This is the main help menu for FolioFinder. From here you can read about all the benefits of using FolioFinder and how to acquire those benefits.

• About FolioFinder
• Benefits
• How to use FolioFinder
• Joining FolioFinder
• Managing your portfolio
• Purchasing contact credits for my account
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Terms and Usage Agreement
• Privacy Policy
• Contact Information

You may need to scroll down the help window to see all of a help section.

FolioFinder is designed to enable an expedient connection between clients and creatives. The service aims to make it as quick and simple as possible to;

• Find a creative to fulfil a commission requirement
• Find an existing artwork to fulfil a requirement
• Find an existing artwork to purchase
• Find a named creative
• Contact a creative to fulfil a commission or purchase

Portfolios are maintained by the artist themselves, providing clients with the most accurate and up to date details of each creatives skills and abilities. 

FolioFinder enables the connection between client and creative but does not attempt to provide any agency function.

Any further communications, negotiations or contracts established between the client and the creative are outside the scope of this service.

Benefits to a buyer

1. Free! access to a worldwide network of quality creatives giving you an increased pool of talent.
2. Free! Search our database of creatives by discipline, style, media, location and sample keywords.
3. Free! Email your chosen creative or creatives to commission them for work or buy art that they have for sale.

Benefits to a Creative

1. Join and create your own portfolio for FREE.
2. The internet is a worldwide audience of 600 million people and growing.
3. Receive emails from qualified buyers on projects that match your creative talent.
4. You only pay a nominal "introduction" fee for qualified leads. This offers a clear return on your investment. Other WEB sites request a flat membership fee without any guarantee of return.
5. A Free credit to get you started. At FolioFinder we believe in 'try before you buy'. This credit translates into one commercial contact without obligation.

Joining instructions

Art buyers, artwork commissioners and other clients may use the FolioFinder service entirely FREE of charge.

Creatives can create their portfolio of examples and their resume entirely FREE of charge.

Creatives are required to pay a small fee for qualified sales leads obtained from this service.

This fee is levied via 'credits' that are purchased by the Creative and applied to their FolioFinder account.

Creatives are awarded one qualified contact credit to start them off as we believe that you should have the opportunity to try before you buy. However after your first enquiry you will have to purchase additional credits to allow prospective clients to contact you.

Credits may be added to your account using the Adding Credits to my account link in the 'Members area'.

FolioFinder is designed to enable an expedient connection between clients and creatives. The service aims to make it as quick and simple as possible to;

• Search for creatives
• Search for artwork

The tools available to achieve this are;

• Quick Search
• Advanced Search
• Contacting a creative

Members will also want to read the section on;

• Managing your portfolio.

There are many ways to search for creatives on FolioFinder.

The FolioFinder home page displays a selection of 4 featured artists providing you with quick links to popular creatives and fresh artwork.

• Click on the thumbnail images to see the creatives portfolio.

The search tools provide fast and effective methods of creating short lists of creatives that accurately match your criteria.

• Thumbnails of the creatives work provide a fast visual method of selecting the creative that best meets your requirement.
• Selecting the creative or thumbnail sample opens their full portfolio including further samples of their work and their full résumé.
• The Advanced Search tool includes a list of creatives registered on FolioFinder.

The Search tools provide a list of descriptive words entered by the creative about each of their samples.

To find samples matching your criteria, select the word(s) from the list that match your criteria then press

To cancel the selections for a criteria, select the 'Any [criteria]' at the top of the list.

The Advanced Search tool allows many words to be selected by holding down the <Ctrl> key whilst clicking on the words in the list.

• Combine the words with to see a list of creatives matching ANY words in your criteria.
• Combine the words with to see a list of creatives matching ALL words in your criteria.

The Quick Search tool only one word to be selected at a time.

The Quick Search tool can be found on the FolioFinder Home page and provides a fast and simple method of selecting a small number of creatives from the hundreds of portfolios on the service.

