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The wind is turning for several print on demand companies these days and while the designer world was all talking about a set of new fees Society6 is rolling out (I'll write about it later), one of the other big change that just dropped is coming from Redbubble and its introduction of account tiers and account fees. The change is due to roll out on June 1st but if you are an existing user, you can already view which tier you made it to on your account dashboard. Proud to announce that Home Cyn Home made it to a premium account for now and I'm really stoke about it. but hang on! what does it mean? From now on, it seems that all account, new or existing will get allotted to a tier with certain perks and benefits associated with each. Those tiers are : Redbubble Standard, Redbubble Premium and Redbubble Pro and from what they have explained on their website, people would be eligible for a standard account after opening shop with Redbubble and be able to move up in rank if they meet certain activity and sales thresholds. Redbubble Standard accounts are the only one who are going to be subjected to an account fee, which according to Redbubble will be levied on sales, as no artists should be out of pocket. The fee will be calculated based on your monthly earnings if they qualify for payout and the amount will be deducted from said earnings at that time. To know more if you belong to the Standard tier, Redbubble has put together an article page for your to read. You do not pay any fees if you are at the Premium or Pro tier. probably an unpopular opinion but... I more than welcome that move from Redbubble, this platform, more than others have been attracting frauds by the dozen and Quora has no shortage of questions along the line of "How can I make money on Redbubble" and "How can I get more views" or "Why am I not getting any sales". I've answered many of these over the years, reminding people that just because you upload the artwork once doesn't mean you can just sit back and relax and wait for the money to come in. What shocked me too is several wannabe "artists" contacting me on Instagram in hope to get my secret formula for success and the ultimate way to crack their algorithm. It never failed, these people had shops filled with designs that were stock graphics they didn't even create themselves. I've also encountered blatant theft of my designs on the platform (and reported it). Some people will resort to anything in hope of a quick and easy payout. Redbubble is the one paying to host all those designs, and victim of their success I bet those hosting fees amount to a LOT and it must be annoying them to know many of the designs on their servers are bogus, fraudulent ones, or from accounts that have gone quiet. The tier system is a way of flushing out the people that are just trying to crack the system and make money and encourage serious artists to upload consistently and build a brand on their platform. Society6 has been hinting at rolling out a subscription model later this year as well, probably for the same reasons. pay your dues and move up in rank This new system will have all newbie artist start at the bottom, and the more consistent and active you get on the platform without violating community guidelines, the faster you'll get to move to the free, fee-less Premium tier. Still on their website, here is what they say about moving up in ranks : To give your account the best chance moving into the Premium or Pro tier we recommend the following: Creating based on trends or themes your customers are searching for Increasing the commercial success of your designs Driving direct high quality traffic to your Redbubble store Uploading designs that showcase your unique creative skills Uploading your best work with attention to image resolution and product formatting Completing your bio and adding links to your social profiles This is something I have been saying for years on Quora by the way, the only way to make more sales and show up in searches on Redbubble is to look beyond the SEO, relevant tags and keywords is something everyone is doing. Their algorithm rewards people who are ACTIVE on the platform. I'm hopeful that those changes on Redbubble will really improve the visibility of artists who are putting in the work and get all the "I want to get rich quick" people who aren't even designers to give the platform a miss.

If you didn't catch the announcement on Facebook, the April printable calendar page is up for download in the freebies zone. I'm going to keep this post shot and sweet because quite frankly I am still recovering from the month of March being exhausting and taxing. Do any of you have a month during the year that keeps feeling off year after year? A month where you feel like your energy levels are low and you constantly fall short of expectations and deadlines? For my that's March, it's not even that it really throws huge curve balls at me (well except in 2020 and 2021), it's just that I personally just don't have the energy to deal with anything crazy in March. I really need to start putting warnings in my planner each year about taking it easy in March, because each year, without a fail, I find myself wanting to "do all the things" and ending up not achieving much of anything anyway. This is the reason why the blog was ridiculously silent in March, and to be fair, I still wonder what topics to cover, if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

We dusted another month on our mad spin around the sun and are embracing the last month of the 1st quarter already! This means only one thing : the printable calendar page for the month of March is up for grab in the Freebie zone! If your brand new to Home Cyn Home, the Freebie zone is this cool, member only area where you get to download cool printables every month. Don't worry, joining as a member is 100% free and you can quit anytime you want. Speaking of printable, this month I also uploaded a super cute little cacti stickers set in the member area, so if you click on the Freebie page, you'll find it there as well. In my synesthetic mind, March is green, and by extension, it's the month of all things plants. I can't seem to move past the plant theme, I always gravitate toward it, year after years. The irony? I'm probably the biggest brown thumb in the history of brown thumbs. I kid you not, I can kill snake plants! That's my super power people! We found out back in 2020 that I'm better off not even watering the plants at home, when I do, they die, when hubby does it, they thrive, even though he just pours water the same way I do, I think he just has the kind of calming energy plants love. March is also the first month of intense heat over here in Mumbai, and climate change oblige, it has already started in February this year (not happy about it). The only positive about the return of the heat is that I can go back to swimming regularly. On the artsy/design front, I am going to work on putting a lot of designs in my pipeline before the heat send me into a creative rest phase. Those of you making a living out of their creativity probably know it better as "creative block" but I no longer really want to associate it to a negative term, and if you haven't read about it yet, I wrote a blog post about coping and getting over that phase. Hint hint, it involves being kind to yourself.

