Zazzle Blog

Last week saw the launch of a few cool new features for sellers, as well as the return of the Featured Products category for your stores! Let’s walk through all the new goodness…

My Products Actions Menu
First, we consolidated a bunch of product actions under one simple actions dropdown in your My Products section. This was done to visually clean up the page and organize all the actions that could be performed on a product in one convenient menu.

This menu allows you to:

• Edit (open full edit dialog)
• Set store category (quick way to change what category this product belongs to)
• Add to Featured Products (see below!)
• Send to front (for sorting)
• Send to back (for sorting)
• Delete (remove this product)

Featured Products
Thanks to great Seller feedback, Featured Products are back and better than ever! Now you can add as many products as you want to the Featured Products category, sort them however you want, and display them on your store homepage! 

New Store Homepage Options
You can now show the following on your store homepage:

• Products (display products with your default sort)
• Featured Products (displays the special Featured Products category)
• Products from a specific category (displays products from any category in your store that you choose)
• No products (don’t display any products)

For more detailed information on how to set this all up, see How to Configure What Shows in Your Store

New Category Displays
There are now five different ways to display your product categories in your store:

1. Full grid (shows all icons in a grid)
2. Full grid with category names (same as above but with text links under each icon)
3. Scrollable (one row of four icons that scrolls horizontally)
4. Scrollable with category names (same as above but with text links under each icon)
5. Text only links (shows a grid of text links only)

You can select how you want your categories to display from the Edit Content page in My Account.

Associate Center
If you are a Zazzle Associate that makes money referring people to Zazzle, the information in the Associate Center is very important. That’s why it now has its own tab under My Account! Favorites can now be found under your Account tab.

So…what’s YOUR favorite new feature?

Check out this week’s Foto Friday Fun!

What’s Foto Friday? It’s our weekly blog post of customers enjoying their Zazzle products. Want to join in the fun and earn $5 towards your next Zazzle order? Read below for details on how to participate in Foto Friday.

Lucky Irish Shoes
Irish Taste Tester T-shirts

Angry Owl in Blue Graphics T-shirt

Want to join in? It’s easy and fun! For every photo you send us we’ll give you $5 to use on your next Zazzle order. So get started taking those pictures and join in on the Foto Friday fun!
Rules:

1. You must be in the photo holding, wearing, hugging, or otherwise enjoying your Zazzle product
2. If the product is available in the public Zazzle Marketplace, include the product link
3. Be creative and have fun!

You can tweet your photos to @zazzle or do it the old fashioned way by emailing them to community@zazzle.com.

Check out the “Attack of the Show,” video featuring Zazzle’s newest product, PRO-Keds!

As you can see, we’re the only company to offer FULLY customizable sneakers. Sure you can change the colors and designs on the other shoes, but can you upload your own pictures and art? Didn’t think so. Go Zazzle PRO-Keds!

Zazzle Labz iPhone Cases (in partnership with Speck) are now on sale in 225 Apple Stores across the country! The stores are getting a first look at some of the new case designs coming soon to Labz. This is a testament to the power of Zazzle, Artsprojekt, and your art! Check out the reaction from the Apple Employees – they love ‘em! Visit your Apple store today to browse the selection and pick up your favorite!

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, this nice double rainbow was spotted outside the Zazzle offices. The pot o’ gold is long gone, however, and we’re still looking for the leprechaun responsible.

There’s only one week left to get your designs into the PRO-Keds Pattern Shoe Contest for a chance to win $1,000! So what are you waiting for? Put on your designing shoes and design some shoes! I’ve seen some great entries so far….

Anyone want to share their contest entry below?

Check out this week’s Foto Friday Fun!

What’s Foto Friday? It’s our weekly blog post of customers enjoying their Zazzle products. Want to join in the fun and earn $5 towards your next Zazzle order? Read below for details on how to participate in Foto Friday.

SMW Pink on Pink short sleeve ladies tee

“I hear with my eyes” ladies long sleeve fitted. Tshirts

Want to join in? It’s easy and fun! For every photo you send us we’ll give you $5 to use on your next Zazzle order. So get started taking those pictures and join in on the Foto Friday fun!
Rules:

1. You must be in the photo holding, wearing, hugging, or otherwise enjoying your Zazzle product
2. If the product is available in the public Zazzle Marketplace, include the product link
3. Be creative and have fun!

You can tweet your photos to @zazzle or do it the old fashioned way by emailing them to community@zazzle.com.

John Rocco, Roccoart, was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions about his experience as an artist, creating the illustrations for The New York Times bestselling series, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” by Rick Riordan (now a major motion picture), and his love of Zazzle. Check out the interview below and don’t forget to check out his Zazzle store Roccoart!

