Tag: Poems

New Changes That Feel Old: “Lines & Verses” Now Up

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Writings for various items are now all collected in one place! “Lines & Verses” is a new menu bar item alongside “My Portfolio” and such, and just as “My Portfolio” presents my artwork, “Lines & Verses” presents, well, the little writings I have created for various items over time.

It is a recent change, yet one that feels quite old. Almost as though it is not new at all. Indeed, the various lines and verses I have created have been around all this time. Only they could only ever be seen on products, as they were never gathered and so presented together anywhere.

This is something I have long sought to change. Greeting card verses in particular always seemed to warrant clearer exposure, generally being more substantive and poetic than other stuff.

Lots of Flowers Pink and Green Mother's Day Card, product at The Draw on Zazzle

Lots of Flowers Pink and Green Mother’s Day Card
© 2015 Darren Olsen

Lots of Flowers Pink and Green Mother's Day Card, inside, product at The Draw on Zazzle

Lots of Flowers Pink and Green Mother’s Day Card, inside
© 2015 Darren Olsen

Yet I never knew quite what to do with it all. Collect everything on a page? In a post? Several posts? And how to handle the existing stuff versus the current?

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Unicorns

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What does it mean to be a unicorn? And what do unicorns represent? Presenting a bit of poetry, with inspiration from my drawing “Self-Made Unicorn”. One possible, if atypical, interpretation. Reflect … and enjoy.

How colorful, oh, so colorful! So dazzling be the sight.
So bright, yes, quite right! Dim, no rather light.
Magical, oh, so very so. So very so indeed!
Be ever in that stead, well, so great for every need.

Perhaps that’s what they see, when, oh, to me, they look.
Perhaps that’s what they think–just fleeting with every blink.
Perhaps that’s what they feel, when, talk with me, they do.
But to see and think even feel … is never to truly know.

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When Policies Change: Writing Product Descriptions

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Full control over projects and enterprises is always nice, particularly creative projects. Or at least, it always feels nice. A nice thing about Zazzle then (and presumably other print-on-demand companies), is that Designers have full creative control over their work. Sure, Zazzle does have a few restrictions for art and photos (for instance, nothing that can reasonably viewed as discriminatory, nor anything that encourages drug abuse, is excessively violent, nor obscene or pornographic in a non-artistic way), but in all reasonable and understandable ways, Designers are free to create whatever they want. Of course, this extends to whichever products to post as well, plus, how to organize and present them.

Yet one is always well-advised to re-evaluate their work and practices at times, and as with being part of any community undertaking, overseen and managed by a third party, sometimes, Zazzle makes changes that encourage, or even force, Designers to react. Zazzle does these things, of course, not only in their own best interests, but those also, ultimately, of their Makers and Designers. And while such changes can understandably be frustrating at times (and granted, not all changes will directly benefit all Designers), taking time to adjust to and occasionally limiting what one can choose to do, if nothing else, they are, again, simply a part of creating and selling in conjunction with a company.

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“Moonlit Dreams” and Product Inspirations

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One basic approach to selling on Zazzle, is simply to put a drawing or other work on as many products as possible. That way, the effort of producing a design is maximized in terms of the number of items added to one’s store, and, hence, to the Zazzle market place at large. Not everyone does this (for instance, some Zazzlers specialize in one product type only), but many do, including, usually, myself. And when a given design truly works fine on many different product types, it is not simply about adding more items at once; it is about offering people what one hopes are all good and worthy products.

Sometimes though, certain products in particular inspire a design, leading to “product inspired” designing in contrast to the “design first” way. This can be just one product in particular, and in fact, I have a “Few of a Kinds” category collection in my store for this very reason (well, more precisely, because I want to occasionally design for very specific items). Other times, this can rather be a subset of products, because the underlying inspiration, perhaps, is an intended use or purpose, one for which only certain products apply.

Moonlit Dreams, colored pencil drawing by Darren Olsen at The Draw

“Moonlit Dreams”
© 2015 Darren Olsen

It was for such a “purpose / product inspiration” that I drew, for instance, “Moonlit Dreams”. I was thinking of something to go on a nightlight in particular, and as nightlights are often useful to kids and babies, I decided on something suitable for a nursery. From there though, with a design so “baby” in nature, I soon saw how nice “Moonlit Dreams” could be on certain other products suited to nurseries, or, even, to some suitable for baby showers as well.

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