during this period.
This list will be regularly updated with new and interesting initiatives to face the COVID-19 crisis. We are in this together!
Tips to work from home
Let’s start with some simple general tips on making work from home more productive.
Your bedroom is your bedroom. Make sure you separate spaces, if your home allows it, to have a working station outside of your bedroom. Finding your spot to work inside the house is key.
Your jammies are not your new look. Make sure you dress for the occasion. It is easy to get lazy and keep your sleeping look when you don’t need to go out, but studies prove your mindset shifts if you keep the purpose to perform for someone else, so start performing for yourself! It helps. And you’ll probably be involved in a lot of video calls these days so you don’t want to look as if you just got up.
Your face and your body demand attention. Drink water and make sure you have a healthy snack at hand. Having a carafe of water near you and a bunch of healthy snacks in the house is essential to take a break and make sure you do not start eating junk food. Also, don’t forget to get up and stretch regularly. And, remember, if you have the possibility to work standing, your back will love it!
Your phone is not your best friend. Make sure you put your phone away, preferably in another room. The smartphone is a major source of distraction, and you want to make sure to dedicate a specific time of the day to it. Consider this time as the one you would dedicate to the aperitivo, pub, or bar time with friends and family.
Your quarantine is your residency. With most of you unable to produce new work outside, there is plenty of time to organize your archive (remember those backstage photographs you did thinking about a side project?), revisit your old work to edit it in a new light (look for projects that relate to the current crisis or help lighten up your days of confinement!), or simply transform your house in a studio and start creating!
General
An aggregated list of free resources, opportunities, and financial relief options for artists of all disciplines, not just visual, is available at COVID-19 Freelance Artist Resources
Creative Capital offers the most comprehensive list of art organizations resources.
Visual collaboration
To universities and non-profit organizations we at Picter are offering 100% off to support forced online education and remote visual collaboration. That’s right, totally free for six months!
Our platform allows you to manage, share, discuss and approve all visual assets, such as JPEGs, and GIFS.
But what else can you do with Picter?
- Invite your team to a remote workspace – it’s like working in the office but in the cloud
- Use Presentation Links instead of in-person meetings
- Avoid face-to-face reviews with comments
- Preview your visual content at a glance
- Share links to your visuals with a teammate or client to get instant approvals
- Use Annotations for pixel-perfect feedback on your visuals
- Share screenshots
- Collect retouching markup
- Sequence images
- Present images
- Group images into collections
You get the idea. The possibilities are endless. Oh and it’s not just about images… check out our video support!
Try it out for yourself by signing up today!
Competitions
If you are a photographer, make sure to check all the online competitions at picter.com. New deadlines are coming up, including Foam Talent, OrganVida, Der Greif, SlideLuck Editorial, and more.
We partnered with Der Greif, Vogue Italia, and Magnum Photos, to launch the call for images When I become We. Apply if your photographs display solidarity and community during the COVID-19 crisis.
Grants
Check the updated list of grants for artists with deadlines for March and April by Creative Capital. The list is mostly US based, but some are open to international artists.
Information about events
Hyperallergic is giving daily information about art events that are postponed or cancelled, check their website if you want to be updated on what’s still on.
Resources for reading, seeing and sharing art online
FOAM is giving free access to their latest magazine issues, all you need to do fill in this form.
The British Journal of Photography has created a group on Facebook. Its aim is to deliver free resources and exclusive content to a new online community connecting photographers and industry professionals around the world to share advice, concerns and information.
Photograph magazine has a whole archive accessible for free, you can browse it on their website.
Art Basel has created a viewing room online where world’s premier galleries can show the works and connect directly with collectors around the world.
Wallpaper announced that, starting from April issue onwards, they will make the magazine available to all in a digital version.
Emmazed, a platform created by Mo Mfinanga to empower artists and encourage creativity, launched a series of online conversations, called Digital Discourse. The first round of talks includes Jack Davidson, Cait Opperman, Ryan Pfluger, among others.
A Weekly Brief by It’s Nice That brings you the most creative entertainment and helps you “fight the urge to watch internet cats in our pyjamas all day.” The column hosts creatives challenging you to “recreate a famous design in crayon” or to “design a bootleg T-shirt for your favourite band”, and other interesting, fun ideas.
Petitions and funds
If you live in New York City, and paying rent or bills is becoming difficult, here is a couple of petitions you may want to sign
If you are an artist working in Germany, looking for some financial help, take a look at Hilfen für Freiberufler und Künstler während des #Corona-Shutdowns
ConvertKit has made a generous sum of $50,000 $154,000 available to help creators in need during the COVID-19 pandemic called Creator Fund.
Online exhibitions
One of the most resourceful websites to see museums’ collections is Google Art & Culture, offering tours from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, or the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, just to name a few.
Die Biennale, a festival curated by David Campany and taking place in three cities in Germany (Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg), has some VR galleries open now. Check it out here: When Images Collide
Dazed & Confused has recently published an article where you can find about art exhibitions online: Digital art exhibitions you don’t need to leave the house for
Creativity at its best
If you want to be inspired and see how other artists are responding to the COVID-19 outbreak, here is a list of creative works compiled by It’s Nice That.
Photographer Tim Barber has launched Dream Sequence Editions, to raise money for charities helping people affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Artist and curator Natasha Caruana launched a series of virtual events under the name “The Interval”. The series includes talks, workshops, and tips for artists. Join through Eventbrite via the platform Work-Show-Grow.
For those of you in Italy, the association Photogether has launched portfolio reviews with a group of professionals of photography. Each reviews costs 25 euro, money that will sustain the Italian Civil Protection Department during the COVID-19 crisis.
Working remotely has created unprecedented challenges for everyone inside the creative ecosystem. In this period of uncertainty we humbly offer you a discount on our regular services. We are confident our tools will help you, your clients and your peers find a new level of efficiency and value.
That’s why we’re offering a significant discount package, effective immediately.
- Individual creatives: 75% off for six months; 2,48€ (~$2.75) per month instead of 9,90€ (~$11)
- Teams: 50% off for six months; 9,95€ (~$11) per month instead of 19,90€ (~$22)
- Universities and non-profits: 100% off; That’s right, totally free for six months.
While we have your attention, we remind you to follow the best practices for quarantine and social distancing as outlined by the World Health Organization. Together, however far apart we are, we can and will overcome this, whatever it takes!
We’re all in this together!
