the Thousand Worst Designs

Sorry, just been skimming through the Anti-Valentine's Day "bestseller" list at CafePress.  I was going to title this blog the "thousand worst valentines designs" but then I realized I was looking at the Anti VD stuff anyway, and secondly, every holiday produces a new flock of trite phrases with bad clip art, so why pick on VD alone?

I know, I know, such a site allows me to suppliment my day-job income with a few actual sales of my real artwork, but some of the stuff on there is just badly done.  And I am exaggerating: there are some good designs and interesting ones(f'rexample: http://www.cafepress.com/buy/anti-valentines/-/pv_design_details/pg_1/id_17436268/opt_/fpt_/c_666/ ; and http://www.cafepress.com/buy/anti-valentines+love+romance/-/pv_design_details/pg_1/id_17427332/opt_/fpt_/c_666/ ), but the problem is you have to rifle through all the other sludge to find them.  And I'm only really complaining because it's inconvenient for me.  I mean, of course I think it's wonderful that people can freely express themselves.  It's just discouraging because even if I were to put up a new design, only the most industrious, persevering customers would see it, because in a matter of hours it'd be way down on the "new" list, and the search opens up to "bestsellers".  Whoever ends up on top of the bestsellers list is who gets seen first, so its like a matter of "the more you sell, the  more you sell" because the people just idling through will only see the designs that have already sold a lot, regardless of whether they're good or bad.  They'll get bored after a few pages, buy the first thing they see they think is vaguely funny, even though there may be something else they would like better further down, or they may not buy anything at all, assuming that the other 20 pages of designs are going to be just as ugly and unfunny.  That's bad marketing, and makes for a very bad image for CafePress.  I've had people in forums online sneer at the mention of my cafepress store, saying "You mean people still use that site?"

Of course, I have no idea how CP could fix this without seriously hindering the freedom of so-called speech element they have going for them.  I mean who is anyone to judge what is a good design?  They probably have a hard enough time keeping stolen copyrighted material off there.  Perhaps they should have a search option that will show you only designs from paying storefronts, you know, people who do this seriously and not as just a joke hobby?  That's a bit harsh, though.  I mean I started out with free shops.  *sigh* So, I really don't know how to fix it.

That and people like to steal sayings.  Ever notice how people are always stealing sayings?  Yeah, somebody stole my "hand over the chocolate".  Mine's better.  It has a picture of a girl with a gun, not just words.  Not precisely why I'm ranting, but did not improve my opinion of the whole issue.

Okay, I'm gonna quit griping now, so you can go find a better feeling thought.