DeviantArt

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DeviantArt
DeviantArt Logo.svg
DeviantArt screenshot.png
Type of business Subsidiary
Type of site Art display/Social networking service
Available in English
Founded August 7, 2000; 21 years ago
Area served Worldwide
Founder(s)
Scott Jarkoff
Matthew Stephens
Angelo Sotira
Parent Wix.com
URL www.deviantart.com
Commercial Yes
Registration Optional
Launched August 7, 2000; 21 years ago
Current status Active
DeviantArt (formerly stylized as deviantART) is an American online art community
featuring artwork, videography and photography subsidiary of the Israeli company
Wix.com. It was launched on August 7, 2000 by Angelo Sotira, Scott Jarkoff, Matthew
Stephens, and others.

DeviantArt, Inc. is headquartered in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California.

[1] Fella, a small, devil-esque robotic character, was the official mascot of the
website.[2] DeviantArt had about 36 million visitors annually by 2008.[3] In 2010,
DeviantArt users were submitting about 1.4 million favorites and about 1.5 million
comments daily.[4] In 2011, it was the thirteenth largest social network with about
3.8 million weekly visits.[5] Several years later, in 2017, the site had more than
25 million members and more than 250 million submissions.[6] On February 23, 2017,
the company announced it was being acquired by Wix.com in a $36 million deal.[7]

Contents
1 History
1.1 Copyright and licensing issues
1.2 Contests for companies and academia
2 Website
2.1 Versions
2.1.1 Eclipse (Version 9)
3 Live events
3.1 deviantART Summit
3.2 deviantART World Tour
3.3 "Birthday Bashes" and deviantMEET
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
History
DeviantArt started as a site connected with people who took computer applications
and modified them to their own tastes, or who posted the applications from the
original designs. As the site grew, members in general became known as artists and
submissions as arts.[8][9] DeviantArt was originally launched on August 7, 2000, by
Scott Jarkoff, Matt Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others, as part of a larger network
of music-related websites called the Dmusic Network. The site flourished largely
because of its unique offering and the contributions of its core member base and a
team of volunteers after its launch,[10] but was officially incorporated in 2001
about eight months after launch.[11]

DeviantArt was loosely inspired by projects like Winamp facelift, customize.org,

deskmod.com, screenphuck.com, and skinz.org, all application skin-based websites.
Sotira entrusted all public aspects of the project to Scott Jarkoff as an engineer
and visionary to launch the early program. All three co-founders shared backgrounds
in the application skinning community, but it was Matt Stephens whose major
contribution to DeviantArt was the suggestion to take the concept further than
skinning and more toward an art community. Many of the individuals involved with
the initial development and promotion of DeviantArt still hold positions with the
project. Angelo Sotira currently serves as the chief executive officer of
DeviantArt, Inc.[11][12][13]

On November 14, 2006, DeviantArt introduced the option to submit their works under
Creative Commons licenses giving the artists the right to choose how their works
can be used.[14] A Creative Commons license is one of several public copyright
licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. On September 30, 2007, a
film category was added to DeviantArt, allowing artists to upload videos. An artist
and other viewers can add annotations to sections of the film, giving comments or
critiques to the artist about a particular moment in the film.[15] In 2007,
DeviantArt received $3.5 million in Series A (first round) funding from undisclosed
investors,[16] and in 2013, it received $10 million in Series B funding.[citation
needed]

On December 4, 2014, the site unveiled a new logo and announced the release of an
official mobile app on both iOS and Android,[17] released on December 10, 2014.[18]

On February 23, 2017, DeviantArt was acquired by Wix.com, Inc. for $36 million. The
site plans to integrate DeviantArt and Wix functionality, including the ability to
utilize DeviantArt resources on websites built with Wix, and integrating some of
Wix's design tools into the site.[19]

As of March 1, 2017, Syria was banned from accessing DeviantArt's services

entirely, citing US and Israeli sanctions and aftermath on February 19, 2018. After
Syrian user Mythiril used a VPN to access the site and disclosed the geoblocking in
a journal, titled "The hypocrisy of deviantArt", DeviantArt ended the geoblocking
except for commercial features.[20]

Since autumn of 2018, spambots have been hacking into an indeterminately large
number of long-inactive accounts and placing spam Weblinks in their victims' About
sections (formerly known as DeviantIDs), where users of the site display their
public profile information. An ongoing investigation into this matter began in
January 2019.[21]

Copyright and licensing issues

There is no review for potential copyright and Creative Commons licensing
violations when a work is submitted to DeviantArt, so potential violations can
remain unnoticed until reported to administrators using the mechanism available for
such issues.[22] Some members of the community have been the victims of copyright
infringement from vendors using artwork illegally on products and prints, as
reported in 2007.[23][24] The reporting system in which to counteract copyright
infringement directly on the site has been subject to a plethora of criticism from
members of the site, given that it may take weeks, or even a month before a filed
complaint for copyright infringement is answered.

