Online Stores

In this blog post, as I have recently been in the search for places online where I could potentially open my own shop and sell any product I make over the year, I thought others could potentially benefit from what I have learnt and my opinions on certain cites. I plan to keep these descriptions fairly brief, but knowing myself, I may babble, so we shall see!

If you are following along with this blog for your own research into online stores, I would recommend that you do your own research as well, as this information is just from what I have heard or found, and have formed my own opinions on, so they might not be exactly accurate as I have not worked with any forms of an online store before. For me, this will just be a learning process, hopefully learning, developing and expanding my business as I go.

Redbubble

This is a site in which I know one of my friends has used in the past (I’m not exactly sure if he still uses it though), it is a company which allows you to create your own products through their facilities. I believe you submit your design, then choose the products that you would want it printed on, then through redbubble’s marketplace, they are able to sell your work. The company does everything for you, from printing the product to shipping it out to the customer. For its services, I believe they do take a small cut from each of the purchases you make.

I believe I would have considered this as an option, however, I feel it does lose some of the personal factors by the company doing everything for you. One time, I had ordered a couple of Zines from an artist named Nil, or @Badwitches on Instagram, and I did love the pieces I had ordered, but I looooved the personal touches she had added within her packaging. The way she had written the address in pink, and had written ‘Thank you’ on the back, and inside there was a lot of loose heart confetti (which was a bit messy, but such a cute addition), I have even kept the envelope because of how cute I thought these additions were.

It is things like this that I feel I want to do when sending out my own work in my own packaging, adding in little details that could feel more personal for the buyer. I feel that by solely working through the company, it would feel cold in a sense, as I would not be connecting with my buyer in any way, other than them owning a piece of my work, but something that I have not personally put time into creating (yes I would have put time into creating the design, but I would not have spent the time working with the product itself.)

Etsy

From multiple artists I follow on social media, who had sold their work on Etsy, they have ended up moving and using other platforms to sell their work, in places such as Big Cartel, or with their own personalised online stores. I believe this was due to the percentage cut in which Etsy was taking from them. Although yes, I do understand that the company want to be paid a certain percentage, as they are allowing you to sell your through their site, however, I feel for smaller businesses, this cut would have a bigger dint to them as opposed to a company that is getting a lot of regular business.

As I myself will be starting up a small business, with quite a small following, I don’t think this is necessarily the best option for myself.

Big Cartel

This site can potentially cost, but it offers a tier like system, offering more for more money or less for none. If you did not want to spend money on this site, you would only be able to sell 5 products, with one image per item. However I believe through this site, you would still be able to have full control of production, posting and packing etc, making the item as personal as you desired for your buyer.

If I were making more consistent money from my art, enough to pay a monthly fee, I would find that this would be a potential option. However, as I am just starting, and do not know how my work will sell on an online platform, this is not something I would want to spend too much money on right now until I have more information/knowledge of running a business.

Depop

This is typically an app which people sell clothing and accessories through, however over the years, I have seen that someone who I had known from my previous course had started selling her own artwork on it. After a little look, I had found that it almost works like Instagram, as you are able to add tags to the items that you are selling, making it easier for people with similar interests to find your work. You are also able to like items, which allows a person to come back to the post later on, possibly if they weren’t so sure, or if they didn’t have money at the time, etc. But the likes from an item may also boost your post so that it is higher in the search results, I do not know this for sure, but this is the way that Instagram has recently been working.

I do believe that the company takes a cut from your payment when someone purchases your item, but I believe it is small, so I could potentially counteract the cut by pushing up the price a little more. I feel my products are already a lower price within the market, so I believe by pushing it up by 30p or something, it would not make too much of a difference to the buyer.