You can create a list of suitable candidates by choosing one or more of the following options;

• Discipline. This is a broad indication of the the type of work the creative engages in e.g. illustrator or designer.
• Media. Choose the type of media that you want your creative to work with e.g. air brush or digital.
• Style. Choose the style that you are interested in e.g. cartoon or realistic.
• Location. If the creative that you seek must reside in a particular location then select it here.

The Quick Search tool only allows one option in each category to be selected at a time. If you desire greater control over the selection of creatives then please use the Advanced Search tool.

The Quick Search tool is displayed at the top of each page with your previous search selections allowing you to quickly refine your search.

If there are more than 10 creatives returned in the list then it will be split into pages of 10 to make it faster to load into your browser.

To cancel the selections for a criteria, select the 'Any [criteria]' at the top of the list.

Index Usage Close

The Advanced Search tool provides all the facilities of Quick Search but also provides the following additional features;

• Make multiple selections in the Discipline, Media, Style, Location or Sample keyword select lists.
• Combine your multiple selections together with the AND function to reduce the number of creatives returned.
• Search for a creative or artwork using a keyword or phrase.
• Select a creative by name from the list of creatives registered with FolioFinder.
• Select an artwork by title from the list.

The Advanced Search tool is displayed at the bottom of each page with your previous search selections allowing you to quickly refine your search.

If there are more than 10 creatives returned in the list then it will be split into pages of 10 to make it faster to load into your browser. To see the other pages of creatives, select the page number or Next from the list: [1] 2 3 | Next >>

To cancel the selections for a criteria, select the 'Any [criteria]' at the top of the list.

The Quick Search tool will often return a large list of creatives that match your selected criteria e.g. Discipline=illustrator. Making selections in the Media or Style fields can reduce the list to creatives that more closely match your requirement. Even so, you may wish to refine your criteria even further to more accurately select the creative to match your requirement.

The Advanced Search tool allows you to select more than one item in each of the select lists by holding down the <Ctrl> key whilst selecting the items with the mouse, e.g.

• Discipline=illustrator OR designer.

This will return a larger list of creatives who are illustrators OR designers. 

This multiple selection can be changed to return only those creatives that are both illustrators AND designers by changing the way they are combined from OR to AND using the selector at the top of the list e.g.

• Discipline=illustrator AND designer.

This refinement can be also be performed on some of the other lists e.g. Media, Style and Artwork sample keywords.

The lists (Discipline, Media, Style and Location) are always combined together with the AND function.

Once you have found a creative to commission or an artwork to purchase you can obtain the contact details for the creative by selecting the Contact details for this creative link.

You must have an account on FolioFinder and be logged in to obtain the creatives contact details.

Accounts on FolioFinder are FREE and quick to open. All we need is your name and email address so that we may send the creative an email with your information request. This allows you to initiate a dialogue with the creative.

It is FREE to contact a creative. If your reason for contact is of a commercial nature then the creative will be charged a nominal "introduction" fee for our service.

Joining FolioFinder is FREE.

You will want to join FolioFinder if;

• You are a creative and you want your own portfolio to show off your skills and be contactable by artwork commissioners and buyers.
• You are an artwork buyer or commissioner and want to contact creatives.

To open an account on FolioFinder select the button located in the page banner or select one of the join links found elsewhere.

• Select the Member Type from the list that most accurately describes your reason for joining.
• Press the Continue button.

Creatives will be required to complete a number of contact details but all other member types will only be required to complete their name and email address.

For security reasons your new MemberID and password will be emailed to the address that you specified. Once you have collected your new account details you may logon and use the FolioFinder service freely.

• Art buyers and commissioners can collect contact details from as many creatives as they want without further interruption.
• Creatives will want to go to the members area and start managing their portfolio.

The Members area allows creatives to update all aspects of their portfolio.

Remember the more details that you supply as part of your portfolio the more information a potential client has to find and commission you to produce an artwork or find your artwork to buy. Nothing shows the quality of your work more than sample images or photos so make sure you include enough to be fully representative.