When it comes to selling your art, especially on print on demand websites like Society6 and Redbubble it pays off to take your time and create as many file options as it requires for your design to look good on a product. Why? The plain obvious is that you maximise your chances of getting a sale if you do it, but when it comes to your long term career, it will show a lot more professionalism if you take the time to go the extra mile, no matter how tedious it might seem at first, and I get it, with some platforms, it can be a drag. Society6 being the most famous for lengthy upload procedure among artists because they don't offer the option to tile a design or alter a background color in their artist studio like several other PoD do. For me, this usually mean uploading an artwork and all it's variants can take over an hour at time, especially when I need to create new files to fit certain products as I go. But it's totally worth it in the end. The way I see it, it's a good way for them to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. serious, dedicated artists and surface designers are more likely to put in the extra work than the ones who tend to see those platform as a quick and easy way to make money (which it is not). go in for the long game I'm pretty sure all of us seasoned commercial artists and designer have at one point or another decided to start with Society6 or Redbubble as a side gig or a launch pad for something more while we figure things out. The thing is the earlier you start treating it as a serious business, the more you'll get out of it if you really go all in and really go the extra mile with your art files. It's especially true with Society6 which has Deny Designs as a sister site, which is a company that only deal with whole sale clients and counts Target, Nordstrom and Urban Outfitter in their rank just to name a few. Artists who keep showing up, and put effort into their work are more likely to catch their attention. Not to mention that several media and retail companies also look at Society6 and could spot something they like and would love to license. I see it a lot in questions on Quora where I actively participate and write answers. People are usually asking how they can make money with Redbubble or how can they sell quickly, or ask if selling on PoD is profitable at all. The answer is that it's not quick and easy money, but yes, it's profitable if you put in the time and effort into it, and it starts with quality artworks and files. I usually create the same standard 5 files to begin with when I turn an illustration into a sellable design : 1 JPEG art print file, usually 24 x 30 inches at a 300dpi resolution 1 Square 10k x 10k pixel JPEG file with the illustration in the center, this is so that it goes on larger products with enough margin to resize without cropping the artwork, and it works as a square mural file on Society6 1 seamless tile file at 3600 x 3600 pixels, this is to go on the wallpaper on Society6, and can also be uploaded as is and tiled directly on Redbubble to fit certain products. Now That I sell in more place, that seamless tile file becomes handy to sell my designs as fabric on Contrado and Raspberry Creek as well. 1 large pattern square, I usually create tis one solely for Society6 because they do not have the option to tile a design in their artist studio, and the pattern file is my to-go to for curtains, and comforters in particular. I usually do a 12k by 12k pixels square and use my seamless tile file to fill it and create the pattern Last but not least : 1 TRANSPARENT png file, where there is no background around the illustration. This file is mandatory to have your work printed as a kiss cut sticker or on dark colored t-shirts. On Redbubble where the hot sellers are t-shirts and stickers you can't do without that file, ditto with Teepublic which sells mostly t-shirts. For this one I usually remove the background from the art print file and I am good to go. Then there are all the specific sizes that work for certain products like table cloths, Apple watch bands, yoga mats and outdoor floor cushions on Society6. Society6 actually has a LOT of products for which you are often better off designing an entirely new file. Sure you could slap the pattern file on a lot of them, but sometimes, just going the extra mile works beautifully and I urge you to spend those few extra minutes to do it. Some of their products have the option of downloading the psd (photoshop) template so you can create a design that looks just right on that less straightforward product. Duffle bags, backpacks, leggings, socks and floor cushions are all products were you should explore the possibility of creating a separate file if the pattern square won't do, or quite frankly another option would take your product from "fine" to "wow". This is what I did with the bench in the picture. The pattern file would have looked acceptable but a bit too "vanilla" for this design, so instead I made a file specifically for the bench and put 2 sea turtles facing each other. It took about 5 minutes to create that file from my existing assets, and a minute or so more to upload it. I frequently do it with outdoor floor cushions, coffee mugs and yoga mats, because those really benefit from taking a few extra minutes of my time to create a special file. The bonus is that some of those files work on some of the other products Society6 has to offer too and you only need to upload the file once with them, after that it shows in the asset library for that specific design, which comes in handy when they launch a new product, about 90% of the time, one of the existing asset uploaded will work on the new product. Out of all the Print on Demand websites I sell with, Society6 is the most demanding when it comes to art files, so I always create my assets and upload them first with them, and then with other PoD platform because chances are the files I created for Society6 will work almost everywhere else without me having to create anything extra later on. Back in 2017 I started with just Society6 and Redbubble and now a quick glimpse ate my shop page will show you how it expanded from there over the years.