Bio: John Rocco is the illustrator on The New York Times bestselling series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” by Rick Riordan as well as the author and illustrator of several picture books including “WOLF! WOLF!,” “Moonpowder,” and “Fu Finds the Way.” Prior to his publishing career, John worked in animation as an art director on a variety of projects including the top-grossing animated film “Shrek,” and several attractions at Walt Disney’s EPCOT.

Zazzle: What is it like working on the illustrations for the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series? What is your inspiration behind those designs?

John: Working on the Percy Jackson books has been a complete joy. The Lightning Thief was actual the first cover I ever created and it was so thrilling to see it go on to sell millions of copies. Who knew? With every book I try to capture the feeling or the essence of the book in a single illustration. For instance with The Lightning Thief cover I felt like Percy was a character that was “stuck” in the middle of a battle between Zeus (sky, thunder, lightning) and Poseidon (water, waves) and he was just trying to figure it all out. I always try to create something that is easily readable from a distance, and says “Hey, if you read the words inside this book you are in for an adventure.”

Zazzle: What inspires the books you have authored? Do your illustrations often inspire parts of the story?

John: Inspiration comes to me in the strangest ways. For my picture book “Fu Finds the Way” it was a trip to Hong Kong and a teapot that I purchased in a little shop there. For “Moonpowder” the inspiration came from my Belgian wife. In Belgium they don’t have the sandman to help you sleep at night, but instead they have the Moon who sprinkles moon powder. I thought, “Where does this moon powder come from? What if they ran out?”

When I am working on a book I am usually starting with the words, and then I begin to draw. As the drawings develop it tends to impact the story and the writing. I remember working on a spread in the book “Moonpowder” and I had written about sixty words describing the scene, but after I finished the final art I realized I didn’t need any of those words and was able to just have five words on the page.

Zazzle: What medium to do you work in the most?

John: Lately all of my work has been created in a similar process; first I draw everything in pencil and then I scan it into the computer and paint the colors digitally using Photoshop. Here is an example:

scanned drawing

digitally colored

Zazzle: What has been your favorite design you’ve created on Zazzle, and why?

John: I think of the Percy Jackson covers, the one I am most proud of is the final cover, The Last Olympian Poster mainly because when I described to the publishers what I wanted to do I wasn’t sure they would like it. I mean, to end the series with an almost black and white cover that featured Blackjack the Pegasus? I had already painted him on the Titan’s Curse cover. Needless to say everyone was a little nervous but I was able to forge ahead and when they saw the final painting everyone was thrilled.

Zazzle: What got you interested in selling your art on Zazzle?

John: A fellow artist, Adam Rex, had opened a store on Zazzle and I thought it looked really terrific. I think it’s ease of use and excellent tools were what attracted me the most to Zazzle. I have had great success with the Percy Jackson products on Zazzle, and I can’t wait to start creating some more products.

Zazzle: What is your favorite Zazzle feature? How do you use it?

John: My favorite Zazzle feature has to be the ability to instantly see how your designs will look on the different products. I am able to adjust the art on the fly and get it to look just the way I want it to. That has been great.

Thanks John!

Zazzle is looking for PRO-Keds with patterns! Design a pair of PRO-Keds (the newest Zazzle product) with a great pattern and you could walk away with $1,000. What kind of patterns? Any kind you can think of! Boat patterns, skull patterns, flame patterns and more are all eligible to win. Just get designing on a pair of pattern PRO-Keds before this contest is over. See below for official contest rules and details on how to enter.

Prizes:
Grand Prize = $1,000
10 Honorable Mention Prizes = $25 Zazzle Gift Code

How to Enter the PRO-Keds Pattern Shoe Contest:

1. Create a Zazzle Account (It’s free!)
2. Create your patterned PRO-Keds:
   • Create Royal Hi PRO-Keds
   • Create Royal Lo PRO-Keds
3. “Post for Sale” your PRO-Keds with the tag prokedspatterncontest032010 in the Zazzle Marketplace (learn how to tag your product here)
4. You’re done, good luck!

Contest Rules:

1. One entry per person only.
2. Entries must be received by March 15, 2010 at 11:59pm PT, to be eligible.
3. Entries will be judged on uniqueness of design, overall creativity, and best use of the shoe.
4. Entering a contest is done by tagging your product with a specific contest related keyword (or “tag”). If you don’t know how to do this, please read the instructions here. You should also leave a comment under the contest announcement with a link to your product to give it more visibility.
5. Contest is for submissions by residents of the USA only. All other entrants will be excluded from the competition. Read the Official PRO-Keds Pattern Shoe Contest Rules.

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