Another reason why I like this option, again, is that I feel I can connect more with my audience/buyers. I can make the packaging more personal, adding little touches here and there, but the customers are also able to give their feedback as well, reviewing the products or delivery time etc. Although I do think this common on all of the platforms I have mentioned, I feel people may check the reviews of sellers on depop more, as I feel the customer wants to know that they can trust the person they are buying from, so from the reviews, they can see what they can potentially expect from them, whether the quality was good or not, or whether the delivery had taken a long time or short. I believe as with other websites, the more good reviews you get, the more people will trust and want to buy from you too (only if they want too though, obviously).

Own Online Website

I have not done a lot of research into this field as of yet, as I feel there would be a lot of ways you could potentially go about doing it. You could essentially form your own site, which I assume you would have to pay a monthly fee for, then you would have to have a place that could take transactions, allowing your customer to pay and for you to get that money smoothly, but I’m not sure of the ways in which you could do this? I have recently seen advertisements for a site called Shopify, but I believe you have to pay a monthly fee for that too. I would definitely need to do much more research if I were to chose this option.

However, by selling your work through your own site, it would mean that you have full control over your business, the production, packaging, shipping, etc. It could potentially help in all of your business efficiently being in one place, for instance, as well as a shop, the site could have your portfolio of work, a creative cv, links to any of your other social platforms, and information about you.

Final thoughts.

Currently, I have chosen to create a shop through Depop, as it does seem the best option for me at this point in my career, as I am just a small business starting up. But hopefully, as I grow and expand my knowledge of business, one day, if I do gain a bigger following and do have a good regular income from my business, I do hope to run my own website, selling my products on my own, as opposed to working on a third parties platform, potentially paying them some of my profit. I believe by having my own website, my whole business will be accessible within one place, as it will contain my store for potential customers, my links to other social platforms, such as Instagram, or even my blog, both of which I am quite active on, and for any potential clients, I will include my portfolio of work, possibly categorised for easier access, a creative cv, general information about myself, and an enquiry page in which they can email me directly from the site.

Please, if you have any thoughts or your own experiences with these websites or apps, feel free to comment them. As I am only starting up myself and have not had a lot of experience selling my own work before, (no experience at all with any of the sites mentioned so far), I would love to hear from others who have and I will happily accept any advice I can get, thank you!

Business Cards

From the pressures of Black Friday, and with the desire to make new business cards, as I can’t find or remember where the last ones are, and the fact that I had ended up not really liking them when comparing them to the rest of my classes, they did match my portfolio book, however by themselves, the pattern was a bit busy and over overpowering in a sense, I decided to take this opportunity to design new business cards, and potentially get a good deal for them.

Recently, I had seen an artist I follow on Instagram, by the name of @Imzeferino post an image of her new business cards, and I had really enjoyed the layout of them. As shown in the images below, she had created a character, which may be a representation of herself, on the front of her card and had put all of her information on the back. I like the idea of this, as her business card is so beautiful that it is almost a print in itself, so when people receive her work, they would also receive the business card, which in my mind, would be like getting two prints for the price of one, even if the second is smaller.

Isadora Zeferino – Business Card Front

Isadora Zeferino – Business Card Back

business cards woman

So taking inspiration from this layout, I tried choosing one of my own designs, that could be the best representation of my work. I had initially planned to use one of my queens, click here to see which, but I could not seem to fit her correctly into the template I was using, and I had started to lose faith in her, whether she was, in fact, the best representation of myself and my work. So back to the drawing board, I decided that I would use a different design, one which I am quite proud of, which I have not seemed to get sick of as of yet. I am talking about the piece to the right, which I had initially designed to go on the window inside of my classroom, using a vinyl, but as that was a representation of my work during the exhibition and will be until it is taken down, and as I have not fallen out of love with it yet, after seeing it in class for the past however many weeks I have been back at college for, I decided it will be a good motif to use for my business card.