I first heard of print on demand and the potential to sell my art back in 2015 or so when I was following a blogger who sold phone cases with her art on them which got me down of a rabbit hole of learning more about potentially selling my art online, a thing I never explored or knew about before. Back then, blogs were still doing good, and my aim was to be lifestyle blogger. And Home Cyn Home was intended as such in the early days. I took the plunge into FINALLY getting started back in April 2017 and opened a Society6 and a Redbubble shop. Back then my husband ran into job issues and most of that year's theme was financial insecurities. The prospect of starting to make money from my art was appealing, and at the least I needed something to help me stay grounded and sane during that trying time. Looking back at my journey, I'm of course super proud but there are a few things I wished I knew when I first got started that probably would have helped me. I learned those things over the years of course, and let's face it, we all start ventures without being 100% prepared, and it's more than ok, that's what makes the journey more interesting. I just think those snippets I learned over the years could help someone get started today a bit more ready than I was without shielding them from making mistakes. don't wait for everything to be perfect to start Seriously, DON'T! I waited until I was sure I had it all figured it out, until I was sure my art was perfect. Turns out I had exactly nothing really figured out, and among the first few artwork I uploaded, there was this series of watercolor medallions that are cute, but quite frankly, not my best work at all. You'll learn as you go, you'll get wiser with every steps, and no amount of "book smart" will get you there, we all learn through experience, and most importantly failures. You'll never know what your audience like, or what it is to open a print on demand shop until you start. You can read all about it online, from blogs, from Quora, and from watching YouTube videos, but what it really shows you is the insight of one person. Watch too many and you'll be completely confused before you even start. be open to learning and constantly try new things When I got started in 2017, I had basic skills, never tried creating a seamless pattern tile, and my watercolor digitizing skills were a bit wonky. I had my first wake up call a few weeks after getting started. Back then I wanted to be onboarded by a company called "Daily Objects" who does print on demand in India (where I live) because I figured out it would be easier to buy products from them to use in my photo shoots, and I would anyway have more of my existing audience buy from them. I'm actually about a 100000000000% glad to have been rejected by them knowing how unethical they are in their process now. But back then, them making me upload 40 master files and sign a contract only to then tell me "Your work isn't neat enough and has pencil marks" was a blow to my self-esteem. To be fair a few had pencil marks, but not all of them, so I figured out I might as well turn this rejection (which again was a HUGE blessing) into a constructive criticism. If I was going to make this commercial artist thing work, I was better off learning how to edit my work digitally better. So, I turned to Google who in turn pointed me to Skillshare and Cat Coquillette's very first Skillshare class. I have since then taken or at least watched all her classes. If you are a surface designer or commercial artist, or aspiring to be, she is one of the teachers you must follow on Skillshare (among others). With Cat's classes, I learned how to digitise my work, learned how to recolor my artwork to create more versions of it and how to tap into trends. I also learned how to up my social media game, learned how to use Photoshop better, learned how to use the drawing app Procreate and created fun projects and designs along the way. I of course learned from other teachers as well, and as an artist, you never really ever stop learning new things, you just have to embrace it. you'll only ever find your artist voice if you practice and create a lot of work You probably read it over and over, how it's important to have your own style and own creative voice and create your artist brand from that. Trust me though, this is NOT the thing you want to worry too much about when you get started. An artist style or voice is not something that is suddenly bestowed upon you by a magic fairy/muse and you shouldn't wait for that to happen to take the plunge. What you need to be doing is : create, create, create, and then create some more, and see where that takes you. In time you will notice you prefer using certain colors over others, or prefer a certain aesthetic in how you draw/paint things. THIS is what your artist style/voice is! And you only get to figure it out with time and practice. Oh! And don't worry about it evolving and changing over time either. You probably heard of Picasso's blue period. It was a time between 1901 and 1904 when most of his work was painted in shades of blue. Picasso's career went until his death in 1973. during the span of his life, he explored many genres, Cubism being only one of them. Not all your work will become a signature style, and you should never be creating anything with that goal in mind. The focus should be on having fun. Let people decide what like best. That said, branding still does matter when you are a commercial artist, so if your brand's focus is on colorful art, avoid uploading black and white ink drawing you might be doing in your spare time on Instagram. If a black and white design is too good not to upload then sure go ahead and put it in your shop, but it doesn't mean you need to promote it. Curate what goes on social media or on your website/blog to match the general tone of your brand. it's more than ok to have several income streams I read a lot of questions about "Which print on demand platform is best" on Quora. My answer to all of said questions, is that each platforms has their pros and cons. The perfect PoD does not exist. What's more each of them has their own unique style and target audience, so you might as well upload on several of them right away because what sells on what platform might not sell on another. There is a watercolor dragonfly stickers that sell over and over and over on Redbubble but that doesn't sell much if at all on Society6, Teepublic and Threadless. Selling on just one platform will limit your income potential a lot. My advice is to get started on 2-3 in the beginning and join new platforms regularly. Some will do great, some others might flop. Over the past 6 years I joined several platforms that no longer exist because they went bust or changed their focus. I also pulled the plug on Zazzle because it was too tedious for me. Started an Etsy shop that didn't work out well enough for me to keep up with it and there are several PoD I have a presence