According to a post on Craft Industry Alliance blog, DMC Embroidery had a stitch contest and artist turned it to share their views by embroidering their opinions as they were asked to work for free exposure and no payment.
May 1, 2018: DMC has edited the Instagram posts about the contest to now include a $500 prize. In an email to Craft Industry Alliance, Alex Holbrook, the director of public relations, stated that the company is reviewing how artists are linked on the company website and, although it has been in the pipeline for a while, correcting this issue will now become a priority.
DMC, the embroidery floss, company, is running a contest that has cross stitch designers feeling stabby.
On April 16 we reported on DMC’s contest soliciting artists for designs to be published as free patterns on the DMC website. The winners would receive no financial compensation. Although in the past DMC has paid artists for designs, those collaborations were suddenly ended late last year and, according to the social media manager at DMC whom we spoke with for the April 16 article, the company’s current plan is to run unpaid contests to generate new patterns.
On the DMC website the artist doesn’t get a web link on his or her pattern’s page nor do they have a full profile, making it difficult to understand how even the promise of exposure as a prize could be meaningful.
The free patterns are used by DMC to sell embroidery floss. They are sent out weekly to DMC’s email list of 100,000 subscribers and each pattern is linked to a kit of DMC floss for consumers to purchase.
To enter the contest artists use the #dmcxstitchcontest hashtag on Instagram. At the beginning of the week, we began seeing subversive entries appear on the hashtag, and they’ve continued to flow in all week. Here are some of the highlights to date. We’ll continue to add images to this post as they’re created. DMC has yet to respond.
Read more: https://craftindustryalliance.org/dmc-stitch-contest-provokes-artists-submit-subversive-designs
Link 2: https://craftindustryalliance.org/dmc-contest-asks-artists-work-free/