When first designing this, using the templates on Vistaprint, (review possibly coming when the business cards arrive?) due to pressures of the Black Friday sales, as I had started this process on Wednesday night, I did partially rush the process, basically only using sources available to hand, as opposed to putting some actual time and effort into the design, which I do regret now looking back, but I have gone back into the design and refined it further, putting the actual time and effort into it, as I should have done in the beginning, so, as the woman did not need much work, other than positioning her on the layout, I tried taking shortcuts with the back of the card, using the fonts available from the website for the titles, and for the social links I had tried to take the ones I had hand-drawn for my inktober zine, which were pretty rough but at that time, I just thought ‘it’ll do’.

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I am so glad that I had decided to get a second opinion the following day, however, as there was a lack of effort within the design, and I believe it would have been visible if I had sent them off, which would not have been a good selling point to potential clients, for them to see that if I can not put the effort into my own branding, why would they want to hire me. So, my second opinion had come from my tutor Laura during a one to one, who had suggested that I have look on google fonts. This suggestion was mostly directed at the font I had used for the social links as the one I had drawn is very common and quite ‘indie/hipster’ these days, (if the term hipster is still even used nowadays?). So once home, I had searched google fonts and found a couple which could work. The sans serif ones were more directed at the titles, as my tutor said that since I create more fantasy inspired pieces, I would be more able to get away with this type of font, but personally sans serif fonts are my favourite, as I feel they are more historical or fantasy inspired than serif fonts? The serif fonts I had selected were more directed at the social links. Taking inspiration from the original (but rough) layout, I still wanted to use a thin and slightly elongated text. Again when talking to Laura, I had found this was another preference of mine, as I do tend to like tall and slim things, like models or illustrations of women with elongated necks, or creepy hands with long thin fingers, (I’m trying my hardest not to make this sound weird).

So I had decided to work with both types of fonts, but from a list of options, I had asked my friend Kellie if she thought the fonts would work together or whether she thought I should keep looking. My friend is currently studying Graphic Design at Lincoln University but has more knowledge, more love and a better eye for typography so her opinion was very valuable to me! From the options I had shown her, she had selected two fonts that she felt would work together, one being a serif and the other being sans serif, and I had very much agreed with her choices beforehand, but I did want her genuine opinion so did not tell her until afterwards.

So getting back to my design, using the two new fonts, I had redesigned the information side of my business cards, and I had also created new social icons by using a watercolour brush in photoshop, taking a swatch from the red on the woman, then I painted it into a selected area that I had made from a specific icon.

From Laura’s advice, once I had recreated my business card, (with more effort this time) she had told me to ask one of my other tutors, Sarah, who teaches graphic design, and will have a better idea about layout, typography and so on, so I had asked her the following day. Although we were both somewhat sidetracked at that time, more focused on creating zines with the risograph, she had explained to me the improvements I could make, one being making more difference between each set of words, my name, job title, then the social links, and she had drawn me a diagram which did help in showing her view, but as I had gotten sidetracked for a while then came back to it, I was more confused than I originally was, wondering whether I had actually gotten the layout correct and so on. At this point of the day, Sarah had already gone home, so it was too late to get her opinion again.

So, I had rallied up a few classmates, Katie and Grant, to try to get their opinion and potentially make any more improvements. From this, I had moved together with the spacing between my forename and surname, I had resized the job title and had repositioned the social media links. Then, with the help and suggestion of Grant, I had added in a line between my name and job title, so that they would be more separate from one another, this did make it look more professional, but also helped in tying the design together, especially as Grant was experimenting with the line, and had turned it into a textured brush stroke instead. This again made my business card look more professional, but also gave a hint to my job with the brush stroke.

For a final nod of approval, I sent the design back to my friend Kellie to get her opinion of the design, and all she had suggested was centring the design so that there was the same amount of white space above as there was below, but other than that, she loved it. So after making this final adjustment, I uploaded the designs to Vistaprint and have now sent them off. From my email, the expected delivery date will be on the 30th, so next Friday, so I will potentially review the company and the quality of my business cards then.

