topNav

Navigation

Archive | Tips

Easy way to pin Zazzle products to Pinterest!

By on November 5, 2013 in Tips
Swimming pool in Costa Rica with Pacific Ocean in the background.

Swimming pool in Costa Rica with Pacific Ocean in the background.

Are you a fan of Pinterest? No, not for saving recipes and collecting photos of places you’d dream about going to if you really wanted to dive with dolphins while wearing your size 4 bikini* and spending all your Zazzle loot. Oh, never mind about the loot. We aren’t making it anyway AND we are going on Pinterest for a totally different reason!

pinterest recipes

For WORK.

Marketing work for promoting your Zazzle products.

A tool for pinning Zazzle products to Pinterest

I’m presuming you already know why you’d want to have a Pinterest business account and how to use it. It’s almost Christmas, you’d better be doing something!

So, all this marketing is a pain, but people do get traffic from Pinterest so it’s worthwhile. I know they send me traffic, but I don’t have any referrals that I can truly trace back to there. I don’t know if they strip the rf codes or not. I check every time AND use a tracking code, but I have no evidence that affiliating from Pinterest works. And no evidence that it doesn’t.

So, this is something we want to make easier, right?

Well, Beck, from PencilPlus, CardFactory, CasePlus and FotoPlus has created a pretty handy tool for searching through Zazzle products and setting them up for affiliating. He posts about it occasionally in the Zazzle forums. The tool is called Zazzle Affiliate Helper and is available on his site, justsoldonzazzle.com.

Today, he added a very sweet feature: the ability to “pin” from the Zazzle Affiliate Helper directly to Pinterest. You don’t have to keep re-doing a search. You pin and go back to the search results, pin again, and so on. Easy!

The tool is free to use. Beck just asks that you pin some of his products while you’re at it. A lot of his fit well onto my LakeEffects boards, so I pinned a bunch tonight.

Here’s an illustrated guide to the pinning process.

Info in the the turquoise colored boxes, but just follow along. Or just wing it yourself!

1. Go to Zazzle Affiliate Helper
ZAH-1

2. Add your associate ID in the box.

ZAH-2

3. Add a search term or store name to the top box.

zah-3

 4. Choose a product. Now pin that Zazzle product and start the pinning process. I chose the seahorse phone case.

zah4

5. The Seahorse phone case shows up on my Beachwalker board.

zah5

6. Check the source box and note that your referral code is included and so is a Pinterest tracking code. zah-6

7. Rinse and repeat!

I will post back here if I sell any seahorse cases in the next few days!

What about you? Are you seeing good results when you pin Zazzle products to Pinterest? Do you get referrals there? Add a comment if you are – or aren’t.

If this was helpful info to you, please share!

*Pinterest users are 70% women, according to MediaBistro.com (2013). But you knew that, right? And, in the interests of disclosure, I really was in that pool in Costa Rica. My beer is in the photograph; I am not. 🙂

 

How to increase your Zazzle referral income

By on October 22, 2013 in Tips

Are you a Zazzle.com storekeeper or affiliate? You probably already know how the Zazzle program for referrals works. It’s a way for anyone to earn money through the sales of Zazzle products. Got a website? Create an ad on it. Hanging out on Pinterest or Google+ or Facebook? Post links to products you like or that you think your audience will buy. Do let people know that links are potential money-makers for you – it’s polite and the FTC says it’s the right thing to do.

If you’re an artist, you can let people know they can refer your work so you both earn money when a product sells.

Are there ways to increase your Zazzle referral income?

Are you expecting the Zazzle.com affiliate program to do things it’s not meant to do? Or things it’s unable to do?

Of course, not. Right?

Are you sure?

Three pieces of advice:

  1. Understand the program.
  2. Right-size your expectations.
  3. Plug the leaks

If you can manage to get the Zazzle.com referral system down, you will make more money on Zazzle. Referrals are paid out at 15% of the base price (the only good thing about the recent price increase) so you may make more in referral than royalty. There used to be this nice volume bonus program . . . oh, wait, there still is a volume bonus program. It’s just not that nice anymore, but the only way it does work now is if you refer the product.

Earnings are maximized if you refer your own product. Many people concentrate on marketing OR designing, however. They both take time and they call for different skills.

Let’s start with the new news about referrals – a contest!

