Some of the best ideas come to us in unexpected ways, and in the unlikeliest of places. Three friends from Bengaluru — Shaishav Todi, Rituraj Dowerah and Justin Alva — met for a casual drink one day and ended up ideating about a business that made art easily accessible; a space where artists and asset owners were in control. And thus, Cupick began.
Cupick is an online platform ( >cupick.com ) where visually creative folks — illustrators, painters, digital artists, graphic designers, photographers etc — can showcase, and sell their work. People can print them on canvas, posters, and cards, besides a host of other products.
The artworks are divided into various categories, some of which are animals, football, movies, TV, photography, nature, superheroes etc. “Shaishav, the founder of the site, often struggled to get new designs printed on various mediums. He realised that finding high- quality art and design was a hassle and choices were limited. Printing an artist's work, getting it shipped and collecting payments took too long. He wished for an easy way out and on that fateful night, we put our brains together and conceptualised Cupick,” says Justin, co-founder. The website was made open to the public in October 2014.
Cupick wants to make art accessible and give upcoming artists a fair chance to make money. “Signing up here is easy. Those who want to upload their work, have to receive an invite. We’re quite liberal with the invites. However, we do take a look at the artist’s portfolio, to check for quality and genuineness,” says Justin.
The concept picked up almost immediately and there were artistes from across the country contributing. Now, they have more than 650 artists on board, 1,400 users and 4,500 artworks on their site.
“One of the cornerstones of Cupick’s philosophy is the empowerment of artists. They decide the products that their work will be sold on, and the price at which it will be sold. We set a base price on each product and the artist marks it up. The marked-up amount is for the artists to keep. The base price covers our costs and margins.” Currently, they take only cash-on-delivery orders; they are soon to start online payments.
Shaishav (the business brains and CEO), Rituraj Dowerah (the tech guru) and Justin Alva (marketing in-charge ) believe that ‘good art on great products makes the world a better place’ and they are on a mission to make consumption of art a daily process.
They have also contributed to the Kashmir flood victims in the company’s initial days. “Called ‘Design for Kashmir’, the collective was started by designers, Prathima Muniyappa, and Unnati Agarwal. Through the initiative, they received artworks for sale from artists all over the country. We got on board to help them monetise these works. All proceeds from the sale will go toward relief work in Kashmir.”
