Calendar
You know you've done more than a few of these when the excitement of designing a calendar at a reasonable cost, thanks to POD businesses, is no longer there. ^^; I've been making calendars for years (from my previous business), and as much fun as they are for myself and those who get to put their hands on them, they are one of the most time consuming and tedious of all product listing endeavors, no matter how streamlined a POD company's interface may be. There's a lot of image editing to make things work. One of the major obstacles is that a lot of artists, myself included, tend to like working in portrait orientation rather than landscape orientation for our pieces. Contrary to this fact, majority of calendar templates come with landscape orientation for the images. :(
I remember my early years, making ballet calendars, I would just resize the original to fit vertically and just leave boring whtie borders on both sides of the image. ^^; Over the years, I got fancy and experiment with different things like colors and textures and tubes.
Then the reality hits. It takes a quite a few hours to edit and prepare 13 (if you design a special back cover, it will be 14) print-ready images. And the cold hard reality of the POD marketplace being inundated with millions of other artists, organizations, and individuals producing their own calendars. Although a single copy of a calendar is 'reasonable' at POD companies, these prices are not at all competitive to those calendars sold at the local bookstores or retail outlets. Sure, many people do look for something they can't find at the bookstores and bigger retailers. But the economy in slow recovery, it's a tough world out there.
In the past few years, I've come to terms with the reality of the calendars and don't expect a huge return on investiment. Some revenue will be generated from the sales of calendars, but it will not be anywhere near number the biggest sellers will bring. ^_^
I was almost deciding to not make one this year (for 2014) when I got an inquiry when it will be available. XD Universe has an interesting way of pointing the way, doesn't it? So, I did design one for the year 2014, with a collection of images that represents the many aspects of me -- some traditional/digital mixed media and some that are traditional, in styles from tightly rendered to loosely evocative. I think it's a pretty cool collection. It's culturally diverse, too, with Indian moth fairy, a Chinese snake spirit, Japanese noh masks, and the "Day of the Dead" of Mexico inspired art among the selections.
Zazzle listing is already live. http://www.zazzle.com/2014_fantasy_calendar_art_by_mitzi_sato_wiuff-158274088745385661
I will have a small number printed at another printer to be listed at my Etsy shop later in the month or in December. ^_^
I remember my early years, making ballet calendars, I would just resize the original to fit vertically and just leave boring whtie borders on both sides of the image. ^^; Over the years, I got fancy and experiment with different things like colors and textures and tubes.
Then the reality hits. It takes a quite a few hours to edit and prepare 13 (if you design a special back cover, it will be 14) print-ready images. And the cold hard reality of the POD marketplace being inundated with millions of other artists, organizations, and individuals producing their own calendars. Although a single copy of a calendar is 'reasonable' at POD companies, these prices are not at all competitive to those calendars sold at the local bookstores or retail outlets. Sure, many people do look for something they can't find at the bookstores and bigger retailers. But the economy in slow recovery, it's a tough world out there.
In the past few years, I've come to terms with the reality of the calendars and don't expect a huge return on investiment. Some revenue will be generated from the sales of calendars, but it will not be anywhere near number the biggest sellers will bring. ^_^
I was almost deciding to not make one this year (for 2014) when I got an inquiry when it will be available. XD Universe has an interesting way of pointing the way, doesn't it? So, I did design one for the year 2014, with a collection of images that represents the many aspects of me -- some traditional/digital mixed media and some that are traditional, in styles from tightly rendered to loosely evocative. I think it's a pretty cool collection. It's culturally diverse, too, with Indian moth fairy, a Chinese snake spirit, Japanese noh masks, and the "Day of the Dead" of Mexico inspired art among the selections.
Zazzle listing is already live. http://www.zazzle.com/2014_fantasy_calendar_art_by_mitzi_sato_wiuff-158274088745385661
I will have a small number printed at another printer to be listed at my Etsy shop later in the month or in December. ^_^
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