The Members Area provides the following tools to help you manage your portfolio and account;

• Update my contact details
• Update my list of Skills
• Update my personal descriptions
• Add new artwork samples
• Edit my existing artwork samples
• Adding Credits to my account
• Charges
• Hide my portfolio from the public

Creatives can also see how many credits they have in their account.

FolioFinder members who have defined themselves as Buyers or Commissioners of artwork will only be presented with the 'Update my contact details' option.

When making changes to your account, be sure to press the save button or your changes will be lost.

For security reasons, you will be logged out after 30 minutes of inactivity on your account.

This section allows you to maintain your contact details. It is important to keep these up to date as they are presented to a prospective buyer or commissioner when they contact you for business.

• The email address you supply must be valid and you should check it regularly for client contacts.
• If your business type does not appear in the list then enter your business type into the empty field below.
• If your country does not appear in the list then enter your business type into the empty field to the right.

Also contained within this section are fields to;

• change your password
• your charge rate
• your personal WEB site address
• hide / show your portfolio

Press the Update button when you are finished to save your changes.

This section allows you to maintain important information about your skills and abilities.

Multiple selections may be made by holding down the <Ctrl> key while selecting with the left mouse button.

• Select all Disciplines that you are trained in.
• Select all Media that you use to create your artwork.
• Select all the Styles that you create artwork within.

If a required discipline, media or style does not appear in the list then you can type it into the box next to the appropriate list.

Press the Update button when you are finished to save your changes.

These fields allow you to describe yourself to artwork Buyers and Commissioners who view your portfolio page or your entry in the search listings.

• Enter a short description about yourself and your work to appear in the search listings. Make it brief but try to entice the viewer to open your portfolio page.
• Enter a long description to appear at the bottom of your portfolio page. This can be a résumé of your professional life, achievements and ambitions.
• If you want to include your own general copyright notice then enter it here. If you leave this field blank then a standard copyright notice will be displayed at the bottom of your portfolio page. Note: each sample that you upload may include its own individual copyright notice.

Press the Update button when you are finished to save your changes.

Nothing shows the quality of your work more than sample images or photographs so make sure you include enough to be fully representative.

To add sample images to your portfolio

• Prepare your images for upload.
• About full size and thumbnail sample images
• Logon to FolioFinder
• Select the Add new artwork samples option
• Press the Browse button to browse to your image on your local computer
• Press Upload file to upload your image to FolioFinder
• A form will appear allowing you to enter details about the sample.

If you experience difficulties with sizing and compressing your images then we are here to help. Email your images to us at The Team for preparation and upload. This service costs just one credit per image. Please ensure you have sufficient credits in your account before sending images.

Here are a few key points about full size and thumbnail sample images.

• You must upload and select one thumbnail sample before your portfolio entry will appear in the search lists.
• Only the thumbnail sample will appear in the search lists. Other sample images will be contained in your portfolio page.
• You can add as many images as you need.
• You may change your thumbnail or other sample images whenever you want.
• If your thumbnails are small copies of larger samples in your portfolio you may want to move them to the end of your collection of samples (edit the sample and change the display order) leaving the full size image at the top.
• You do not need a thumbnail of each standard size image. Thumbnails can be entirely separate images.
• Only one thumbnail is used in the directory lists at any one time but you can go and select a different one whenever you want (edit the sample and check the thumbnail box) so long as it is 5kb or less.
• You can delete old images if you don't want them anymore.

To ensure that FolioFinder works the best it can for you, your image samples must meet the following specifications;

• Recommended file formats for sample images are JPEG, or GIF.
• The maximum file size for each portfolio sample is 20kb.
• The maximum pixel size for each portfolio sample is 400 x 400 pixels.
• The maximum file size for each thumbnail sample is 5kb.
• The maximum pixel size for the thumbnail sample is 150x150 pixels.
• Images should be saved at 72dpi.

About full size and thumbnail sample images

Why do we impose these specifications?

• As with these things, there is a trade off between image quality and download times.
• Small thumbnails download quickly to the client allowing them to find the creative they want without giving them time to think about going elsewhere.
• Highly compressed images are less likely to be used without the owners permission.

