My Work – ART + THINGS

My Unique Selling Proposition

Work was absolutely nutso last week which is why I’ve been MIA. So I have finally figured out my Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The formula to follow is “My shop is THE …. (enter USP here).”

So here we go:

“My shop is THE place for tees, pins, and small accessories with one-of-a-kind designs that celebrate PRIDE and support the LGBT+ community.”

It should be noted that a USP doesn’t have to be catchy – this is not your shop’s tagline. But it should be descriptive, specific, and identify what sets your shop apart.

Now I’m learning about the market, such as all the various rainbows that represent different parts of the LGBT+ community. I have been having fun creating some designs. Here’s a little taste of some potential button designs that I’ve made so far:

Recognize the pigeons? I went back to my original designs and put rainbow scarves on them. Haven’t decided whether or not I will add words to these.

Working title for the brand is Freyja’s Rainbow (named after my daughter).

Next on the business track will be lessons on pricing your goods.

Til next time! Davida

Defining the customer first

In the workshop I am taking we are to define who our ideal customer is first, and then develop the product that customer would love to buy. We are to start narrow, with a single customer persona and a single product, and then expand from there.

I did a lot of brainstorming over the past couple of nights and came up with a long list of attributes, titles, styles, abilities, and interests that spoke to me.

Of course, the type of work I want to do will inform my choices here. I’m not going to define my customer as white mid-60s dude who loves golf and ships in bottles. However, neither should I take what I already do and try to twist reality to create a customer who will buy what I’m already trying to make.

Obviously I want to create products that involves one of three things: surface pattern designs, illustrations, or creating tutorials.

I love love love creating tutorials (I even have one up on Skillshare!) — but I feel that I would be in a better place to create tutorials when I have some real credentials behind me. No one wants to learn from another amateur, right?

Anyway, below is the list I have come up with. Just writing this down made me realized how scattered and wide my area of focus was! Getting this down to a really specific profile or ideal customer is going to be a real challenge for me. Surely this is really hard for everyone to do, right?

Anyway, I thought I’d put down my huge list here. To be clear, this is a complete dump of all descriptions I could come up with that actually made me think “Yes.” My next steps are to dramatically cull, edit, and choose from this list. Something where I can say that my ideal customer is a geek mom in her 30s who loves crafting and DIY, and knows her way around a computer. Actually, that’s not too bad. I just typed that all out without really thinking about it. Maybe I should listen to my subconscious. Or maybe I should print out a poster of these words and throw darts at it.

WHO

DIYers
Crafters / Makers
Home decorators and designers
Geeks / Hipsters
Academics
Amateur designers

ATTRIBUTES

Disposable income
Impulse buyer when the bar is low
Heavy online user
Wants to be unique
Tastes run to the unusual, quirky or humorous
20-40s
Tech savvy

STYLES

Retro/Vintage 70s
Mid Century Modern / Mod (50s,60s)
Eclectic
Whimsical
Novelty/Kitsch/Curios
Modern
Minimalism

ABILITIES

Tech savvy
Web savvy
Cricut
IPAD / Apple
Adobe
Graphics programs

INTERESTS

Pet lovers
Wild animal lovers
All animal lovers

Science
Astronomy
Chemistry
Biology

Self improvement
Time management
Budgeting
Bullet journaling

Crafting and crafting supplies
Stationery
Digital creation
Home decor
Paper
Office supplies

Feminism
Environmentalism
Body positive
LBGTQA+
Self Expression
Activism

Bookworms
Grammar nazis
Word lovers
Music lovers

Design 75

I took the pussywillow design from yesterday and turned it into a repeat pattern. One part of the process to make it into a repeat pattern is to pull it into Illustrator and do an image trace. I’m usually quite satisfied with this process, however this time due to the painterly quality of the original, I felt like it lost a bit too much of the qualities that I liked. It went from a painterly feel to a definite vector image feel. I have to think how I can try to do this same thing in photoshop where I can retain the original quality. I might try this again tomorrow to see if I can figure it out.

It’s still quite pretty though, here it is on Redbubble!

Design 74

I wasn’t even gonna do a design tonight, but then I realized I’d feel like a heel if I didn’t.

I started out thinking I was going to do an animal of some kind, but ran into a photo of some pussywillows and decided to do a simple pussywillow illustration.

Not sure if this will translate into a repeat pattern tomorrow or not, but I’m pretty pleased with how this turned out. See it on Redbubble!

Designs 72 and 73.

More bees. I am really trying hard to make these damned bees work. I’m still not satisfied. I think tomorrow it will be time to move on.

Aren’t I supposed to be doing plants right now, anyway?

Designs 70, 71

Life is nearly back to normal after the holidays, and I’m jumping right back in with both feet! I thought I might play catch up over the next few days to get me back on track!

Today I repurposed my bees and cone flowers from the previous design, creating two new patterns. One is a structured bee pattern, which I’m not so crazy about. I think I may try this again tomorrow but with a single bee rather than both, because the overall effect is a little strange.

The second one I’m pretty excited about solely because I’ve learned how to do half drop repeat patterns! It was much easier than I imagined, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to learn how to do for a while now. Again, it’s not perfect, but it’s a new technique I will work hard to perfect.