What is Giclee printing and why artists should use it for their portfolio?

As an artist, your portfolio is not only the first glimpse at your best work, but it is also a tool for gaining valuable inroads with galleries and exhibitions. So your artist’s portfolio must always look its best. Giclée printing is used by visual artists, from designers to illustrators, to present their artworks. Because of their bright, vivid colours and archival quality, giclée prints are an ideal choice for use in your portfolio.

Giclée printing: style and quality

The term giclée comes from the french for spray and describes a particular printing style and quality. To understand this better, let’s explore how giclée prints are made and what materials give them their superior quality.

Giclée is a halftone printing style that uses state of the art inkjet printers to spray tiny dots of ink, or halftone patterns, onto specially treated paper. These minute dots act like pixels, combining together to create the larger printed image. Professional inkjet printers work similarly to your home printer but create a far more comprehensive range of bold colours. With deep blacks and luxuriously rich colours, giclée is the favoured printing style for artists who want prints that make a visual impact.

The term giclée notes the printing style and the quality of the printed work. All giclée prints must start with a high-resolution. The higher the resolution, the crisper the final image will be. Professional printers require giclée prints to have a minimum resolution of 300 DPI. Giclée prints must also be produced using only the highest quality materials. This means that giclée prints use pigment-based inks alongside acid-free archival papers. Because of the quality materials they are made from, giclée prints have an outstanding longevity of 100+ years. This combination of materials produces exceptional quality prints fit for the gallery wall.

Giclée: the artists choice

There is a reason why giclée prints remain a favourite of artists of all types.

Colour

Vivid, sumptuous colours are what giclée printing is all about. Bottomless blues, vibrant pinks, and fiery oranges are just the start of the wide gamut of colours that giclée printing produces. While many printing styles use combinations of 4 base colour inks, giclée printing employs 12 coloured inks to create a spectrum of true to life colours. The result is beautifully printed images with a unique richness and depth.

Longevity

The work in your portfolio will always need to look its best. That’s why you’ll want prints with superior longevity. Giclée prints use only the highest-quality acid and lignin-free paper combined with premium pigment-based inks so that they can hold up to the test of time. Unlike other printing styles that may fade or deteriorate, giclée prints have a longevity of +100 years, making them ideal for the artist looking for an archival-quality print style.

Accessibility

Giclée prints are incredibly accessible and easy to produce. Unlike some other printing methods, which require hours to create a single image, giclée printing is speedy. Within minutes a high-quality giclée work will be ready for framing or shipping directly to collectors. Drop-shipping means that your portfolio is readily available to send directly to your collectors or next exhibition; you don’t even have to lift a finger. All you need is to install the dropshipping app.

Once an order for your giclée print has been placed on your website, the printers will process and ship directly to your customer.

This means a quick turnaround for both you and your collectors.Giclée prints are incredibly accessible and easy to produce. Unlike some other printing methods, which require hours to create a single image, giclée printing is speedy. Within minutes a high-quality giclée work will be ready for framing or shipping directly to collectors. Drop-shipping means that your portfolio is readily available to send directly to your collectors or next exhibition; you don’t even have to lift a finger. All you need is to install the dropshipping app. Once an order for your giclée print has been placed on your website, the printers will process and ship directly to your customer. This means a quick turnaround for both you and your collectors.