I will be 60 years old next September.I’m trying to amuse myself, so I created an account on Redbabbel in the name of samy3, and it has more than 1,300 designs and there are still no sales, and I’m almost going crazy about it. Anyone who can tell me what to do
How are you promoting the work?
Your work is randomly on there. It’s not categorised. A lot of Christmas stuff that is not relevant this time of year.
And you need to promote yourself.
Buy a few yourself and ask a local shop if you can display them with a link to your site for people to buy.
I don’t know - but you need to organise the work somehow and also promote it.
Right now should be hitting the summer crowds, long weekends, spring breaks, summer holidays, beach going, end of school…
And promote promote promote.
I agree with @Mojo’s and @Smurf2’s comments. A couple of more things to consider.
Do you have the rights to be selling merchandise with movie poster art? The studios that own that artwork might have something to say about you profiting off of their IP.
There are a lot of stickers that appear to be plain white with nothing printed on them. Maybe you intend this or maybe it’s some sort of upload error.
I’d prefer a store with less offerings of higher quality. Right now, it looks like you’ve thrown everything there to see what will stick.
In your comments, you say you are “trying to amuse” yourself. The goal should be to amuse your target audience.
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If, as Steve says, you have trademarked/copyrighted movie art on your site, that throws into question the validity of the rest of your stuff. Even if original, people with legal savvy will steer clear of your material rather than risk it possibly being lifted from someone else less identifiable.
Why are they not selling? Probably because they represent yet another in a long line of clichéd, aphoristic, vacuous and meaningless attempts at life-affirming sound bytes, that we have all seen a million times before. The execution also falls into the same clichéd, uninspiring category. Typographically very weak in most instances.
Go out into the real world and see how many people wear t-shirts, or have stickers with such saccharine truisms emblazoned on them. I’d wager not many.
Why jump on a band wagon that is already weighed down with a million other wannabe creatives?
If you are approaching a certain age and perhaps have done a job for the last few decades that has been thoroughly creatively unfulfilling (I have no idea, of course, and am only hazarding a guess at one scenario) and you feel the need to express your creativity, then figure out what that creativity is. Where your voice lies. What you are good at, etc.
There is nothing wrong with having side projects to keep oneself amused. I have a few I’ve been meaning to get off the ground for years and never have the time fit in between work deadliness.
If you are doing this in the hope of making some money, I’m afraid, there’s far more of a likelihood that you’ll go hungry first.
This is not design. It is not a problem-solving exercise. At the other end of the scale, nor is it creatively inspiring.
I am afraid this is one of the harshest critiques I have ever given – not because it is the worst thing I have ever seen, but more because it is exactly the same as all the other legions of similar things out there. It doesn’t help that I have a stinking head cold today, so am not in the most charitable of moods!!
What are you wanting to achieve? Creative expression? Design? Typographic excellence? Those people who make it doing this kind of thing are those that bring something completely new to the table. This, I’m afraid, is anything but original.
As an aside – but a very important and pertinent one – If you are going to sell t-shirts, check the environmental impact. The fashion industry is one of the most polluting on the planet. If you are going to do it, do it ethically and sustainably.
Finally, know that none of this is said just to be mean, but more to help you not go down a blind alley.
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Here’s a link to the webstore for anyone curious: https://www.redbubble.com/people/samy3/shop
@samy3 probably prudent to do some market research to determine:
Who your target market is?
What designs they want to buy?
Where they’d look to buy it from?
Before investing the time involved with producing 1,300 unique designs and setting them up on a random webstore site and hoping the cash is going to start flowing in.
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