The Zazzle referral contest for October

Zazzle.com recently announced a surprise contest, Awards for Associate Superstars, on their blog. Associates with the most referrals at the end of October can get a share of $500 worth of AMEX cards.

It hasn’t gone over very well among the vocal storekeepers (SKs) and the details are sketchy. . .

How this is supposed to work: the most dollars earned in referrals? the most number of referred sales? the most volume of referred products?

And – are the big affiliates included, the ones who earn tens of thousands of dollars plus each month in referrals? This probability really made people shrug off this contest. It’s already won, right? And what is $200 to anyone at that level?

[edited to add: Clarification posted in the public Zazzle forums that the person with the highest number of referrals will win.]

Nevertheless,  the announcement of this contest is a good reminder to us to step up our referrals game! Especially with the holiday season upon us!

Should you pay for advertising to get referrals?

A Zazzle blogger, Elizabeth P, is now suggesting taking out Facebook and/or Google ads. Yikes! Don’t think about cliff-diving into those waters until you know how to swim first.

Personally, I have not done either yet. Taken out Facebook or Google ads, I mean. I did jump off a cliff once (this one), but it wasn’t that high and I was drinking and succumbed to peer pressure. Don’t you drink and dive!!! I gave it up, myself.

Your marketing skills and products should be pretty solid before you move to paid ads, IMO. Facebook and Google ads can be a crapshoot (i.e., risky venture). All I know is, if you don’t set limits, you could be very sorry. There are plenty of ways to get your feet wet and improve your marketing skills before you start shelling out money. If you’re ready for paid ads, you probably already know it and are doing it. The big affiliates spend scary amounts of money on marketing, but they are doing so with a solid base of knowledge of where and how to market and what to promote. In other words, actual statistics are playing a big role in their success.

Basic referral linking

Creating referral links properly is the very first way to increase your Zazzle referral income! And it’s free! Ensure you create working referral links whether for websites, social media, email, etc, before you move on to anything else. Referrals won’t work everywhere because some sites strip out referral codes, but you’ll increase your chances of earning a referral. In fact referrals are very touchy: if a customer has cookies turned off, switches computers, substitutes their own rf code, etc, you are SOL. You can only work on that which is under your control.

The hard truth is: you will not get every referral you think you earned on Zazzle.

I’m assuming you’re already pretty familiar with this info, but I’ll just note the basics. The best way to create referral links is to use tools that do it for you. The Zazzle sharing tools for products are super quick and easy to use. Or there are scripts, like the free Rob Greenleaf link-builder, that you can set up. You can also hand-code your links – try a copy-and-paste method to avoid typos and other errors.

Would you be surprised that not everyone does this right? I have a friend on a Zazzle-related forum who argues that she never gets any referrals. Out of curiosity, I took a look at her website.

That is, I looked at the code. This is super-easy to do! I poke around the back end of websites all the time.

Sneak a peek behind the code curtains

Depending on your operating system and/or browser, you will find the source code in different ways. You want to access View Source.

A free extension on Firefox or Chrome,Web Developer by Chris Pederrick, is one easy way to check. On Chrome, Web Developer will install a little gear wheel near the URL box. On Firefox, you have the option to display an entire toolbar for Web Developer.

In Web Developer, look for “View Source”. This will open a new page that shows all the code for the page you were looking at. This is how reverse-engineering and bug-fixing starts. Don’t worry about understanding all of it. We are looking for for specific bits of code. You do know how to do a search, right? (cmd+F or cmd+G works on a Mac)

Now, search the source page for “zazzle.com”. Every single linked instance of Zazzle.com on that page should include a referral link. If it doesn’t, you are already shooting yourself in the foot and cliff diving would be redundantly dangerous.

Here are examples of auto-generated links to which I added the tracking code.

zazzle.com site => http://www.zazzle.com/?rf=238810191078308358&tc=RBLTpost
zazzle.com store => http://www.zazzle.com/beachwalker?rf=238810191078308358&tc=RBLTpost
zazzle.com product => http://www.zazzle.com/custom_photo_text_christmas_ornament-175729008648190128?rf=238810191078308358&tc=RBLTblog

source code

Example of source code for above text.

