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Inkd is a controversial new startup developed by Kelly Smith of Curious Office and the venture capital firm Second Avenue Partners in Seattle, Washington. Inkd calls itself the "World's First Market for Original Print Design". The company is a user-generated marketplace that provides the general public with a way to buy and sell print designs such as brochures, pamphlet, business cards, letterhead, postcards, menus and other common print form factors used in global business. Inkd is based in the old Pioneer Square, Seattle area. The site follows in the tradition of a user-generated content marketplace, in that they provide graphic designers with free personal storefronts where they list their designs for sale in an attempt to earn commissions. Businesses are able to download the contributed brochure and business card templates in a variety of file types for use in popular design and publishing applications. Inkd has been compared to emerging microstock photo sites such as istockphoto as well as other graphics oriented sites like logoworks which was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2007. Founded in 2009 under the name Pressplane, Inkd launched with an estimated 800 original designs, and has since grown to nearly 2000 template designs. The model is based on users who can preview and then download those designs and customize them once they have completed the purchase. Prices vary from $29 to $99 per design. Most print designs are primarily available in vector graphics programs such as Adobe Systems InDesign and Illustrator but the site also accepts submissions and offers templates for download in other formats such as Apple iWork and Microsoft Word. == History == Inkd was conceived and developed by Curious Office and Second Avenue Partners and is one of several companies in their portfolio. Inkd was capitalized with a $1.7 million Series A venture round on September 23, 2008 by Second Avenue and an unusual but broad cast of well known digital luminaries to include founder of Expedia and Zillow, Rich Barton and former MTV & Viacom President Mika Salmi. Kelly Smith developed the initial concept which closely mirrors another company he co-founded called Imagekind with Adrian Hanauer who is an owner in the professional soccer team called Seattle Sounders. That company was the first online marketplace to buy and sell art prints. It was subsequently sold to CafePress in 2008. The basic functions of Inkd and indeed its graphical look and feel closely mirrored the first version of Imagekind when it was launched in July 2006. Interestingly, the company was often called "The CafePress of Wall Art" well before CafePress chose to buy the company for themselves. While Inkd sells flyer templates, newsletter templates, brochure templates, letterheads, business cards and post cards, the blogsphere is already drawing parallels to CafePress again and even to the popular Threadless tee-shirt market. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Inkd」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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