Contests for companies and academia

Due to the nature of DeviantArt as an art community with a worldwide reach,
companies use DeviantArt to promote themselves and create more advertising through
contests. CoolClimate is a research network connected with the University of
California, and they held a contest in 2012 to address the impact of climate
change. Worldwide submissions were received, and the winner was featured in The
Huffington Post.[25]

Various car companies have held contests. Dodge ran a contest in 2012 for art of
the Dodge Dart and over 4,000 submissions were received.[26] Winners received cash
and item prizes, and were featured in a gallery at Dodge-Chrysler headquarters.[27]
Lexus partnered with DeviantArt in 2013 to run a contest for cash and other prizes
based on their Lexus IS design; the winner's design became a modified Lexus IS and
was showcased at the SEMA 2013 show in Los Angeles, California.[28]

DeviantArt also hosts contests for upcoming movies, such as Riddick. Fan art for
Riddick was submitted, and director David Twohy chose the winners, who would
receive cash prizes and some other DeviantArt-related prizes, as well as having
their artwork made into official fan-art posters for events.[29][30] A similar
contest was held for Dark Shadows where winners received cash and other prizes.[31]
[32]

Video games also conduct contests with DeviantArt, such as the 2013 Tomb Raider
contest. The winner had their art made into an official print sold internationally
at the Tomb Raider store and received cash and other prizes. Other winners also
received cash and DeviantArt-related prizes.[33]

Website
The site has over 358 million images which have been uploaded by its over 35
million registered members.[34] By July 2011, DeviantArt was the largest online art
community.[35] Members of DeviantArt may leave comments and critiques on individual
deviation pages,[36][37] allowing the site to be called "a [free] peer evaluation
application".[38] Along with textual critique, DeviantArt now offers the option to
leave a small picture as a comment.[39] This can be achieved using an option of
DeviantArt Muro, which is a browser-based drawing tool that DeviantArt has
developed and hosts. However, only members of DeviantArt can save their work as
deviations. Another feature of Muro is what is called "Redraw"; it records the user
as they draw their image, and then the user can post the entire process as a film
deviation.[40] Some artists in late 2013 began experimenting with the use of
breakfast cereal as the subject of their pieces, although this trend has only
started spreading.[41]

Individual deviations are displayed on their own pages, with a list of statistical
information about the image, as well as a place for comments by the artist and
other members, and the option to share through other social media (Facebook,
Twitter, etc.).[42] Prior to Version 9, Deviations were required to be organized
into categories when a member uploaded an image and this allowed DeviantArt's
search engine to find images concerning similar topics.[43]

Individual members can organize their own deviations into folders on their personal
pages.[38] The member pages (profiles) show a member's personally uploaded
deviations and journal postings.[44] Journals are like personal blogs for the
member pages, and the choice of topic is up to each member; some use it to talk
about their personal or art-related lives, others use it to spread awareness or
marshal support for a cause.[45] Also displayed are a member's favorites, a
collection of other users' images from DeviantArt that a member saves to its own
folder.[46] Another thing found on the profile page is a member's watchers; a
member adds another member to their watch list in order to be notified when that
member uploads something.[45] The watcher notifications are gathered in a member's
Message Center with other notices, like when other users comment on that member's
deviations, or when the member's image has been put in someone's favorites.[45]

Members can build groups that any registered member of the site can join. These
groups are usually based on an artist's chosen medium and content. Some examples of
these are Literature (poetry, prose, etc.), Drawing (traditional, digital, or
mixed-media), Photography (macro, nature, fashion, stills), and many others. Within
these groups are where they do collaborations and have their art featured and
introduced to artists of the same kind.

