Zazzle Blog

Cynthia, from the Zazzle Stores arncyn and poptasticbride, was kind enough to sit down and answer some questions about her inspirations and what brought her to Zazzle. Check out the interview below and don’t forget to check out her stores arncyn and poptasticbride!

Bio: Cynthia Bauzon-Arre is a self-employed Graphic Designer in the Philippines. She worked in the advertising industry as an Art Director and consecutively an Associate Creative Director for a total of 9 years after which she decided to go freelance. Since leaving advertising, she has worked on a wide variety of projects that mostly involved website design and music packaging for rock bands. She was also involved in creating the overall look for a local wedding magazine which she eventually worked on as a Design Director for the next 5 years.

Zazzle: What’s your inspiration for your designs?

Cynthia: Currently I have two stores on Zazzle: Poptastic Bestsellers and Poptastic Bride. The inspiration for the designs on Poptastic Bestsellers is pop culture – funny expressions, the 80s, sports and gaming, references to popular media… I love the retro look, so most of my designs have a 60s and 70s feel in terms of color scheme and illustration style. As for Poptastic Bride, I aim to create wedding paraphernalia that’s funky, bold, and unexpected. I want my work to have a different quality from what one can usually expect from traditional wedding tees and stationery. I think you will also see the retro influence across all my designs on there too.

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

Cynthia: I like all my designs but if I had to choose just one from each store, it would be the Robot Love Wedding Invitation from Poptastic Bride because the idea for it came straight out of left field but it’s been surprisingly well-received, and the Meh t-shirt from Poptastic Bestsellers because it can be tongue in cheek and cute all at once. I put a lot of love in creating both designs and I’m just glad that they are being appreciated by others too!

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

Cynthia: Gosh, this is a difficult question to answer because I love absolutely everything about Zazzle. Well, definitely being able to customize so many cool products from neckties to postage to sneakers is an excellent feature! I have yet to play with all the available products, but I just love that, as sellers, we have access to all these fun options. I also appreciate that we can design our storefronts to match our accompanying websites/blogs.

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

Cynthia: I wanted to see what my art would look like on various items like sneakers, bags, shirts, and other products. It was like having a whole new different canvas for my work. What really sold me on Zazzle though, is that it has a wide selection of the coolest products. The easy-to-use customization tool is a great big bonus feature too. I like that customers are free to modify the products to suit them and their individual personalities.

Zazzle: What tips can you give someone who is just starting out on Zazzle?

Cynthia: There are tons of fantastic designs on Zazzle stores, but that also means that there’s a lot of competition out there, so you have to make your designs stand out. Plan the theme for your shop well — it’s important to have a cohesive theme or else your store will just look haphazardly put together. Make designs for topics you’re an expert on. Check out the marketplace and try to figure out what kinds of designs have not been done yet. Find a niche for yourself and do your best to own it. As an example, there’s a whole slew of “funny t-shirts” on there but are there “funny animals-doing-human-things tees”, “Funny aging-hipster-jokes t-shirts”, or how about, “funny fictional-band-name-logo shirts”? You get the idea. Once you’ve found your niche theme, populate your store with a lot of eye-catching and, most importantly, original work (in other words, don’t copy others’ hard work!).

Thanks Cynthia!

This entry was posted on August 12, 2010 at 10:22 am and is filed under General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.