DeviantART

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The title of this article is incorrect because of technical limitations. The correct title is deviantART.

The front page of deviantART

deviantART is the world's largest online artistic community. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Angelo Sotira and Matt Stephens.

It is funded entirely by its subscribers and Prints service (see relevent sections below).

About the Website

deviantART aims to provide a place for any artist to exhibit and talk about his or her artworks, and take part in a comunity of like-minded individuals.

On May 10th, 2005, it was the 560th most visited site on the Internet, as ranked by Alexa.

Terminology

The site makes esoteric use of the style of its title, deviantART, by playing on the lowercaseUPPERCASE formula, and relating all facets of the site to deviancy. As such, the following terms are used ubiquitously throughout the site:

dA: frequent abbreviation for the site's title.
Deviant: every user is called a Deviant.
Deviation: every submitted piece of artwork is called a Deviation, so long as it is declared by the artist (Deviant) to be fully polished and in a state for exhibition. If not, the work is a Scrap (an unfinished work, not exhibited prominently).
Devious (Comments): many nouns in titles on the site are qualified by the adjective 'devious'. A 'devious' comment might be understood to be one that conforms well to the ethos, atmosphere and etiquette of the site.

The following are more 'colloquial', though common terminology:

Fav or +fav: short for 'favourite' (see below, Features), used with a '+' to mean 'I've added this to my favourites.'
+watch: used to mean 'I've added you to my watch-list' (see below, Features).

Artforms

deviantART thinks of itself as infinitely flexible. Any artform that can be digitised in any way, may be uploaded onto the site. A brief selection of the type of art exhibited is shown below, but represents only a small fraction:

If a subcategory is missing and viable, it is quickly added. Every subcategory is densely populated, a tribute to the huge worldwide diversity of the site.

Community

deviantART prides itself upon its thriving, ever-growing, highly integrated, supportive, and friendly community. As of May 8th, 2005, the website had over 1 million deviants (see above section).

The community of the site has a very distinct ethos of art-appreciation, encouragement, constructive criticism, geniality, and often light-hearted jocularity. Many deviants get to know a large number of friends through the medium of the site.

Essential Features

The community provides a few essential features.

Artwork

Every Deviation submitted is instantly accessible to anyone in the world.
Any other Deviant can comment on any Deviation.
Comments can be replied to, and the artwork discussed.
Every deviant has his or her own private gallery where all of his or her deviations are displayed.
The browsing feature is easy to use, and facilitates browsing through the millions of deviations on the site, giving thumbnails 24 per page.

Communication

There is an extensive Forum, subdivided into many topic-focussed Forums, where any Deviant may start a 'thread' (a discussion) which any other deviant may join in with.
There is a Shoutbox, and a chatting feature called dAmn (deviantART Messenging Network), both of which allow any deviant to chat with any other deviant, often used to converse with an unknown deviant.
There is a private messenging service. Private messages are called 'Notes'. These can be sent by any deviant to any other, and only that other deviant will be able to see it and reply. This is a sort of internal emailing system.
The ability to enter your longitude and latitude, by which to locate deviants that live close to you.
Every deviant has his or her own private page (found at the web address http://*deviant's_name*.deviantart.com, where *deviant's_name* is to be replaced by the given nickname of the deviant in question, for instance http://alfakim.deviantart.com). This page is entirely customisable, and may list the deviant's interests, mood, hobbies and so forth. It also exhibits the deviant's most prized work, his or her recent works, and his or her Favourites (see below).
The personal page also displays the deviant's Journal. The Journal is a blog-like feature, whereby a deviant may write something down, as if in a Journal, to be displayed on his or her user page.

Appreciation

The deviantWATCH feature. Any deviant may add any other deviant to his or her 'watch list'. Doing so will cause them to be notified every time anyone on their watch list submits a new piece of art (a deviation). One can also elect to be notified of the submission of scraps (see Terminology section above) or Journals (see above). Watching another deviant is often used as a gesture to say that they are either your friend, or may be done as a compliment, to say that they are particularly good.
Deviants may also add each other to their Friends list, a simply way of displaying a developed friendship on the site.
Any deviant may mark out any other deviation as one of their 'Favourites'. This will place the deviation on that user's personal page, giving the original artist extra exposure. This is often used as a gesture to say that a deviation is particularly good.

Extra features

Any deviant may Subscribe to the site, unlocking a host of extra features, detailed under the Subscription section.
They may also buy themselves a Prints account, whereby they may sell their works for money.
There is also an adCast program, whereby large amounts of prints may be made cheaply.

Unending Growth

The site is in constant update and growth, and features continue to improve and increase in number. There is a Forum specifically focussed on Suggestions, and another one specifically focussed upon 'known problems' which are being fixed.

New features are constantly introduced, and improved. On August 7, 2004, deviantART's fourth anniversary, deviantART v4 (aka 'Fournando') was unveiled, with quite major visual modifications (introducing tabs for more modern browsers, among other things), modifications to the message centre and a real-time flash-based chat room, dAmn (standing for deviantART Messaging Network). There was at one point a monthly magazine for all deviants called devMAG, but this was discontinued.

As of May 10, 2005, deviantART has approximately 12,139,877 deviations (art pieces) with one new deviation (piece of art) submitted every few seconds. The front page boasts a real-time counter for the number of deviations, which visibly increases every moment. With over 1 million deviants (users), deviantART is one of the largest communities on the internet. These numbers are constantly growing, so can never be accurate, but it's fairly safe to say that the actual figures will indeed always be higher than anything stated.

As a sidenote, by the time I finished writing this article, the number of deviations submitted had risen to 12,141,681.

The site currently makes use of a 300MBit bandwidth, and because of the sites exponential popularity this figure proves inadequate. The owners are constantly looking to improve this.