on and never made a sale on so far. It's part of the game, not everything will be a hit. Along with selling art on PoD platforms, I also teach classes out of my home, earn affiliate money from this blog, earn from answering questions on Quora and have a Patreon account with cool exclusive printables and wallpapers for my patrons. don't limit yourself Back when I first heard of selling art on products, it was because a blogger I follow : The Wonder Forest, was selling phone cases on Casetify. I somehow imagined myself selling phone cases and I thought that was all there was really. I think my initial non-seamless patterns were all really thought with the idea of selling them as phone cases. Fortunately after joining Society6 I realised that there was scope for a lot more. And every single one of my attempts to join Casetify failed (another blessing). I see those questions on Quora a lot too : "Is it profitable to sell art on t-shirt" or "Should I sell t-shirts"? From the look of it, it seems t-shirts are the new phone cases and a lot of people seem to be under the impression that they should focus on that alone. I think I even saw questions like "Should I enable other products in my Redbubble shop or stick with just t-shirts". If you want to really grow as a commercial artist and surface designer, never lose focus of the fact that you are selling art, NOT t-shirts or phone cases. So don't limit the scope of your designs to just one type of products because you might end up also limiting the number of shops and ventures you can join later on. Case in point, in NONE of my shops are phone cases the hot seller item I believed it would be when I first started. I sell mostly art prints and cushions on Society6, stickers are the bulk of my sales on Redbubble and I sell mostly t-shirts on Teepublic and Threadless. having a diverse portfolio of designs that include patterns has enabled me to start selling on Raspberry Creek Fabrics, which does fabric and wallpaper and EXCLUSIVELY relies on seamless pattern tiles. Deny Designs, Society6's sister site that focus on wholesale onboarded me last year with a number of patterns too. don't expect to make a lot of money quickly The internet is divided in two camps when it comes to selling on Redbubble and Society6 (and other PoD) : - It's easy money because it's passive income - It's a scam because those sites are saturated, don't do it. If it was ever so simple and black and white! The truth is that it's not easy to make money quickly, but not impossible to sell at all either. It's better not to expect being an instant success when you start selling anywhere, online or offline. Building a business takes TIME, period. With selling on PoD, you want to go in for the long run and treat it as a marathon race, not a sprint. Your success widely depends on how much of your time and effort you put in in the first place. You'll need to show up everyday, even if nothing happens, with no likes, encouragements or sale and keep going at it, day in and day out until it goes somewhere. And if you are dedicated, motivated and really love creating art and patterns and show that to the world, things WILL happen, not all at once, but over time. Which is why the point about having several income streams and not putting all your eggs in one basket stands rock solid and remember those who succeed at anything are usually the ones with the most grit and perseverance. Accept you will fail, and will fail a lot, get up, learn from your mistakes and keep going. That's actually the secret sauce recipe to success in general, selling your work on PoD included.

Just like that, we dusted off the first month of the year and it's time to download and print the calendar page for the month of February already. It is available for you to grab on the freebie page. If you aren't a member already, do sign up, it's free and you get access to other cool printables as well doing so. January was a busy month of family visit and trying to get ready for the year ahead after a busy month of December and festive whirlwind. I'm looking forward to a quiet-ish month of February and getting back to designing printable stickers for you guys again. As some of you might have noticed, the only freebie in January was the calendar page. I'm also looking for blog posts ideas, so if you have suggestions, please drop them in the comments below. Meanwhile if you join me on Patreon, you'll get first dib on the artwork going for the 2024 calendar as I am draw these all along this year to not feel the rush next Ocotober/November. They are available as stickers, wallpapers or printable art prints depending the tier you join at and currently the illustration for January 2024 is up for all tiers and the February one will come all through the month in its various versions.

Designers and creative always look forward to the time Pantone, the global authority in color matching, to announce their color of the year. They do so every December and they base their choice among other things on trend forecasts. 2023's pick is called Viva Magenta, and is a bold, saturated reddish pink hue that speaks of boldness, power and strength. Having followed the color of the years for a quite a few years now, I noticed they often miss the plot, I think every designers and artists remember the ugliness that was 2015's Marsala. But this time around, they are right on the money when it comes to Viva Magenta. I have seen bold saturated reds and pinks pop everywhere in the last 6 months, Valentino pink anyone? I remember wearing those kind of bold colors in the late 90's and early 00's, including magentas. With that era making a comeback and gaining popularity with the Gen Z who were babies back then, it not surprising that the color along with a lot of the 90s aesthetic is coming back right now. I once upon a time, around 1999, had a long sleeved t-shirt, form fitting and a bit cropped, that came in a swirly/paisley pattern with the color palette of that retro circle pattern I created and am selling on Society6. While as a now 43 years old who was a teenager and young adult during that era, there are things like crop tops, low waist and chunky shoes that I don't feel like revisiting, they only look good on teens. But the colors? Hell yes! I've always been crazy about bold hues and seeing them come back in trends along with fun geometric patterns is refreshing. I welcome this move from Pantone because truth be told, I was getting a bit bored of their fairly safe picks in the past few years. 2022's Veri Peri while not a bad color in it self, felt a bit too much like a washed out, toned down version of 2020's Classic Blue, which was already pretty dull and ahem! Boring. Viva Magenta pretty much resonates with people being done with bland, boring and safe, 2 years of pandemic restrictions can do that to oneself. We all want to live again, and embrace a bold, fun lifestyle. So let's all step into what Pantone calls the Magentaverse.

