ARTFLAKES, the community marketplace for art prints and posters, has become the biggest European platform for buying and selling Instagram prints since launching its integration last month. Based in Berlin, the startup has seen 25,000 Instagram images uploaded to the site so far.
The platform enables artists to link their ARTFLAKES community profile and gallery with their Instagram account. In doing so, users can import 50 pictures already taken in a single import.
Instagram pictures can be put up for sale from user’s smartphones, through the neat feature of tagging them with #af or #artflakes after uploading. Purchased images are then printed by ARTFLAKES in either their German or Los Angeles workshops and then mailed to the buyer.
US-based competitors Instacanvas and Instant Canvas have already integrated with Instagram, but without the hashtag feature which provides a simpler means to share pictures, and in the European market that seems to have helped.
Anyone can buy or sell their photography on the platform, and with 100 million users worldwide, the Instagram user base is vast. Niklas Bolle, CEO of ARTFLAKES, said: “Mobile photography is still only a fraction of the 638,000 plus images available on the site, but we recognise that many artists use Instagram alongside digital photography, design and other forms of visual art.”
Launched in November 2010, and funded by the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, the company also specialises in gallery prints, framed art prints, canvas prints, posters, and greeting cards.