That’s the source code for the links and paragraph above. Notice the color coding that shows your links in blue. What happened to the ampersand? It turns into & [which is the ASCII code for an ampersand. Thank you, Circus Valley!]. The target=”_blank” means the link will open in a new tab.  

Note that a page or product link has a specific format: after the URL, parameters perform extra functions. For Zazzlers, these functions can include referral (associate) ID, tracking code, promotional code, campaign code and so on. The first attached item after the URL gets a ? before it. All subsequent items each start with & and may be in any order. Zazzle gives the details on your Associates page (yes, that is a referral link! Why not?).

Do you know what your associate ID looks like? I don’t have mine memorized, but I do know the first and last bits of the number. Here are two examples of referral links to a store. Zazzle uses both when creating links for you. The asterisk is valid, but may be stripped out more often than the rf code. It does look better on business cards and such, however.

  • http://www.zazzle.com/beachwalker*
  • http://www.zazzle.com/beachwalker?rf=238810191078308358

Tracking codes (tc) will show up on your earnings report so you know which links are leading to sales. Typical tracking codes might be FB (Facebook), PIN (Pinterest), email. Add your tc like this:

  • http://www.zazzle.com/beachwalker?rf=238810191078308358&tc=myblog

So, looking at my friend’s site again. . .

Bad news. She’s missing a bunch of ampersands with her parameters – they aren’t separated from each other. I’m pretty sure that kills the referral aspect!

Don’t be stupid nice, just be nice

Are you sending customers to links on the Zazzle coupon page?

Why?

Seriously, why are you doing that? It’s a big distraction and you risk not only decreasing your income, but also losing the customer to the next bright shiny object! Be strategic and creative about how you share cost savings opportunities. Look for a win-win opportunity instead of giving money away.

OK, you want to be nice.

Just don’t be so nice that you don’t include a referral code when you share coupon or discount information!

Sigh. My friend did that, too. She had links to the coupon page with no referral code. At least if you’re throwing money out the window, you can watch how happy you make some people walking by.

If you throw money away to Zazzle, they just add it to the vault and go back to riding their fixie bikes into the California sunshine life and cuddling Smushimals while eating custom chocolate bars in colorful hammocks. (LOL – see how easy it is to add referral links? Those are all new Zazzle products.)

EVERY time you link to Zazzle on your site, make sure you include your affiliate link. Yes, I’m repeating myself!

Stop all the leaks – here’s a new one!

Did you ever have a favorite pair of jeans that you wore until they turned white and were as thin and fragile as butterfly wings? Probably the pockets had holes in them by then and sometimes you’d forget and stick a handful of change in your right front pocket.

Ping! Ching!

Money would slide out of your pocket and you maybe never noticed.  That is what can easily happen with referral links.

So, what makes your Zazzle system leak? Improperly coded links and missing rf codes are the biggies that you can control.

One new phenomenon I discovered recently – to my dismay – is on my own site. You know how Zazzle updated everything this summer? They also updated some of the banners. Banners are free tools for us to use: advertisements for categories of gifts (Mother’s Day, Christmas, etc) that you can add to your website. See examples in the right-hand column.

You won’t earn Zazzle referrals this way!

Anyway, I was doing a View Source on my own page and was shocked to see that a new stock Zazzle banner I had added had NO REFERRAL CODE.

What? Zazzle always included your code automatically for you just like on the sharing buttons. They SAY they include it, but it’s not there. . This is what I call a half-broken tool. That’s dangerous, because you think it works and it hurts you instead.

See for yourself.

From the Associates banner page on Zazzle

From the Associates banner page on Zazzle

 

banner-rf-code-2

banner-rf-code-3

Well! That’s not very nice. They say it’s there, but it’s not.

So, check all your banners, especially the new ones. The old ones kept the referral codes intact and they still work.

There have been a lot of disconnects on Zazzle with all the changes. You can see my comments as Beachwalker about these on the Zazzle public forum. I honestly don’t know what to think about this one, but it does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. It’s kinda cold like that Lake Superior water down at the bottom of the cliff I jumped off. (You know I didn’t actually dive, right?)

However, you probably want to add a tracking code anyway, so check and make sure all your links, whether text or banner, do include your affiliate code. This is like putting on your water shoes before you go near that cliff. 🙂

What else about Zazzle referrals?