Happy New Year!!!!!!! I hope you celebrated well and are ready to embrace 2023 with a renewed sense of purpose, motivation and spirit to crush any goals you have. With the new year, I decided to write a blog post to announce the upload of the month's printable calendar page on the freebie page, because let's face it, we don't always remember to check that one and I would hate for you guys to miss planning your month in style with the Home Cyn Home printable calendar. The printable calendar tradition started years ago and I think the first edition goes as way back as 2014. It was in the old days when I wasn't yet turning my artwork into commercial designs and patterns and just had a lifestyle blog (on Blogger). I used to let people know about the page of the month on the 1st of each month, and it was free to download. It's still free, but since creating the Home Cyn Home website last April, I ended up moving toward creating a freebie page that only site members can access because I found writing newsletters every weeks a bit daunting but still wanted my susbcribers to stick around. The 2023 calendar is also downloadable on Patreon for tier 2 and 3 where you can get the whole 12 months all at once. Of all the calendars I created over the years, this one has been the biggest struggle because for the longest time I couldn't find a theme. At the end of October I realised I was not even started, so in the spirit of keeping it simple and not loose my mind or overcomplicate my life in the middle of the festive season, I decided to use some of the patterns I created in the past year, one for each month. January is all about cute tea cups, and embracing the cooler days with a warm beverage. This pattern has a matching art print on Society6 and I have created several color version of it in the past few months. I picked the light blue and beige palette for January because I have synesthesia and January is light blue and gold (don't ask how or why).

Trends and styles come and go, what was in decades ago, went out of style only to come back in with a twist. One of those trend you need to watch for if you are surface designer and commercial artist is the "Mod" trend because it's been making a big comeback as of late. Probably as an extension or followup to another big design trend : Mid century modern. For a few years now, the late Millennials and Gen Z have been on a retro kick, probably trying to get a feel of a "simpler" time through the style and fashion trends of their parents and grand parents, this is the reason why the 50's, 60s and 70s aesthetic has seen a massive revival. Plus, all the vintage stores and thrift stores are now full of gems belonging to those decades in just the same way antique shops were filled with stuff from my great grand parents' time when I was a teenager. But what is mod? Mod is described as a subculture that started in London in the late 50's and early 60's, in term of fashion and style, it's the era of psychedelic patterns, and colorful geometric designs. Think mini dresses with stripes or checkered pattern in contrasting bold colors, bold geometric designs in every colors imaginable, swirls, circles and more. If you are above the age of 35 at the least, and definitely if you are a child of the late 70's and early 80's, I bet you had at least one grand parent, or even your parents having some decor elements from that period into their home, and you probably saw your parents pack away swirly pattern mini dresses, and checkered pants away. I myself remember an accent wall at my paternal grand parent's place that had a wallpaper with intertwined circles in a color palette similar to the one I used to create that Mod inspired pattern on this Society 6 credenza. While it was definitely not the style of my grand parent's era and the rest of the house was done in a more mid century style, that accent wall was in the bedroom my uncles shared and this was totally a type of style in vogue with the baby boomers when they were kids. My bedroom growing up was more of 70's style but had some of those geometric elements from the mod era still very much present : avocado green geometric wallpaper and orange carpet anyone? key elements to remember as a designer today In terms of colors, that style era was pretty much "anything goes" the pastel tones from the 50's still existed but got replaced by bolder tones in those same colors and as a surface designer and artist today, you need to pay attention because these colors are coming back in force. Just look at the bold yellows, pink, orange and green making a comeback in the fashion world and take your cue from it. If you have a teenage girl either as your daughter or as a relative, watch how they shop for clothes, or simply visit the teenager and young adult section in a clothing store, you are bound to see a rainbow of colors in those bold hues, paired with classic Mod patterns. Just this weekend, my daughter bought a bunch of Mod style sweaters, and bell bottom pants. The sweaters are a 60's colors and pattern meet the 90's cropped cut and as a 13 years old, she qualifies as late Gen Z, this is the generation that is just now getting their purchase power and you definitely want to pay attention to what they are into if you are in commercial art and design. Their lot is really into exploring what they perceive as "simpler times" through the aesthetic of that time, be it with the cottagecore trend or the Mod one. If you ask me, the Mod trend is an easy one to adapt to our time and as a color lover myself, I totally see the appeal. Working with geometric patterns and elements is actually a lot of fun, and because the 60's color trends are so wide, you are bound to find a couple of colors that are a match made in heaven with your own branding and style. So, if you haven't yet keyed on that trend yet, now is really the time to start exploring it because it's really starting to peak and will probably be around for a few years with it's bold checkered patterns and psychedelic swirls. If bold colors are not entirely your thing, just explore the 70's aesthetic instead which still has many of the geometric elements but with a more muted palette than the one from the early 60's