Subscription

Any deviant may choose to become a Deviant Subscriber. This will unlock a host of extra features for that deviant, and will give them an added status tag (see Above, Statuses). Subscribers are often acquitted more respect on the site.

Price

As of May 10, 2005, the prices for subscriptions were as follows:

1 Month – £2.63 – (£0.09/day)
3 Months – £4.22 – (£0.05/day)
12 Months – £15.90 – (£0.04/day)

Dollar conversions have been omitted due to changing rates.

Advantages

Some of the feaures unlocked for subscribers are as follows:

Advert-free browsing.
Most customisation on the personal page.
deviantMOBILE – the feature to download any (agreed) deviation to one's mobile phone – for free.
Private Forums for subscribers only.
Faster surfing.
The subscriber may browse the site with large thumbnails instead of the small 100x100 ones for non-subscribers.
The subscriber may become a beta-tester, to be the first to try out new features.
Many other features enchanced.

All subscribers are acquitted the '*' status-tag (see below, Statuses).

Statuses

All deviants on deviantART are referred to by their given nickname, which is preceded by a status tag, for instance, ~gwenwhyfar. The tags are listed below.

~ Member – a basic Deviant.
* Subscriber
= Official Beta Tester
` Senior Member
° Former Staff Member

@ Shoutbox/dAmn Staff
: Premium Content Staff
% deviantART Prints Staff
+ General Staff
^ Gallery Directors
$ Core Administrators

! Banned User

Origins

deviantART, Inc., the proprietor of the deviantArt website, was begun by Scott Jarkoff, Angelo Sotira and Matt Stephens. The idea came originally from a similar site called DMusic, based, self-evidently, on music.

Most of the staff-members on the site also have their own accounts and nicknames, take part in the community by way of their own deviations and chats, and are well known.

Angelo Sotira is known as $spyed. 'Spyed' is known on the site as a black ninja, the picture of which forms his avatar, and which is also made use of in many of the site's private emoticons. Spyed may also be the origin of the deviantART black ninja, the mascot or logo of the site.

Scott Jarkoff is known as $jark. 'Jark' is a yellow alien, the picture of which forms his avatar, and which is also made use of in many of the site's private emoticons.

Those two men comprise the established 'creators of deviantART'.

For more information on the full story of deviantART's origins, see the article written by Angelo Sotira: [1].

deviantART Prints

This service was formerly known as deviantPrints. It is a secondary website (www.deviantprints.com) that acts as deviantART's shop. Here, any user that has bought a Prints account may sell their deviations (to be professionally printed by deviantART, and shipped to the buyer), for money.

The site also makes use of an electronic payment system called deviantDOLLARS or deviantCASH.

Popular Prints (deviations that are elligible for sale) are displayed on the main site.

Prints comes in many forms, ranging in sizes from post-card sized images, to large 20x30 inch posters. They also have recently launched a service which allows users to print their images on a wide variety of products, ranging from mouse pads to coffee mugs to puzzles.

The deviantART Summit

See here for official information.

The 2005 deviantART Summit is due to take place in the Hollywood Palladium on June the 17th and 18th 2005. Artists from all across the globe are buying tickets and flocking to the summit, which will be the greatest gathering of an artistic community ever.

The summit will exhibit all artforms, and will boast guest appearances from highly respected artists, who will be holding workshops and panels, and will be helping other artists learn the tricks of the trade.

deviantART, Inc. hopes to hold a Summit every year henceforth.

The tickets cost $55, but will begin to increase in price incrementally from April 30th onwards until the opening, when tickets will be sold on the door for $125.

Many wait in tense anticipation of what should turn out to be an historic event.

Press coverage is hot, and one article may be found here.

Criticism

deviantART as a Corporation

In April 2003 deviantART, Inc. was revealed to have been a for-profit corporation from its inception (instead of having, for instance, started out as a volunteer made website such as Elfwood or GFXArtist).

Over the years several features available to non-subscribers have been removed, some under the guise of encouraging members to subscribe (such as the ability to view artwork thumbnails in the user's message centre) and some for technical issues (such as the ability to search the site).

There have also been minor concerns regarding deviantART Prints' high mark-up.

Copyright Issues

Historically there have been several unconfirmed rumours regarding deviantART's usage of uploaded art, which has focused some attention on deviantART's user submission license, as the formality of the legalese used in it has rendered it beyond the comprehension of many. Such concerns were addressed by the administration.

The immense popularity of the site has made it an easy target for copyright violation, as a malicious user can easily reuse artwork displayed (usually as clip art for websites) without the author's knowledge. Also, many users either ignorant of the site's purpose or the site's submission agreement often submit art works they did not produce. Others attempt to use deviantART as a photo-hosting site for their own needs, which is also disallowed.

Due to the impractical nature of researching the copyright status of any art work reused in deviations, many policy violation administrators adopt a 'delete first, ask questions later' stance. Administrative work regarding policy violations is often viewed as one-sided and unconcerned; users who are falsely or mistakenly accused are treated just the same as the guilty ones. This has led to many clashes with users and staff.

Also, albeit legal under fair use, the reselling of prints purchased via the deviantART shop for profit have also produced a few controversies.

External links

http://www.deviantart.com/ deviantART, Inc. home page.
http://shop.deviantart.com/ deviantART, Inc. store.
http://deviantmag.com/ deviantMAG. (defunct)
http://spyed.deviantart.com/journal/609173/ History of deviantART, Inc. by Angelo Sotira.
irc://irc.deviantart.com deviantART, Inc. IRC server. Official channel is #devart
http://www.deviantartsummit.com/ Information on the 2005 (and most likely, future) deviantART Summit.

Categories: Websites | Art | Virtual communities | Art exhibitions