I would like to say a great big thank you to all of the people who had helped me through this process, two of my tutors, Laura and Sarah, who I believe read my blogs because they have to (I’m sorry, but thank you for your input) and I would like to thank my fellow classmates Katie Marshall, otherwise known as NosticArt on both Instagram and WordPress, and Grant Oliphant who goes by his name on both Instagram and WordPress. I don’t believe either will probably read this post or get this far if they do, let’s be honest. And lastly my friend Kel, who again, probably won’t read this blog, but she is the most amazing and valued adviser, and she is amazing at what she does, so if anyone is still reading at this point, you should definitely have a look at her work on Instagram @Kxllixdesign.

business cards

Edit/Addition – 18/04/2019

Since creating a website for myself, I felt this would be a key link missing from my business card so I decided to redo the information side. In this second attempt, I had downloaded free vector social media icons from iconfinder.com, a group which was named ‘Social Media (Solid) Icons created by Bagus Kusnadar, click here to download them yourself. By downloading the icons from the same group, this made them more uniform than the previous ones I used, as they are all square, as opposed to a mixture of circles and squares. I still applied the same colours and textures to the icons, however since there are now more links, the layout has changed slightly so below is shown the new information.

List of Illustrations

Figure 1 and 2 – Zeferino, I. (17 Nov. 2018) Instagram. [Online] Available from: https://www.instagram.com/p/BqSkrJllskE/ [Accessed on 23 Nov 2018]

Icons Downloaded – [Online] Available from: https://www.iconfinder.com/iconsets/social-media-solid-2 [Accessed on 18 Apr 2019]

All of the other imagery used is my own.

Procrastination Station

It is currently the day before my first deadline, and what have I found myself doing? Procrastinating! You would think that I would be panicking during this time, which I am, but the motivation to do work is just not here.

As a way to try and battle this issue, I had searched on google ‘How to stop procrastinating’ and the results had given me this one article which suggested ways in which you could ‘Get motivated to study’.Although this is an interesting article, and probably would help me in the long run over this final year, and possibly in life too, I had a brief read through and it had just made me want to hunt down my old DSi and play Dr Kawashimas Brain Training. This would be following step 13 of the article, exercising the brain.

I don’t believe this article is useful for me at this specific moment in time, as I am already in my procrastinating mindset, and it seems I’m just going to end up distracting myself more than I actually can.

I would, however, like come back to this article at later date though, possibly when I have less work to do and actually have free time to learn from it, as it could potentially stop me from having these moments again in the future.

As of this current deadline, all I have left to do is fluff out my research, by fluffing out, I just mean that I have already briefly written up the basics, I just need to go back in and add more detail. The ‘research’ includes artists and writing up all of the information I have found from each of the competitions that we were suggested, then discussing which I would like to do and which I would not.

I then need to give more narrative to my self-report, as I had bullet-pointed all of my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, but my tutor had suggested that I go into more depth, discussing why I believe my weaknesses are my weaknesses, how I will try to work on them over the year, what opportunities I will have to do so, and so on.

Then I just need to read through everything, make sure it actually makes sense and has not just come out of nowhere from auto-pilot Mel. Then I’ll add in all the photos, create a bibliography and list of illustrations at the end, then I should be dooooone; Once I’ve actually printed everything off at college as well, and have it all bound together. I’m gonna be fiiiiine, she says whilst still procrastinating and making this blog post.

Bibliography

D. Wong (16 Aug. 2018) How to Get Motivated to Study: 23 Tips For Students Who Procrastinate. [Online] Available from https://www.daniel-wong.com/2018/04/23/get-motivated-to-study/ [Accessed on 07 Oct. 2018]

Giphy (2018) Trump Consequences. GIF. [Online] Available at :https://giphy.com/gifs/trump-consequences-NTur7XlVDUdqM/media [Accessed on 07 Oct. 2018]

Selling Within a Store

My Aunty Dawn, not really my aunty but my mams closest friend who is basically my aunty, who I actually see more than my real relatives, has recently opened her own store in Stanley, which is called Purple Dragon, which sells unique gifts, which are quite gothic, spiritual and very fantasy inspired. This includes crystals, skulls, tarot cards, cushions, cups, journals, and there is even a section of her shop just dedicated to incense, which is another business she owns called House of Incense.

