• by Emily Scardino , January 29, 2007

Corbis is dialing into the mobile art trend in an innovative new partnership with Cingular Wireless. The digital photo provider recently launched the Thunderdog Collective, involving a pay-per-use model for proprietary cell phone graphics.

The collective has 10 artists, including Tristan Eaton, Filth, Superdeux, Demo, and Dr. Revolt, each working in different mediums from graphic design to graffiti, all licensed through Corbis.

“We came to Cingular with art that had been created specifically for mobile,” says Rachel Wright, creative director of mobile and emerging businesses at Corbis. “We saw both [wallpapers and underground art] as viral mediums.”

Wright notes that the choice of street-influenced art meshes well with the urban music that’s already popular for ringtones.

Customers text a code, Tdog, to a number, 386, to access Thunderdog wallpapers at $1.99 a pop. Corbis will sign additional artists each quarter in 2007. Wright expects to have a library of some 2,300 images by the end of the year.