There is a lot to learn and know about Zazzle referrals. Things change, too: the old zbar seems obsolete now. There are ways to structure referral links, use shortened links and include promotional codes. Some social media (Wanelo, sometimes Facebook or Pinterest or Twitter) sites strip the rf codes. Unscrupulous people strip and replace them with their own. There are sharks in the water at the bottom of that cliff!

I am no expert coder and I don’t make tons of money with referrals, but I’m getting better at it. People at Zazzle and associated with Zazzle have developed a variety of tools to help with referring and I suggest you check them out and keep learning. If you have recommendations, please add them in the comments. This is by no means an all-inclusive on referrals.

Even if you and I have no chance to win $200 in the contest, more referrals = more money!

Happy referring! If you liked this post, please share it!

 

Earn more money on Zazzle!

By on November 13, 2012 in Tips

Do you want to earn more money on Zazzle? If you’re selling right now, be sure to optimize your profits on each and every product! This 5 minute video shows you how.

Profit on Zazzle products is influenced by several main factors:

  1. Royalty
  2. Sales and coupons
  3. Referrals

This video shows you how to look at the royalty you set in combination with the price and profit. It appears today that the advanced royalty calculator on Zazzle is working properly again!

Don’t forget that royalty changes only go into effect once a month now. (Thank you, Google!) The cut-off is the 20th, but you really want to get your changes in by the 19th, just to be sure. It takes a few days after the 20th for the changes to show up.

WATCH: Handy Tool for Copyright Permissions

By on October 29, 2012 in Mini Tools, Tips

Someone said it so well. . .

Have you ever wanted to quote someone – maybe on posters you’re creating on Zazzle.com – and wondered how to get copyright permissions? Or if, indeed, you needed permission at all? One resource is the US government: US Copyright Office. That lets you search by works created since 1978. Then what?

But how about simply conducting a copyright permissions search by typing in an artist’s or writer’s name? Try WATCH!

What is WATCH?

The University of Reading (Reading, England) and the Harry Ransom Center (Austin, TX) together offer a searchable database of copyright contacts for writers, artists and prominent figures in other creative fields. These are the companies who can authorize (license) copyright permissions.

Read the information about the database on their About page. Note the head’s up for totally relying on WATCH as the be-all, end-all of copyright / permission information, but this is a great start.

To try it out, I enter Winston Churchill’s name. He was a very quotable person in the 20th century!

Search box for Churchill

Search box for Churchill

The results in the second box indicate with whom I should check before quoting Churchill, especially for commercial use such as for Zazzle designs. (BTW, I have zero idea if they do grant permission or not; I did not contact them.)

Winston Churchill results

Winston Churchill results

If a search turned up a licensing company, I assume I have to seek permission to use work from that artist or writer. If it turned up blank, I’d think I might be ok, but I learned better with the Oscar Wilde example!

The results for Oscar Wilde are more ambiguous on WATCH because they have notes about differing UK and USA rules AND an address in France! I don’t understand this one at all, I have to say.
Oscar Wilde search results

I used to believe that if a work pre-dated 1923, it was ok to use. Well, maybe. Maybe not. So, I try to check it I’m going to quote someone. I also double-check the source of a quote – you would not believe how many quotes are falsely attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, for instance!)

I, myself, had some Oscar Wilde quotes removed from Zazzle which was a puzzle. Wilde lived from 1854-1900, so his work would ordinarily have gone into public domain by its age. This was one of the tricky ones! I don’t pretend to understand it, but I believe it has more to do with trademark than copyright. This particular writer’s info is perhaps not fully addressed by the WATCH site. (They caution you for good reasons!)

Since I had products taken down, I did a separate Google search on “Oscar Wilde copyright” and was taken to a website of a licensing company, CMG. The Official Web Site of Oscar Wilde has more info (FAQ) and links back to CMG.

 Permission and Zazzle.com

There are differences in using quotes in editorially, commercially and personally, so be sure to check! If you stand to make money utilizing someone else’s words, art, or other creative work, you may very well have to gain permission and possible a licensing agreement. What that entails, you have to find out on an individual basis. If you do pursue it, know that

  • You may or may not get permission.
  • You may or may not be able to afford the conditions under which you could get permission.
  • The cost of not finding out may be even higher, however!