She recently came round and was talking with my mam about the shop, in which I inquired about the possibility of selling my work in her store. If this was anyone else, I probably would not have been as forward or as confident to even ask, but I showed her some of the prints I still had left from last years exhibition, and she said that she would take two and see how they would sell.

riso print

I then showed her some of my other work, and she has chosen a few other pieces that she would like me to print off, again she only asked for 2 of each, to see how they would sell, and she would let me know how it goes. The prints in which she wants are as shown below, and do give me a better understanding of what she would like to sell in her shop, and gives me a better idea of what else I could create for her if the prints do well and if she wants new designs. As you can see, she likes the colour green!

I’m so excited about this opportunity and do hope that the prints she has with her now do sell. If so, this will be my first experience with selling work outside of the college, and will potentially be the first steps in which I take to forming my own business and selling my own work. Aghhhh I’m excited about the future, I just need to print out the other illustrations she wants, and get them to her. I will keep you informed of how this venture goes.

Welcome!

Hello there! Welcome to my new blog, my name is Melissa Russell, also known as Mel and Melon.R on Instagram! I am currently studying in my third and final year of Illustration, looking forward to graduating with an Honours degree next year.

I chose to do this course as I already enjoyed creating illustrations but wanted to develop my knowledge of the industry, learning how I could transform my hobby into a career, and I also wanted to learn new skills and refine my work/style to a professional standard.

In terms of career, my goal is to become a freelance illustrator, working with multiple clients, but also running my own shop, in which I can sell products such as prints, tote bags, clothing, and so on.

I believe my inspiration can come from a lot of things, such as movies, books, pop-culture, mythology, colours, etc. Recently, I have fallen in love with Wes Andersen movies, the colour schemes mixed with the composition of the characters, props and scenery, have been set out so beautifully, that the films are art in their own right. Another useful source for inspiration that I commonly use during projects, would be Pinterest. As well as finding new artists, styles and stories, I also find photos of people, which have often influenced my characters. I have created a board of ‘Model inspirations’ in which I save photos of beautiful and unique looking people, which I often look through at a later dates, and have helped give me inspiration for a lot of projects in the past, whether it be story-wise, with colour schemes or helped me form overall characters.

In previous years I have mostly worked digitally, however, I have wanted to slowly get back into working with traditional mediums. So in my current process, I have started taking traditional elements, such as linework and painted textures, into photoshop where I will then colour the illustrations digitally. This to me is the perfect balance of traditional mediums and digital techniques, I am happy with the process at this moment in time but would enjoy exploring more ways in which I could further improve the method more.

My personal goals for this year is to not let stress get the better of me and to keep on track with my project work. Over the holidays, I discovered a good stress reliever for me, has been when I went to the gym for 1-2 hours three times per week. It helped me get out of the house, away from stresses at home, and out of my own head, at least for a couple of hours. Once I have gotten back into the routine and schedule of college, I do want to start going back to the gym, maybe on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, and possibly Thursdays after my lessons. Other than improvements in my basic health, I feel it will also help improve on my mental health as well, as I just feel it would give me a good break during the week, it gives me time to stop overthinking about work, almost resetting my mindset, then I’d feel re-energised to get back on with the projects as soon as I got home.

My more career-based goals/overall goals for this year is to become more of a well-rounded illustrator, covering more areas of the illustration industry, creating work that I might have hidden from in the past, and also getting the bases of my shop/website created, so that when I do leave college, I will hopefully have a career doing what I love, whether as a freelance illustrator, self-employed and selling my work online, or a good mixture of both.

I will be posting at least once per week on this blog, if not more, however, if you want to find me on other social media platforms, you can find me at:

Melon.R on Instagram

Melon628 on Pinterest