The Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) has formed a partnership with Toronto-based online portfolio solution startup 4ormat to provide all OCAD students (as well as faculty members) with free direct access to 4ormat’s premium tools.
Artists everywhere have long struggled with the whole money-making task, so free access to the startups professional platform should be a welcomed boost for OCAD students. Students will also continue to receive free access to the platform for six months after graduation.
4ormat founder Lukas Dryja holds a Bachelor’s degree from OCAD U’s Graphic Design program, and said his team was excited to be working with OCAD. “It is very important to us to make sure our tools are available to the creative minds that will not only help shape our future, but define it.”
Used by tens of thousands of creative professionals in over 120 countries, 4ormat is a powerful and easy-to-use online portfolio platform that allows anyone to build and grow a successful, creative business. With access to countless features and professionally-‐designed themes, creatives are able to create and maintain professional online portfolios with ease through its drag and drop site customization.
In addition to the high touch customer support already included in their service, 4ormat will also be hosting informational seminars for OCAD U students. 4ormat has already completed a year long pilot test at the university, and is now free to use for all OCAD U students and faculty. Future plans are underway to integrate the platform directly into the OCAD U curriculum.
The decision to partner with an innovative Toronto-based startup seems like a solid move on OCAD’s part, and shows that they’re not only willing to support new and locally-based technology, but also to facilitate the intersection of art and technology. The university was founded in 1876 in the heart of the design centre of Toronto, and “as Canada’s university of imagination is dedicated to the advancement of art and designm education as well as practice and research across a wide range of disciplines.” It currently has a student body of over 4000.
4ormat made headlined in 2012 when cofounder Tyler Rooney wrote a guest post for Techrunch called “Bootstrapped Startup Saves Over $100K By Dropping IE“. According to 4ormat, the article was recognized as one of the most popular articles on TechCrunch for 2012. In it, Rooney explained that 4ormat’s decision to not support the Internet Explorer browser was their “secret weapon”, and saved the company $100,000. It mostly reads like a startup pumping up its own tires, but it’s an interested read worth checking for startups debating which browsers to support.