For those of us creating on Zazzle.com: if you have permission to use someone else’s work, you may want to post a notice on your site AND contact Zazzle to show proof of that permission. Zazzle has been known to remove alledgedly offending products without warning and, often, without much recourse for the artist. An ounce of prevention saves a ton of problems later!

On the Zazzle help page,the acceptable content guidelines note:  No text or images that infringe on any intellectual property rights including, but not limited to copyrights, trademarks and rights of privacy/publicity. More info about the Zazzle copyright policy may be found on this help page.

There are always people looking out for other artists who will report designs they think infringe on someone else’s rights. (That’s not the ideal protocol, but it happens.) Additionally, licensing companies may do automated searches of the web to look for possible violators. Zazzle undoubtedly has a list of artists, writers, celebrities, companies, etc whose intellectual property may not be added without permission.

If you have ever had something taken down, you know how troubling that may be. This is one way to help yourself stay out of trouble!

As artists and creators ourselves, we should understand this subject from both sides. 🙂

Note: I am not a lawyer, nor offering legal advice. The information here may be outdated by the time you read this! And IP law is evolving all the time. WATCH is one tool available on line to help you research intellectual property concerns. It’s important to understand that there are different kinds of rights out there and intellectual property law is a complicated subject. Another online tool you should become familiar with besides the Copyright Office noted above is the US Trademark Office search.

Custom Skins for iPads, Kindles, iPhones, Androids and More!

By on March 24, 2012 in DIY news, News, Tips

Custom Skins

Colorful Spring Flowers Garden Art iPhone Skin musicskins_skinZazzle just announced the introduction of custom skins for “nearly 300 of the world’s most popular electronic devices made today (and more than a few classic ones as well).”

We – designers and customers – have been waiting for these!

There are custom skins for the brand new iPad and Kindle Fire, as well as all of the popular skins for iPhone and Android devices. And laptops, headphones, MP3 players, XBoxes and more! As of today, there are 270 electronics devices covered by available skins with more being added so check  back if yours isn’t available right now.

What are these skins like?

Zazzle describes them as “super-durable, ultrathin, re-peelable adhesive sheets” made with high quality patent-pending Avery adhesive vinyl. They are high gloss and easy on/off with no sticky residue.Pirate Penguin musicskins_skin

Want to create your own?

If you have a design of your own to upload, here’s the link to the Create Your Own Skins page. Once there, you will use the drop-down menus to

  1. Choose a device
  2. Choose a brand
  3. Choose a model
  4. Create!

Design Tips

You can use JPG, PNG, GIF, PDF or TIFF files when uploading your design for a custom skin. There aren’t any downloadable guidefiles yet, but it’s not hard to figure out the design tools. Be sure your image is at least 200 ppi and preferably equal to or larger than the skin size needed (unless, of course, you are going to be placing the design in a corner, or something!). I like to use sRGB colorspace. Don’t forget, a color-calibrated monitor will help ensure that what-you-see-on-your-screen-is-what-you-get.

In addition to adding your own photo or image, you can use any of the hundreds of Zazzle fonts to add your own words to a design. Some text ideas include:

  • Your name – or the giftee’s name
  • Business name
  • Contact info in case device is misplaced
  • Proud Dad
  • #1 Mom
  • Congratulations!
  • A favorite quote
  • A tagline or slogan
  • Don’t even think of touching this! (my favorite)

More Design Tips Just for Skins

This is Zazzle’s first product with multiple design areas that will be printed on multiple sheets, so it can be a little bit complicated. Some products will have front and back, others won’t. The design tools will help switch you between sheets as you add images to the top, front, left, back, etc.Caravans musicskins_skin

Look for the drop down box located in the customize section to see what all your options are. If you need some help, check out this Zazzle Skins Design Tool Tips & Tricks.

Don’t do this!

Zazzle will not print images that potentially violate intellectual property rights (see here). This means you can’t make skins with your own Disney or Twilight or Justin Beiber images. Or images you grabbed from Google. Or anything that might infringe. You would be surprised how sensitive some people and places are about having their picture used!

Make sure you use images for which you own the copyright or have permission (your mom will let you use her pictures most likely!) and you have the right to publish the content. Otherwise, you will do all the creating and your order will be cancelled. Not fun. You’ve been warned! 🙂

Delivery

Zazzle is PDQ (pretty darn quick) with most orders and says the skins should be on their way to you within 3-5 business days of your order. Don’t forget to check out the Zazzle Black program for free shipping in the USA.

