Pixish.com - Connecting Image Makers with Buyers

Sure, there’s something hip and alluring about the “Starving Artist” concept, but even artists need to eat sometimes. Enter Pixish.com, a website aimed at connecting those who need art with those who create it. Users can submit assignments for anything from a t-shirt design, to tattoo artwork, to a photo or illustration for a magazine article. Many of these assignments offer the winning artist payment, prizes, and/or exposure, making this an attractive place for artists to participate. For those offering an assignment, Pixish.com provides access to a global community of artists, and also includes features that allow peer review or voting on which submission for a particular assignment is best.

For artists, a browse through the list of assignments or other artists’ portfolios could also provide creative inspiration. When an artist uploads artwork to their Pixish portfolio, each piece can be tagged with keywords to help other users find work that interests them. Any user can search a keyword – say “water” or “NYC” or “tattoo” – and the search results will include both artwork tagged with that keyword and any assignments that mention the keyword. The site promises to add a feature soon that will allow publishers to contact an artist directly to solicit work if they like what they see in a portfolio.

“Pixish is a place where people who want images and people who make images can easily find each other and collaborate on creative projects together… Say you're a business that needs photos for your website, or a magazine that needs an illustration, or just someone who wants to hold a contest … Pixish is a way to engage creative people online to submit, judge, and source amazing images.”

By providing assignments that often include monetary compensation or prizes, Pixish.com may be particularly attractive to the artist community as a destination for posting portfolio work, job-hunting, and networking. Pixish.com is also very interactive, since users can post assignments, submit artwork, and/or judge others’ submissions, so it could attract a very broad scope of users who participate in one or more of those respects.

Pixish.com does not currently have a system like PayPal in place to facilitate payment for a winning submission, so the publisher and artist must work out compensation details on their own. The website also seems to rely upon the honor system to ensure that the promised compensation is provided for artwork used. Will this leave Pixish.com’s reputation vulnerable if a buyer does not follow through with compensation as promised?

After disallowing “assignments for design work” shortly after its launch, will Pixish.com be able to attract enough paid assignments to keep artists interested?