Welcome to my visual story telling art and graphics published on several print-on-demand sites. To be inspired is great but to inspire someone else is Incredible
The popular online print on demand shop ZAZZLE offers just that. It took me a while to edit some of my products that I thought were available to be personalized, and apparently were not.
I created a collection for these products and will keep adding more as I go along.
Its a real shame that the South African Rand is so unfavorable against the dollar, otherwise I would be tempted to buy a personalized gift and send it to my family in Holland and the UK. We are having to pay 14.2 Rand to buy $1.00. So you can imagine what even a postcard will cost us. The only advantage in this otherwise corrupt currency control is that any royalties I earn that gets paid into my PayPal account buys me more here in South Africa.
I hope that there are a lot of succulent gardeners out there that would love to own the T shirt I designed for them. I've written an article about my own fascination with succulents titled: The Hanging Gardens of Clovelly
Thanks for reading my post.
Nadine. #nadinemay
"If you're really passionate about what you do, but it's not going to make you a lot of money, should you still do it?” My reply would be YES. Keep dong what you love to do. Read my blog post titled :Earning while loving how you do it.
There are two genre designs that seem to be the most popular so far. My African designs and my Anton Pieck incorporated designs.
What have I learned from this?
Read my full article on this topic titled: My-most-Popular-Designs to read more about branding your own graphic signature.
Because I'm an international designer and all the print on demand websites like Zazzle, Society6,Redbubble and Cafepress are based either in the USA or Australia, for me who lives in South Africa a different approach was in order.
Combining photos taken by me, and adding graphic illustrations or scanned images with other elements from my personal library of images that I have collected over the years for my many book cover designs, I started to have great fun incorporating these into the designs for the online shops that I have published on my menu bar.
Thanks for reading my post.
Nadine
http://leahg.meis a fellow designer on Zazzle. She truly honored me with her fantastic review on my Zazzle shop and I followed her TIP advice. I'm truly very grateful for her and others on the Facebook group page for all the tips and advice she shares to all her followers. LeahG is a trend-spotter and designer. This is the link to one of her Zazzle stores
Or give yourselves a treat and visit her Cat design collections
I met Nadine on Facebook where she posted some of her Zazzle designs,
and knew that I had to get to know more about her work. Thankfully,
she agreed to sit down for an interview with me. Her bright and colorful
florals are featured in her store “Just Kidding”, such as this King Potrea Pillow while her store “The Awakening” features fantastical images that are stunning, beautiful and visionary. Me: How long have you been working with Zazzle?
Nadine: The 14th of October 2015 was my first anniversary with Zazzle.
I found out about Zazzle when two friends were chatting to each other on
a Skype group about Redbubble and Zazzle. I was clueless as to what
they were talking about so I asked them. That was my first introduction
to this wonderful possibility that anybody can design images for
products and can earn royalty payments. For the rest of that week I
looked, read, and practised while now and then chatting to my friends on
Skype.
My normal job doing book cover designs for Kima Global Publishers was
going through a quite rough time, so I found myself glued to my computer
chair for hours creating images for the Zazzle templates. I thought of
all the leather work, drawings and paintings I had done over the years
and was keen to see them displayed on their products.
I love illustrating – telling stories through imagery, and today I love
working with Photoshop. I’m self taught and learn each day what I can do
with this amazing program.
Fairy Kingdom Postcard
Me: What made you choose Zazzle?
Nadine: Zazzle has a lot of products and a very easy platform to create an online presence for a designer. Kima Global Gifts shop
An idea came to me one morning that I could use many of my book design
covers and I format these for the Zazzle templates and at the same time
promote the title of the book! I thought the authors would be my first
customers! That has not happened so far….but they do like my efforts. Just kidding shop
It is here that I post all my past and present artworks, especially the
leather work. I still have to do a lot of scanning, but now I had to
start organizing my computer by creating files for the many images and
photos I want to use for my designs. The Awakening shop
I write articles for Hubpages. Most of these posts are about the
research I’ve done over the years for my visionary fiction novels. I
love creating images for these articles, but they are more about very
alternative topics, so I created a different shop for these designs and
two weeks ago I started to prepare an online doodle workshop using
Zazzle products. I can also add the article links to the designs for
visitors just in case they are interested Me: How would you describe your process as an artist?
Nadine: I’m a visionary fiction author and learned over the years that
to write a book is a lot easier than selling a book, and so I know that
the same applies to images. As an artist, I had to invent myself all
over again. I’ve created two blogs for all my product designs. One with WordPress and one with Blogpost.
I do have other blogs that are more connected with my published novels
available on Amazon and many other platforms, and I often post a product
image on there if it links to the topics of my writings. I learned a
great deal from other Zazzle designers on Facebook, and the friendships I
have made with them are an added bonus.
I share theirs and my own products on my own Facebook shopping page and on Pinterest and Google+. I try to be creative by using Polyvore for display purposes. Now all I need is to be able to stretch “TIME”
Spring Basket Gatherers
Me: What do you think are your greatest obstacles in creating and selling art for an online platform?
Nadine: To reach an exposure level that results in sales takes hard work and time.
Many people would never spend the hours that I do each day after I have
told them what I have earned so far over the one year period, but I have
every confidence that each year my earnings will multiply. What is for
me the most important is that I LOVE what I do. I could never do
anything solely for the money, no matter how financially lucrative it
might be. http://avalon-media.org/2015/10/28