There are many image editing applications that will allow you to resize, compress and save images ready for upload to FolioFinder.

It is beyond the scope of this help file to detail them all (except Windows Paint) so we have provided a few pointers.

• Some applications such as 'Windows Imaging' will not save images in a format suitable for use on the Internet.
• File formats that are suitable are Compuserve Graphics Interchange 'GIF', Joint Photographic Expert Group 'JPEG' or 'JPG' and Portable Network Graphics 'PNG'. Other file formats may not be acceptable by some WEB browsers.
• Your images MUST be resized to fit nicely into a browser window. Smaller images are acceptable but larger images will be removed without recourse.
Your image editing application may call this function Resize or Resample.
• Your image file size MUST also be small enough to allow them to load quickly into a WEB browser. A small file size may be achieved by saving your image in the JPEG image file format. This format allows image files to be compressed to 30% of their original size without loosing visual quality.
  Your image editing application may allow you to choose the file format and compression ratio when you save your image. Try using the Save As function.
• If you are having trouble reducing the file size then consider reducing the pixel size which will also reduce the file size.
• When creating your thumbnail you might consider taking just a section of a larger sample so as not to loose fine detail. 

This section displays your portfolio samples as they will appear in your portfolio page except that below each sample are Edit details and Delete sample buttons.

Pressing the Delete sample button will, after requesting confirmation, delete the sample and all its associated detail.

Pressing the Edit details button will open the details of that sample in edit mode.

Clients searching for artwork to buy will search for samples by entering search words or selecting Keywords. The chances of your work appearing in the resulting lists are increased by the accurate description you enter here.

File name/location:

• If the sample file has been uploaded to FolioFinder then this field may not be edited.
• If the sample is located on your own server then you may edit the address of that file here. The address of your sample file must include the server name, folder path and full file name. E.g. 'http://www.myserver.com/foldername/filename.jpeg'.

When you are happy with your changes press the Save changes button.

If your account does not contain a positive credit balance then artwork buyers or commissioners will not be able to contact you.

To avoid the possible loss of business, please keep your account topped up with credits.

All creatives start off with one contact allowing them to try out the service without obligation. However after your first enquiry you will have to purchase additional credits to allow prospective clients to contact you.

Logon and go to . Choose the option;

• Top-up my account with credits.

Choose one of the payment options.

• On-line with a credit debit card or E-gold.
• By faxed order form

The on-line option will open a new window to our secure payments service.

The detail

• FolioFinder is designed to bring potential buyers of your work or services to you.
• We provide the Portfolio service to you free of charge.
• We do charge a small fee for providing you with each sales lead.
• Sales leads take the form of an email containing contact details from a potential client that is delivered to your email address.
• Sales leads do not imply that you will receive a commission.
• Payment is effected by purchasing credits via the FolioFinder service.
• If your FolioFinder account contains zero credits then buyers cannot obtain your contact details.
• One credit buys one sales lead.
• A positive credit balance does not imply that buyers will contact you.
• Multiple credits may be purchased in advance.
• Credits are not refundable.

Acceptance of Terms and conditions

By becoming a FolioFinder member or using the FolioFinder.com site (the "Site") you are agreeing to abide by the terms and usage agreement presented. These terms and conditions may change from time to time without notice. Changes will be posted to this website. Please feel free to save or print a copy of the Terms and Conditions.

Membership Obligations

Members agree to supply and maintain up to date, true and accurate information about themself. If FolioFinder has reasonable grounds to suspect that the information supplied by a member is false then it shall have the right to suspend or terminate membership.

Copyright information

All artwork is the sole property of each respective creative. Any reproduction or other use of images or information contained within this site without written permission of the respective creatives is expressly prohibited.

Only owners or authorized distributors may transfer information or material to the site.

