Mike W.
Yelp
I'm writing this review as both someone who has purchased work here and also as someone who had his work shown at ShopSCAD when I was a student at SCAD. Thus, I will try to incorporate what I learned about the Shop from several points of view.
The good:
A strong selection of work by SCAD students, alumni, and faculty. I would say in the fine arts, you'll often find as much alumni work as student work--especially painting and photography. Several pieces of jewelry I looked at and one I purchased were also by alumni. This is win-win: students and alumni get their work shown, local residents and visitors get to see what SCAD artists are doing, and alumni get to continue in their professional relationship with the school.
Apparently, beyond the Savannah location they now have a ShopSCAD on the Atlanta campus, which makes perfect sense. They also have a website and sell from that. When they were selling a couple of my paintings, they did not have them in the actual Savannah store very long (the store is small) but did retain them for sale on the website, which is very nice and allows them to have more work for sale than they may have room for in the shop.
Dealing with ShopSCAD as a student was overall a delight. They really seem concerned with getting quailty student work shown. I was studying architecture and didn't expect them to even take my paintings since I was not a painting major, but after reviewing the work, they carried some of my paintings and also some of my small photographic prints.
The not-so-good:
You will note, at ShopSCAD and really all over the SCAD campus a certain aesthetic at work. It isn't "Martha Stewartish" as some have claimed, but it's heavy on muted greens, bright oranges, and earth tones. Dogs, sad looking women, and trees that appear dead or ready for a star role in a Halloween cartoon are favored subjects in this aesthetic. Some grad students I know at SCAD have joked that there is even a formula to what you should paint to get a piece into ShopSCAD. I will say this: the artwork is all high-quality but you will see certain trends. It may or may not appeal to you. If you're a thirtysomething, trendy, Southern lady who thinks of herself as a more hip version of Faith Hill, you'll probably love it though and buy it up like crazy . . . oh wait: that's pretty much who lives in Savannah and buys mid-range art.
The website is a great idea and overall well-done. However, their inventory is apparently not "live" as I tried to buy a necklace from them and it showed it was in stock at the point of purchase but the gallery director emailed me in the morning to explain she had already sold the last one at Christmas and would have to refund my money. She also needed my credit card info for this, which indicates their system records the transaction but doesn't display the exact info after approval (which is good for security) so I'm surprised they don't have live inventory on their point-of-sale and web-store computers. It's not hard to do: if the necklace sold in the actual shop, when it was scanned that should have alerted the computer it was the last one in stock and to remove it from inventory on the web, too.
Those slight misgivings aside, overall, what ShopSCAD is doing is innovative and a great idea. I have been only proud and pleased to have been a part of it and will continue to support them as a customer.