Tee Bar: November 2013

At one time, Bosun Jones ran the largest fight school in the fleet. He never forgot a face (particularly if the man it was attached to owed him money) and he managed to keep track of hundreds of wagers but while he was good at organising fights and betting pools, he wasn’t much of a sailor. After years of shore leave, Jones had washed away that part of his brain where he kept the names of knots and he resorted to inventing his own names for them; “bowlines” became "Chinaman hitches" and a reef knot became a “Witches snatch"

bosun Jones' Knot Guide - The Monkey Knut T-shirt by Bosunjones
Custom t-shirts online at zazzle.com

bosun Jones' Knot Guide - The Mermaid's Rear Tshirts by Bosunjones
Design your own custom shirt no minimum online at Zazzle.

Bosun Jones' Knot Guide - The Witches Snatch T-shirt by Bosunjones
Find more Reef knot T-Shirts at Zazzle

bosun Jones' Knot Guide - The Honeymoon Hitch T Shirts by Bosunjones
Use the t shirt maker at zazzle.com

bosun Jones' Knot Guide - The Bouncy Betty Tees by Bosunjones
Make a unique custom t-shirt no minimum at zazzle.com

bosun Jones' Knot Guide - The Barbary Necktie Shirt by Bosunjones
See other Midshipmans hitch T-Shirts at zazzle

I have two Zazzle stores and a Cafepress store so part of the motivation for creating Tee Bar was to show off some of my own work.

The other reason is that Zazzle and Cafepress, both have affiliate programs, which means that if you follow any of the links on this blog and purchase an item, I get paid a percentage from the sale and so it made sense to post other designer’s work.

I also think there is a lot of pretty ordinary stuff on these sites and I thought a blog like Tee Bar could filter some of it out - I will not post designs which I think are sub-standard and I won’t even post designs that I just don’t like.

But here’s the thing, one of these companies recently made some changes to the way that royalties and affiliate earnings are calculated and in the process, they have inadvertently encouraged more.....um.... substandard designs.

Here’s how it works;

I might spend several hours or days creating a design which I upload to the site and then I set the royalty or mark-up percentage which is added to the base price of the product.

I take into account how long I’ve worked on it and set the mark-up accordingly - it’s usually between 15% and 30% - with simpler designs set at 15% and the more time intensive stuff at 30% - anything over that and the product becomes way too expensive.

Anyway, I found out the other day that, one of these companies will no longer promote products with a mark-up over 15% and quite a few people have either left the site or changed how and what they design.

What I’m saying is that, as designers, we face a bit of a stark choice, we can design for a 15% mark-up - not put a lot of effort in and add even more sub standard work to these sites but have it promoted for free, or we can spend more time and creative energy, ask for what we think our design is worth and not be promoted - and consequently not sell as much.

It seems that some other blogs and affiliate/aggregator sites are doing the same thing - choosing to promote cheaper product, when they could and probably should be promoting great product and design.

I have decided not follow them - I post my designs and other’s because I like them - not because they’re cheaper and more likely to sell.

Hopefully you like them too.

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Saturday 30 November 2013

Friday 29 November 2013

Thursday 28 November 2013

Wednesday 27 November 2013

Tuesday 26 November 2013