Rights to Materials provided by Users

By submission of material you are giving FolioFinder a worldwide, royalty free, non-exclusive license to display, reproduce, adapt and modify your content on the FolioFinder.com site. This license is effective as long as you are a member, terminating on removal of content from public view or closing of membership. FolioFinder does not claim ownership of a creative's content.

Illegal submissions or purposes

The site may only be used for lawful purposes. Submissions to the site must not violate any laws or violate copyright, trademark or intellectual property rights. FolioFinder has the right, but not the obligation, to monitor all content on the site. Content that is deemed to be obscene, defamatory or illegal will be removed without compensation. We reserve the right to make the final decision on what we consider objectionable content. Content added to this site is not screened and therefore FolioFinder can not control the images or information that is added. Therefore, FolioFinder does not guarantee the quality, accuracy, or integrity of the content provided. By using this site you may also be exposed to objectionable or illegal content. If you believe this site contains illegal content please contact us.

No responsibility for material transfer

The user acknowledges that transfer of material or information to and from the site is unsecured and may therefore be intercepted or read by others. This is with the exception of our secure payment procedure.

Notices

FolioFinder may send members notices via email or regular post in line with the contact details that you provided during registration.

Unsolicited Email

This agreement prohibits abuse of its email and contact a creative functionality. A specific example of this would be spamming or the bulk sending of unsolicited email messages. Members may only be contacted individually and for legitimate reasons.

Service Availability

FolioFinder will make reasonable efforts to make available our service at all times. However, FolioFinder does not guarantee uninterrupted or an error free service all of the time.

Disclaimer of Warranties

YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT:

• YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE FOLIOFINDER SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK
• THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS FOR YOUR USE, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

FOLIOFINER DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT:

• THE SITE WILL BE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS
• THE SITE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS
• THE SITE WILL NOT BE INTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE
• ANY THIRD-PARTY PRODUCT OR SERVICE OFFERED THROUGH THE SITE WILL BE OF A SATISFACTORY STANDARD.
• IT WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MONITORING ANY TRANSACTION BETWEEN YOU AND ANY THIRD PARTIES INTRODUCED THROUGH THE SITE.

IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH THE SITE OR ANY MATERIALS ON THE SITE, YOUR SOLE REMEDY IS TO DISCONTINUE USING THE SITE.

Limitation of Liability

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL FOLIOFINDER BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT ARE DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY RELATED TO THE USE OF, OR THE INABILITY TO USE, THE CONTENT, MATERIALS AND FUNCTIONS IN THE SITE. THIS INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF PROFIT OR ANTICIPATED PROFIT, GOODWILL, OR INTANGIBLE LOSSES.

WHERE JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES AND LIABILITIES THE ABOVE WARRANTY DISCLAIMER AND LIABILITY LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY.

FolioFinder.com Privacy Policy Covers

• How foiliofinder.com treats personal information that is received or collected via the FolioFinder.com site. Personal information is information about you that is personally identifiable like your name, address, email address, or phone number, and that is not otherwise publicly available.
• This policy only applies to the practices of FolioFinder.com and not to any company or people that FolioFinder has no ownership or control over.
  Information Collection and Use
  

General

• Personal information is collected when you register with FolioFinder.com and when you login to the FolioFinder.com site. FolioFinder.com also combines your information with other registered details according to information requests made whilst logged in.
• The amount of personal information we collect from you depends on whether you register as a "creative" or as a "buyer/non-commercial member". Information collected for a creative includes information such as name, email address, telephone, mailing address and information relating to your creative ability. Information collected from a buyer or non-commercial member includes information such as name and email address. Once you register with FolioFinder.com and log in to our services, you are not anonymous to us.
• FolioFinder.com collects information about the transactions you make with us.
• FolioFinder.com automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser, including your IP address and the page you request.
• FolioFinder.com may use your information for some or all of the following general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, fulfill your requests for products and services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

• FolioFinder.com does not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with other people or nonaffiliated companies except to provide products or services you've requested, when we have your permission.
  Your Ability to Edit and Delete Your Account Information and Preferences
• You can edit your Account information at any time.
• FolioFinder.com reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to our service, such as service announcements and administrative messages that are considered part of your Yahoo! account, without offering you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving them.
• You can delete your Yahoo! account by visiting our Account deletion page.