DeviantArt does not allow pornographic, sexually explicit and/or obscene material
to be submitted;[47] however, "tasteful" nudity is allowed, even as photographs.
[48] To view mature artwork and content, members must be at least 18 years of age
and to enable the content, they have to make an account.

In order to communicate on a more private level, Notes can be sent between

individual members, like an email within the site.[45] The other opportunities for
communication between members are DeviantArt's forums, for more structured, long-
term discussions, and chat rooms, for group instant messaging.[49]

Versions
DeviantArt has been revising the website in "versions", with each version releasing
multiple new features. Coincidentally, the third, fourth and fifth versions of the
site were all released on August 7, the "birthday" of the website's founding.
[citation needed]

Version Release Changes

1 August 7, 2000 The site goes public as part of the Dmusic Network.
2 February 5, 2002 In version 2, browsing was made easier.[50]
3 August 7, 2003 The "extreme speed and reliability increase" was
accompanied by some bugs that had to be fixed.[51] For the release of version 3,
there were numerous free giveaways.[52]
4 August 7, 2004 In version 4, the chat client called dAmn was added to the
site.[53]
5 August 7, 2006 In version 5, each deviant has a Prints account, through
which they may sell prints of their works for money, receiving 20% of the profits.
[clarification needed] Users can also obtain Premium Prints Account offering 50% of
the profits and an immediate check of material submitted for sales. Before version
5 of DeviantArt, users did not have by default access to this service and it had to
be obtained separately. By paying for a subscription, a deviant could also sell
their work for 50% of each sale.[54]
6 July 10, 2008 In this revision, the message center, front page and footer
were revamped, and users could now customize the DeviantArt navigation toolbar. The
design style of the site was slightly modified as well.[55]
6.1 Early 2009 In this revision, there is a slight change of design and easier
search options, in addition to users being given more options to customize their
profiles, and stacks are added to the message center later in 2010.
7 May 18, 2010 Version 7 features a new smaller header design and the
removal of the search bar except on the home page. The staff later made updates to
Version 7, including adding a search bar to every page.
8 October 15, 2014
(updated December 4, 2014) Version 8 features a re-styled header, removal of the
large footer, updated browsing interface, addition of "watch feed", a news feed
containing a summary of postings by watched users, status updates, and additions to
user collections.
Eclipse (Version 9)
In early November 2018, DeviantArt released a promo site showcasing a new update,
titled 'Eclipse'. The site showed that the update would include a minimalist design
strategy, a dark mode option, modified CSS editing, improved filtering through a
'Love Meter,' profile headers, and other cosmetic changes and improvements. The
update would also include no third-party advertisements and improved features for
the site's Core users.[56]
On November 14, 2018, a beta version of the Eclipse site was made available for
Core Members who marked their accounts for beta testing.[57] As of November 21,
2018, the site reported that over 4,000 users tried Eclipse and that the site
received almost 1,700 individual feedback reports; these included bug reports,
feature requests, and general commentary.[58] On March 6, 2019, DeviantArt
officially released Eclipse to all users, with a toggle to switch back to the old
site.

On May 20, 2020, the previous User Interface was discontinued from access, leaving
only Eclipse available.[59]

Live events

The Hollywood Palladium while hosting the first deviantART Summit

World Tour meet in Toronto in 2007

deviantART Summit
On June 17 and 18, 2005, DeviantArt held their first convention, the deviantART
Summit, at the Palladium in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United
States. The summit consisted of several exhibitions by numerous artists, including
artscene groups old and new at about 200 different booths. Giant projection screens
displayed artwork as it was being submitted live to DeviantArt, which was receiving
50,000 new images daily at the time.

deviantART World Tour

Starting May 13, 2009, DeviantArt embarked on a world tour, visiting cities around
the world, including Sydney, Singapore, Warsaw, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, London,
New York City, Toronto and Los Angeles. During the world tour, the new "Portfolio"
feature of DeviantArt was previewed to attendees.[60][61]

"Birthday Bashes" and deviantMEET

Occasionally, DeviantArt hosts a meeting for members to come together in real life
and interact, exchange, and have fun. There have been meetings for the birthday of
DeviantArt, called "Birthday Bashes", as well as simple general get-togethers
around the world. In 2010, European DeviantArt members held a deviantMEET to
celebrate DeviantArt's birthday in August.[62] There was also a celebration that
year in the House of Blues in Hollywood, California.[63]