Every now and then, I buy some of my artwork on Society6 products to check the quality and use them in my everyday life. A few months ago I reviewed their water bottle. Back on the old blog I did review their Apple watch band, carry-all pouch and cutting board (don't worry they will be reviewed again here...soon) This time around, I bought two of my designs as iPhone though cases taking advantage of one for the biggest cyber week flash sale deal they had which made them shipping to India worth it. Back then they were 60% off but quite frankly, this is one of their product I would buy even at full price because so far I don't think I ever had a phone case that high in quality...EVER! I place the order on November 17th and it was marked as printed and shipped on November 18th with an Australia Post tracking number as they have a production partner there that probably cater to the whole Asia pacific region. For India this is also good news as usually parcels from Australia aren't subjected to custom fees the way even tiny items of low value from the US are. Past experience told me that the delivery would take 10-15 days to my home in Mumbai. Since this time around it was shipped from Australia, I got regular emails from Australia Post about my order, one of which was that it landed in Mumbai and was waiting custom clearance, that was exactly a week after placing the order, on November 24th and the parcel was dropped in the lobby of my building on November 26th by the India Post officer assigned to my area, and was told by email later that same day it got delivered. Which I knew already as I picked it up on my way out to the dentist. It arrived neatly packaged in a cardboard box and each phone case was wrapped in a protective pouch as shown in the picture above. I ordered two iPhone 11 cases and opted for the "though" variant rather than the slim case. I'm the least prone to dropping phones in our family but there have been a few instance of my cat sending all electronics devices off the furniture or my dog knocking my phone off my hands so I ALWAYS opt for cases with some sort of cushioning and raised edges, better safe than sorry. Choosing which designs to get on my new cases was the hardest quite frankly in the end I opted for the "Blush pink and navy floral fishes" and "Mint and gold spring floral pattern" (both links are affiliate links by the way). Those cases have a glossy finish which I LOVE, because all the cases I managed to get printed in India over the years had a matte finish I didn't quite like. Matte cases pick up all the dirt and just scratch the same way as any cases. Since I went with the "Tough" case, they come with a silicone sleeve liner that fit snuggly around the phone and in the case. The black silicone sleeve is what give the raised edge and protect your phone's screen if you place your phone face down. The print quality is as usual superb, Society6 can really be trusted in that department, all the colors are very close to the on screen version of the artwork, which in this case is also a digital design. It's a known fact that there will be a tiny difference in colors between the on screen file and the print version, but some companies, like Society6, are able to make that difference near to unnoticeable. If I really wanted to nitpick at this point, and for the sake of an honest review I will, I'd say that the navy blue on the fish phone case is quite darker than my original on screen color, but again, that kind of thing is expected to happen, especially with dark blues that are close to black in the first place. Over the years I dealt with enough bad phone case printing in India (muddy colors and all) that the fact a Navy blue background looks closer to black than navy is really not a problem at all. On top of them being printed perfectly, and having a glossy finish, I really LOVE the fact they fit on my phone very snuggly with no chances of them popping off during a potential fall. In fact swapping cases is proving to be a tiny bit hard as they fit too well, so be prepared to have to do a bit of pushing and pulling when you want to swap cases. Another thing I really appreciated is that the case has no sharp edges and bits poking. I have that problem when my designs were sold with Cupick, Paintcollar and Colorpur in India, as well as with independent printing services that all used the same super cheap, matte polycarbonate cases. I scratched myself a few too many times on those cheapo cases and it's good to know that there are quality printing companies in other part of the world that care about giving you a quality product that is worth the money you paid for it. Ordering on society6 from india I have several products bought over the years that prove once and for all, that ordering from India IS possible with Society6. They even got better at it over the years. Back in 2018 the cutting board and pouch I ordered were both shipped from the US. The Apple watch band and bottle I ordered earlier this year were shipped from Korea and the phone cases, as mentioned above were shipped from Australia. Both South Korea and Australia have trade agreements with India which means small items of low value do not attract the duty fees that are now plaguing parcels coming from the US. Back in 2018 it is worth to note I never paid custom duty either, but this has changed recently it seems. So Society6 having trusted production partners in the Asia Pacific region is great news. The US Dollar / Rupees currency exchange rate is not really in the favour of Indian shoppers though, but just the same, several of their products are actually worth the expense and aren't even that insanely costly when you compare it to some brands sold in India, minus the perk of having a unique design, and the fact you genuinely pay an artist with each purchase. The key is to wait for a sale or promotion on a specfic product, they have new promo every week and I post them on this website's home page. So if you have a specific item in mind, simply wait until it gets an attractive deal, usually there is always something going on at 30% off. Shipping comes on top of it, and it's dictated by the weight of the product, I paid 8$ on shipping for these two cases and it's pretty much the kind of shipping I paid on each orders I placed in the past. In this case, ordering one or two cases didn't affect the shipping at all, it was 8$ so I ordered 2 right away. If you are an artist with them, they will also deduct your royalty markup from the final price, so as a designer, you get your items at an additional discount nobody else has, making it extra sweet. Back in 2018 I found out that it wasn't possible to pay with an Indian credit or debit card on their payment gateway, but you can do so via PayPal. Designers selling on Society6 have a PayPal account by default, so for me it was never a problem and I never tried using a credit card again since that first time in 2018. I have no idea if as of 2022 they changed their card policy to allow Indian cards to be processed through their payment gateway.