Confidentiality and Security

• We place the highest importance on security of our members' personal details.
• FolioFinder.com limits access to personal information about you to company representatives who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs.
• We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect personal information about you.
• Your FolioFinder.com Account Information is password-protected.
• In certain areas Yahoo! uses industry-standard SSL encryption to protect data transmissions (ie. In the purchasing of additional credits).

Changes to this Privacy Policy

• FolioFinder.com may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your FolioFinder.com account or by placing a prominent notice on our site.

Questions and Suggestions

• If you have questions or suggestions, please complete a feedback form or you can contact us at:
  FolioFinder.com

Please find below the contact information for FolioFinder.com

• I've forgotten my password and cannot Login. What do I do?
• Are there any costs involved with membership?
• What is a qualified lead?
• My email address has changed. How to I update it to give potential buyers a way of contacting me?
• Can I edit my portfolio details after I initially build it?

1. Your MemberID and password are included in emails sent to you so you may have a record of these details in your email client. Try searching for FolioFinder.
2. When you go to the FolioFinder logon screen there is an option to have your MemberID and password emailed to you. You must enter the email account that you used when joining FolioFinder.
3. If you have closed the email account that you used when opening your FolioFinder account then email us at The Team stating your old email address, postal address and phone number. We will reset your password and contact you as soon as possible.

No. Membership is entirely free.

However, a small fee is levied on the creative for supplying qualified leads.

This is your gratuity to us for providing you with sales leads.

Only FolioFinder members can contact creatives.

When a member tries to contact a creative they are asked for their reason.

Their reply is used to qualify them as either a sales lead or a non-commercial contact.

1. Logon to FolioFinder and go to
2. Select the Update my contact details option from the menu.
3. Change your email address in the field titled Email address:.
4. Press the Update button to save your changes.

1. Logon to FolioFinder and go to
2. Select the required option from the menu.
3. Change your details as required
4. Press the Update button to save your changes.

If Paint is loaded onto your Windows system you can find it in Start, Programs, Accessories. If it is not then it may be installed from the Windows installation CD.

This explanation was prepared using Microsoft Paint for Windows 98. Other versions may be different.

• Open your sample file with File, Open.

Paint is a very simple application that cannot maintain the aspect ratio of stretched images for you so you will have to do some calculations.

Portfolio samples

If your image is 640 by 480 pixels and you want to prepare it for a portfolio sample which must not be more than 400 pixels in either direction. The major length of 640 must be reduced to 400 or less and the minor length must be reduced by the same proportion to maintain the aspect ratio.

• Divide 400 by 640 giving 0.625
• Multiply this by 100 to get 62.5
• Ignore the fraction to give 62
• Open the Image, Stretch function and enter 62 as the Horizontal and Vertical stretch % values.
• Save the image as a new file with File, Save As, selecting Save as type to be JPEG.
• You can check the dimensions of your image with Image, Attributes. If the File size on disk is reported as greater than 20,000 bytes then you will need to reduce the image pixel size. This is because Paint does not allow you to change the JPEG compression ratio.

Thumbnail samples

If your image is 640 by 480 pixels and you want to prepare it for a thumbnail sample which must not be more than 150 pixels in either direction. The major length of 640 must be reduced to 150 or less and the minor length must be reduced by the same proportion to maintain the aspect ratio.

• Divide 150 by 640 giving 0.234375
• Multiply this by 100 to get 23.4375
• Ignore the fraction to give 23
• Open the Image, Stretch function and enter 23 as the Horizontal and Vertical stretch % values.
• Save the image as a new file with File, Save As, selecting Save as type to be JPEG.
• You can check the dimensions of your image with Image, Attributes. If the File size on disk is reported as greater than 5,000 bytes then you will need to reduce the image pixel size. This is because Paint does not allow you to change the JPEG compression ratio.