Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Dive Inspirations

Your shop name *
Dive Inspirations
Zazzle to me is a... *
Part time job - with part time pay
What is the best advice you have received from a fellow shopkeeper about your shops or designs you would like to pass on to another shopkeeper? *

Do not be afraid to cull your shop of designs that do not sell. It's a fact that some designs just do not sell. Sometimes you have to forget your artistic pride. Don't be afraid to rework a design that nobody is buying. Look at the colors of the design, and see how they work with the available colors of apparel. Check every possible product configuration. Yes, it is time consuming, but there is nothing worse than a customer who happens upon your shop finding a design that does not fit a particular product. Do not be afraid to take a design and re-size it several ways so it fits all the products you want to make available for sale.
What PODs do u currently use or have shops on? *
  • Zazzle
  • Cafepress
  • Spreadshirt
  • Skreened
  • Greeting Card Universe (GCU)
What did you do with your free time before zazzle or other POD's....and what do you do with it now? *
You mean other than scuba diving or lounging in a hammock with a banana daiquiri? There is not a whole lot of time between designing for my regular job, and designing for my POD's. The designs take a set amount of time, and the lay takes more. It's surprising how much time it takes to post a new design for sale on products.
What programs do you use to make your designs *
  • Photoshop (any version)
  • Illustrator
  • Other photo-editing software
Tell us more about what you like and do not like about each software you use, what makes it special. *
I use Adobe Creative Suite CS3. I love Photoshop. Illustrator is great, but it takes forever to master. I am still learning tricks all of the time. As far as I;m concerned, they are simply the best image design or altering tools out there. If you start with a hand drawn sketch, and then scan it into your computer Illustrator is the best way to ink a drawing. For those who work on photographs, Photoshop is unmatched in it's abilities. Pixelmator is a good alternative though for quick and easy touch-ups or editing a photo like cropping, straightening, re-sizing, etc.
Will you make custom orders? *
Yes - sometimes free, sometimes fee required upfront
Elaborate on your answer above regarding custom orders... *
I do custom orders all the time. They can be bulk requests, or simply a one off. It depends on the design requested. The design fee, again, depends on the amount of work required for the custom design, and what it will be used for. For example: If I do a design for scuba shop that they will sell in their store, I get a deposit on commission, then the balance on completion. For a one off, or small run (say a small Dive Club) I don't take a design fee. I bump the price of the individual item a bit so I make a larger commission on the sale of each.
List your shop URL's *

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Sunday, July 1, 2012

Diane Clancy's Art

Your shop name *
Diane Clancy's Art
Zazzle to me is a... *
Part time job - with part time pay
What is the best advice you have received from a fellow shopkeeper about your shops or designs you would like to pass on to another shopkeeper? *

One thing that other Zazzlers have told me - is go ahead and leave it up - someone might like it. I have heard of many stories of people selling things they were sure no one would want. That has happened to me too ... I wasn't going to make a bumper sticker out of a slice of one of my paintings ... but decided to anyway. It sold 5 times!

Another great piece of advice is get it up there - put it on lots of products - that is the only way it will sell. Go ahead and try - you will love the thrill when you sell something!!

My own piece of advice - think about what you want your shop to be called before you open it. Use capitals to help make your shop name readable. Oh, one more piece of advice from me - I really like it when shops are organized into categories - especially when they are organized by images - that way I can go and find the product I want with an image I really like.
What PODs do u currently use or have shops on? *
  • Zazzle
  • Cafepress
  • Inktastic
  • Greeting Card Universe (GCU)
  • Imagekind
  • Redbubble
  • Other
What did you do with your free time before zazzle or other POD's....and what do you do with it now? *
I created more art in my free time before I got heavily involved with Print on Demand shops. I spent more time in my physical studio. Also I do community organizing around the arts and environment among other things (both before and now).

Now - hmm now the idea of free time is even more weird - what is free time? I do like watching movies and TV shows with my partner and analyzing them. She is writing a screen play so we are always looking for ideas and how to perfect hers. I also create more digital art because I can be doing other work at the same time.
What programs do you use to make your designs *
  • Photoshop (any version)
  • Illustrator
  • Other raster software
  • Other vector software
Tell us more about what you like and do not like about each software you use, what makes it special. *

One of my favorite versions of Photoshop is Photoshop 7, used in Mac OS system 9. That is because I can still use KPT and other filters that I love to use making digital images. Recently my older computer got freed up again and I have started creating using KPT filters - very happy about that. I have recently updated from Photoshop CS 3 to CS 5. They are both fine programs ...each probably faster and with more dodads on them. But they don't run all my beloved filters - I lost all of them in Mac OS 10.

I use Bryce 6 (I have used every version since 3 and have 7 ready to install). The downside is that Bryce at this point doesn't run on Mac OS Lion - I really, really, really hope they update it. I love Bryce - that is how I make my Bubblescapes and I love playing with the colors and sky. You can change where the sun is and that changes colors and you can change the colors, atmosphere and clouds too.

My other current most used software would be Artmatic. I started with 4 and recently upgraded to 5 to go with ... Mac OS Lion again. A lot of upgrades with this - but now that I am almost set, it is worth it. It makes stunning fractals and other digital images - I have just begun to scratch the surface of the controls you can use - utterly amazing - but, sorry, only Mac.
Will you make custom orders? *
Yes - no prepay required
Elaborate on your answer above regarding custom orders... *
If someone wants one of my images/paintings on a specific product, I am delighted to accommodate them. I am very happy when people love my work, so I will do whatever I can to make them happy with some of my art. If it is just putting a product on Zazzle, I am not sure that I would charge extra. If it does encompass a lot of extra time, I might tack on a slight surcharge.
List your shop URL's *

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