North American Horse Encyclopedia

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Feenixx Publishing?

   We began as a brick and mortar science and nature store in 1990 and in 1996 opened the first Internet science and nature store http://www.einsteins-emporium.com.
   Some of departments were very popular so we continually expanded them. Posters were one of them. By 1998, we offered over 200 titles. At that point, we spun them off into their own individual web http://www.edugraphics.net, By 2000, it offered over 1200 titles. In spite of this, customers continually asked for subjects not covered. That, and the poor quality of most posters led us to come up with a new poster concept. Each title would provide a comprehensive overview of the subject presented through extraordinary image and interesting and informative text. This was the birth of what we call the "content-intensive info poster." We began operations in the fall of 2004. Our posters were well received and we've been adding new titles ever since.
   Our own posters greatly outsold those of other publishers so we began eliminating other lines. Today Edugraphics.net only offers Feenixx posters.
   Our poster publishing business is a separate legal entity from our Internet business. It has its own web site http://www.feenixx.com. Here you may see the titles that we have published and those that are currently being prepared (work in progress). As the publishing business has grown, we have cut back the number of lines that we carry on other sites.

What do you mean by the word "title"?

A poster is any large sheet of paper that is designed to be hung on a wall. It is a very generic term. We use "title" to refer to a specific poster, such as Animal Kingdom.

How do you determine which subjects / titles to publish?

   This is largely influenced by marketing considerations. The poster business is very subject driven. An air and space museum is not going to carry posters of dinosaurs and a natural history museum is not going to carry ones of space craft. Another consideration is that retailers do not like to purchase only one or two items from a vendor. They want an entire product line.
   Our business plan initially listed over 250 possible titles. That list has now grown to over 700 titles. They are grouped by subject category, such as natural history, science, aviation, etc.
    Subject categories are introduce by a collection of related titles, either eight or twelve, as this provides a product line. One as a subject category has been introduced, we add additional titles.

How do you publish posters?

Our posters have a very high "up-front" cost. They have to be researched, written, designed and edited. We refer to these as the product development costs.
Printing and packaging is expensive and we refer to these as production costs. Economies are realized by printing many posters at the same time. Collections introducing new subject categories contain 8 or 12 titles. Once a subject category is well establish and has a strong customer, we introduce new titles. Generally we publish four new ones every three months. We refer to these as "flights."

How do you create posters?

   The first step is deciding what to publish. Our publishing plan contains over 700 possible titles, arranged by subject. We may decide that the flight should contain an earth science title, a life science title, one dealing with prehistoric life, another with birds, etc. Once we have the general list, we will then select more specific subjects from the publishing plan. For example, Prehistoric Life contains Pterosaurs, Prehistoric Sea Monsters, North American Dinosaurs, Synapsids and more.
   Once the individual subject / title has been selected, we extensively research it. The first step is to define the content - what it is to say and show. With many subjects, we begin by establishing a data base in the form of an excel spreadsheet. For example, when we did Parrots, the data base listed every species. The data consisted of biological name, species name, family, and comments. We wanted to show at least one species from each family, so this makes sure that nothing is omitted. We then accumulate images. Between the data and the images, we decide which species will be shown. Next, we often keep track of our research in an in-house web, as it lets us combine information and images. We usually create a comprehensive layout showing everything assembled together. These "mock-ups" use images gleaned from various sources, mostly from the web and from books. We obtain the art work, then assemble everything through a process known as production art.
   In the course of product development, we often publish the in-house web to the Internet to make the information available to artists and consultants.

How do you obtain images?

   Creating posters requires a collaborative effort, so whenever possible, we try to work with artists that we have successfully worked with in the past. Often an artist may be extremely skilled in one area or may only be interested in a given subject, so we try to utilize his or her skills in that area. However, our "favorites" may not always be available, thus we may need to find someone else to do the job.
   As we expand our product line into more and more subjects, we often need artists that have experience and skills in new areas. We search for such artists through a variety of means.
   Once the artist has been selected and we have agreed upon the scope of the work and the compensation, we issue a purchase order for the art.

How much research does the artist have to do?

Generally very little or none. This web site Yummy-yum.com is our product development web site. We publish to it our in-house research web and the PDF of the completed poster, so everything is pretty well defined. Artists who specialize in a subject generally they have a rather extensive library of source material. .

What media do you require?

We strive to show an accurate and realistic presentation of the subject. It has been our experience that traditional media is the best way to render "soft subjects" such as birds and animals. Most artists doing such work first sketch the subject, then apply the basic colors through a watercolor wash, then add details with colored pencils. Others do the same thing with acrylics. Often they will enhance them using a program such as Photoshop.
The last few years have seen many artists use various computer graphics programs. Our experience has been that the resulting images can be excellent for "hard subjects" such as airplanes, automobiles, and space craft. These programs do not produce good animal pictures. In spite of the artist's best efforts, the images look "plastic" or "cartoonish."

What are your general art requirements?

   A poster contains many images and they are almost always superimposed over a common background. Thus each individual image must eventually have a transparent background.
   Artists using traditional media should prepare the image on a white background. When completed, they should send us a scan of it (see below). We use the "extract" feature of Adobe Photoshop to extract the image from the background.
   Artists using computer graphics should provide images on a transparent background.
   The image should be about 7" across and have a resolution of 300 dots per inch. As images are sent to us over the Internet, all extraneous white space should be cropped out to reduce file size.

How does an artist provide you the art?

We receive a great deal of art and have worked out what we think is the most efficient means of transferring it from the artist to us. The easiest and most efficient way is by email. Images created by traditional media can be scanned, saved as JPEG files and inserted in the email. Images created by computer graphics are generally saved in TIF format and thus cannot be inserted into an email. They can be sent as attachments. Images should not be placed in ZIP files or placed on a server for us to download. This creates additional time-consuming steps.
An email should include only one image. The subject line of the email should identify the subject. This permits us to quickly move the email and image to a folder for later processing.

Who owns the copyright?

We are purchasing all copyrights to an image. Often we permit the artist to keep the original art. In the case of images prepared using traditional techniques, then they are free to sell the original to someone else, subject to our copyright. We do permit artists to show the images on their websites, provided it is accompanied by our copyright notice.
The terms of all this are contained in a standard art buyout agreement that we enter into with each artist who does work for us.

What are your terms of payment?

In the case of a small job consisting of only a couple of images, artists that we work with on a continuing basis simply bill us upon completion.
However most of our posters require a great many images, which may take considerable time to prepare. It is certainly unreasonable to expect an artist to complete the entire job before being paid. Thus we use progress payments. We negotiate prices and terms up front on a job-by-job basis. The results are specified in the purchase order.

How do you pay?

We pay promptly. Invoices are almost always paid within a few days of receipt. Many of the artists that we work with are in countries outside the United States. In such case, we pay electronically through an agency such as Guru or through PayPal.