As a designer or artist, you might find yourself in a situation where you need some of your art printed quickly on a product without relying on a big PoD like Society6 or Redbubble for several reasons. It could be that you are living in a country where the currency exchange isn't totally in your favour, or shipping takes a long time. or you might want to open an Etsy shop and need some inventory that will not force you to set insane margins to get some profit. Or you might need a special item quickly to run a marketing campaign and waiting 3-4 weeks for a delivery might not work for you. Then with Christmas right around the corner, you might have the opportunity to have a stall in a small pop-up market and need to have items for sale on short notice. cue in the local printing services! A few years ago, when I realised that people around me here in Mumbai were not going to order from Society6 or Redbubble because the prices in dollars seemed a bit steep for them, I decided to experiment with the idea of having some of my designs on products printed in India. There was some good, bad and downright ugly, but I managed to sell a few things in my offline circles that way. At one point I even opened an Etsy shop, which in hindsight was a fun experience but not a profitable one for me. I'm actually still sitting on boxes of notepads from my Etsy days if that tells you anything, but hey! We all have those business mistakes in your past right? The point is that it's actually quite easy to find printing options locally for regular items like stickers, mugs, t-shirts and mousepads. Things like stickers usually need to be printed in bulk, so if you go that route, do check with the printing service what their minimum quantity is. I used to go with a pan-India service called "Inkmonk" which specialises in printing corporate gifts, packaging and marketing items for customer. With them the minimum quantity was 30 units per designs, and stickers were items I could sell easily in my offline circles because the price point was low and they were still affordable even when I slapped on a 100% markup. That rickshaw and the lemon chili evil eye charm were my biggest seller and that trio pack made for about 95% of all my Etsy sales when I had a shop there. It was easy to store at home, and easy to ship internationally too, it fit in a greeting card and could be shipped at affordable rates as a document instead of a parcel. If you know were to look, and you should DEFINITELY ask around, you can also rely on a local, no brand, no franchise printing service. This is how I got some greeting cards and those groovy rickshaws notepads printed at the peak of my Etsy shop days. When you go down that route, you have to be super careful though, because most of those printing services will not entertain your order unless you meet their minimum number of unit, usually it's 100 units, and you could negotiate it to 50 units with some, but in the end, they want to recoup their costs too and in general, the higher the number of units, the lower the price per piece will be too. As a small brand and business, I widely overestimated how those items would sell and I have still too many of them in storage 3 years later. So my advice to you all, is to go for that kind of service ONLY if you have the certainty of being to sell them all out, or at least 80% of it, or else, you'll end up loosing money. This is a great solution if you are getting ready to sell in a pop-up market event where there will be enough foot traffic to get you the sales you need. Those professional printing services keep their prices low precisely because they ask for a minimum number of pieces in an order. Those notepads set me off at about 60 rupees a piece, I could sell them locally for about 250 rupees because they were completely custom and available nowhere else. On Etsy, if I remember correctly now, I sold them for about the equivalent of 5-600 rupees to recover the packaging material and some of the shipping costs. If you go with a printing service for bulk order here are a few things you ABSOLUTELY need to stay on top of : ALWAYS request a printing sample before placing an order. A good local printing service should oblige, if they don't, walk away Check with them right away what their minimum quantity is, it's not a standard, and you can't assume that everybody asks for a minimum of 100 pieces, some deal in the thousands. Ask what the delivery time is right away, before placing an order and make it clear about your own deadline. Walk away if they ask for the whole payment in full before doing the work. it's ok for them to ask for a deposit, but be wary of paying the whole amount right away because then they don't have an incentive to get your order printed on time. don't sneeze at vistaprint! Just because it's mainstream and everybody has used it at least once doesn't mean it should be off your radar to print your art on products. First because their quality is really good for the price, and then because unlike a local offline printing service you will not be tied to a huge minimum quantity to place an order, for many of their items, you can actually just get the one piece you need printed, which is good news if you are planning on using let's say a coffee mug with your art on it in an Instagram photo or want to gift your art as a mug or t-shirt, or mouse pad to a friend. I actually had several orders in my offline circle for a specific artwork on a mug and Vistaprint was my to-go option. I also got my art printed on posters with them for other orders and the greeting cards in the picture above. For stationery like those cards, they have a minimum purchase of 10 cards per design, which is a lot less than with the printing service I used for my notepad. Granted the price per unit is significantly higher with Vistaprint, it's an option that makes sense if you know you are not going to sell much of them and don't want to be stuck with a massive inventory that will gather dust and eventually end up being trash. Google is your friend While the like of Vistaprint and Inkmonk tend to have limited items in their catalogue and tend to stick to corporate gifts items and marketing material, they are not the only companies out there who do print on demand services for individuals. It might take you a bit of time to find them, but do make a point of Googling around typing in the kind of item you want to get custom printed and your city or country and it should yield results. The Christmas cushion cover at the top of this blog post and the rickshaw one in the picture right here on the left are both from an Indian company called "Your Print". I found out about them last year when I was looking for a round mousepad and have since then used them for my throw pillow covers. Honestly, I can't vouch for their other items, as I haven't tried. I strongly recommend ordering just one unit first to see the quality and if you need more, place a bigger order later. This is an approach you should have with all those smaller online printing services, the quality can be hit or miss, and some items could print great and others not at all. In India, I am yet to find a decent phone case printing service, they all have very cheap cases and printing methods that dull all the colors, and I have tried a few of these companies, none could really cut it. Ordering just one piece also help you gauge their delivery time. Your Print is great for quality but they do take over a week to deliver, so that is something you will need to factor in when placing an order for let's say a pop-up event, don't order last minute with an online printing service. put your home printer to work Most home