“Moonlit Dreams” and Product Inspirations

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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“Ring of Flowers” Items and Some Basic Zazzling

I like all my drawings to various extents, and hence, generally, the products I place them on as well. Some items and designs seem to me to be exceptionally cool though, such as my “Ring of Flowers” ones. “Ring of Flowers” is actually not a single drawing, but rather a composite of one, “Flowers on Sharp White”:

Flowers on Sharp White, colored pencil drawing by Darren Olsen at The Draw

“Flowers on Sharp White”
© 2015 Darren Olsen

Flowers on Grassy Hills, colored pencil drawing by Darren Olsen at The Draw

“Flowers on Grassy Hills”
© 2015 Darren Olsen

“Flowers on Sharp White” is pretty basic (a “long” version of my original drawing “Flowers on Grassy Hills”, itself fairly basic), but while it still looks good on its own, when three copies are arranged in a ring–and certain image editing and Zazzle design tools are used–it really becomes something special.

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Competition vs Cooperation

Z in a circle, logo of Zazzle

© 2000-2015 Zazzle Inc. Used with Permission

So I launched a store on Zazzle.com about three weeks ago, and a lot went into getting everything all set. (And now with setting up this blog and off-site site, a lot is still going into it all.) Not least of all was actually creating some drawings, many of which you can find in my portfolio. Nor was learning about how to best scan and digitize images for placing them on products, or the untold time spent posting the actual products and writing their descriptions and such. (Each of these are of course ongoing to a lesser extent as well.) But a bigger matter loomed over it all: what I am truly trying to accomplish, and how should I go about accomplishing it?

Zazzle has hundreds and hundreds of stores, all offering some combination of the comparatively limited number of products that store owners can possibly post. Which is to say, Zazzle has “Makers” who manufacture, print, and stock particular products, while numerous “Designers” (the store owners) supply the drawings, paintings, photos, digital art, or whatnot else to actually appear on said products. With so many, many sellers but only a comparatively limited number of fundamentally different items, how can any one store and seller expect to attract many buyers?

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