printers can do a great job at printing postcards and stickers on special paper if you take the time to understand the printing settings. A while ago I wrote a blog post about printing stickers at home you might want to check. If you don't have a printer yet, I strongly recommend you get one if you are going to do small pop-up events regularly, or simply need stickers to use in your journal or your Instagram pictures to showcase your work. I strongly advise staying off HP printers, their ink quality fades over time and they do not really cut it for more professional looking print. I swear by Epson, and I am in love with my L805 printer (affiliate link), I heard Canon is great too, so take your time to decide which one to buy, and remember that with printers, you get what you pay for, a budget printer will give you budget print quality. If you are going to open an Etsy shop that mostly sell stickers, you might want to look into buying a plotting machine like Cricut or Silouhette (both are affiliate links). These are NOT cheap, especially in India, so do not feel you have to buy them if your goal is to just print a few stickers here and there. I cut all of mine with an exacto knife of a good old pair of small scissors. But if you are going to sell volumes, these plotting machine with save you tons of time and they can be used beyond just cutting stickers. society6 for specific items Society6 and other licensing model PoD do have unique items you will not be able to get printed locally and I STRONGLY recommend you purchase those every now and then, not to sell offline, but for your own use. Consider it a marketing expense, one that is going to be a lot more fruitful than a paid add campaign on Instagram in the long run. Why? Because people want to SEE the real product. A picture with you using the Apple watch bands, or using the Society6 water bottle, or an unboxing video speaks a lot more volume than a mockup picture. The printing quality on a physical product cannot be hidden the way it is with a digital mock up picture. And if my blog analytics says anything, it appears a lot of Google searches about Society6 water bottles lead people to this blog post : Society6 water bottle review. Most of the PoD companies shop worldwide, I only shopped with Society6 so far because I like their product better, but if you have just a Redbubble shop, do make a point to order from them as well. Just wait for a promotion offer so that you buy the item at the discount so that it helps you recoup the cost of shipping. In this department, Society6 is the one that runs the most promotional deal on products and they let their artist know the schedule in advance so you can plan your marketing campaigns and purchases. PoD also deduct your markup margin from the price if you make the purchase through your artist account so the price you'll be charged at checkout is factoring in that cut too. So if for example Society6 is having a 50% off on Phone cases, they will also deduct your markup on the final retail price at checkout, in my case it's an additional 20% off the already marked down public price. Usually, orders place through them take a total of 15 days to reach me in India from the day of placing the order, which is quite fast, and they usually manufacture it with production partners in countries with which India has trade agreement so I never had to pay custom duty fees so far.

The most festive time of the year is right around the corner and Christmas trees are starting to pop up (mine goes up this Sunday) Along with it all, the quest for the perfect gift has started for many of you. But what about the perfect way to wrap the perfect gift? Sure you could just grab a roll of gift wrap paper, but with all the talks about sustainability, it's seems like an awful lot of paper going down the trash each Holidays season, something we should all be more mindful of. The thing is, there are lot of options to wrap your gifts in a more eco friendly way, like re-using paper, using old brown paper bags and painting them, or wrapping your gifts in a piece of fabric or a re-usable box. Then there is the option of buying a re-usable, bag or box to wrap the actual present and let the packaging be a second present. Society6 has several options that perfectly work as a stylish, yet re-usable or repurposable gift wrap. the carry-all pouches This is one of the Society6 product I can vouch for personally because the pouch in the picture on the left is not a mock-up picture but the actual deal, I bought it in 2018 and it's still in perfect conditions years later. Society6 has 3 different sizes for those pouches: Small (6 x 5 inches) which is the one in the picture Medium (9.5 x 6 inches) Large (12.5 x 8.5 inches) which is big enough to keep a regular sized iPad in. You can use them to wrap cute jewellery items, phone cases, a gift card, or art supplies and Home Cyn Home has over 400 different designs to chose from. they double up as a great way to keep your purse knick-knack under control, keep your pens and pencils handy while you travel or store some of your cosmetics for a weekend trip. And they are affordable too, at full price without discounts (which is rarely the case) they start at 22$. acrylic boxes With dimensions of 4x4x3 inches, these cute little boxes are made to accommodate jewellry items. But you can use them to wrap a few chocolate and candies as well, or a bunch of hand made scrunchies or other hair accessories, that way the recipient get the gift of style and fashion along with a way to keep those new pieces stored and organized, and it will look good on their dresser. Yes, the box is transparent, but if you pair it with a handkerchief or a scare of fabric, you are on to something. At full price they are 35$ but more often than not, like everything on Society6, there is always a discount on them that makes them a bargain to buy, and again, most Home Cyn Home designs are enabled on that product. Tote bags Meet the most versatile of them all! The canvas tote, used by many companies as a way to put together a goody bag for their client. No corporate gift catalogue doesn't have a tote or two to customise and I don't think there is a single Print on Demand company out there that doesn't have it as part of their products. The good old tote bag can hold a lot, look as cute as a paper gift bag and can be used for years to come to hold your groceries and do your bit for the planet every time you shop. The have a maximum retail price of 33$ on Society6 but if you wait for a promotion sale, they are a lot cheaper (again most of the time). And it's available on pretty much all of Home Cyn Home's designs too. The good old wrapping paper Not the most sustainable, but definitely re-usable if one is careful enough peeling of the tape. At the default of being super ecofriendly, these at least pay an independent artist each time you buy it. They come in pack of 5 sheets each measuring 20 x 29 inches and at full price they are 29$ Society6 is a great place to do all your Holiday shopping and they have promotions every week, right now they have a massive, up to 50% off promo on everything until November 30th 2022. It may look like a big company and some of you prefer shopping small, but Society6 is actually one of the best platform for independent artists, each time you purchase something from Society6, you help an artist and surface designer such as myself make a living. We indeed do get paid our dues on each sales with them and they are also very reliable when it comes to shipping. The ship worldwide and each and every time I ordered from them to be delivered in India, it took my orders 15 days from ordering to delivery in Mumbai