Guarantee

If you don’t like it – whether you screwed up the design or Zazzle did or you designed the perfect skin for your girlfriend’s laptop and then she dumped you – Zazzle will take it back for replacement or refund within 30 days. Official policy here: Everything you want to know about Zazzle returns.

Check out Available Designs

There are already thousands of designs available in the Zazzle marketplace, so you have lots to choose from already and more every minute! Click any of the categories below to see beautiful / artsy / weird / sarcastic / fun / sweet designs on the shelves!Pale Horse Skull Paisely musicskins_skin

 

Want Custom Design Work?

Didn’t find what you were looking for?

Want something really custom for yourself or your business?

If you want custom skins  and would like to have it done for you, I can help you out – your design or one from one of  my stores placed on which product(s) you like.

Contact me for information and costs. If it’s one of my existing designs, the price is likely free!

 

Overview of Zazzle Fonts

By on March 3, 2012 in Tips

As of today, Zazzle offers 308 fonts for designers to use. The default font is always Folio Medium: a realist sans-serif font that was designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum 1957. It’s fine, but pretty bland, don’t you think? There are some grunge style and kid-friendly fonts as well as over four dozen script fonts,too. Over three hundred sounds like a lot of fonts, but it’s not really if you are concentrating on one grouping of design. I find there are never enough really bold ones or pretty ones.

There was an indication last year that new fonts were forthcoming, but don’t hold your breath. The only change I’ve seen in four years is the subtraction of two fonts!

Simply a guess here, but if Zazzle has to BUY fonts, they can be super expensive. And to make available for millions of Zazzlers and customers? Eeek! If you’ve paid for fonts before, you know you often get what you pay for. 🙂 But we all want some scrumptious wedding and holiday fonts. . .

Categories

The Zazzle fonts are divided into seven categories:

  • Blackletter (9)
  • Cool Fonts (52)
  • Decorative & Display (11)
  • Fun Fonts (144)
  • Picture (17)
  • Script (51)
  • Standard (78)

Depending what kind of products you design – and for whom – you will probably concentrate on a dozen or two of what’s available. There’s no master list: what you see when you add text to a product is THE list.

Font Sample Sheets

The downloadable font sheet once available in the Zazzle forums has been removed, unfortunately. I checked – the link is gone. No idea why! (Nah, nah – I have one. Somewhere. A dog-eared printed copy.)

You can make your own font sheets if you want to see how a whole character set looks. For some of the decorative fonts – or the ones you use regularly – this can be very helpful.

Did you know, for instance, that Old Dreadful had so many fun characters? I, myself, have not yet used it, but that was a mistake on my part! Its biggest drawback is readability with such variations between thick and thin lettering.

Old Dreadful font Example

Check out the Maritime font; there’s not much to it, but sometimes you just need a little bird in a corner. Note that the little boxes indicate characters unsupported in the font set.

Maritime font

Some of the other sheets don’t show all the characters, but this Folio Medium does. The Q is dirt-ugly, but that is one of the hallmarks of this font along with a square dot on the i; the rest of the letters are decent.

Folio Medium font

Did you realize that the beautiful Liorah prints dark and graceful and hogs up a lot of space? And the downward stroke of the letter J cuts off when it starts a line? It’s too iffy for monograms because many of the capitals will overlap one another.

Liorah font

The English Vivance font, on the other hand, does show a full J and has a pretty ampersand. The S is boring, which is too bad for Save the Date cards, but not a show-stopper. It’s useful to know what a font’s numbers look like, too: these are nice on invitations and places were you don’t need strictly vertical lettering.

English Vivance font

Allowable Characters

The box below shows Zazzle’s allowable characters: letters, numbers & symbols. Not all symbols are available in all fonts and Zazzle only allows Latin characters. If you want to make your own font sheets, you can copy this layout and paste it into a poster or flyer on Zazzle. (Or look for these on RightBrainLeftTurn on Zazzle). The sample sentences show every letter of the alphabet and whether “J” is apparently cut off – it’s a problematic letter on Zazzle, but people say that it PRINTS ok. Additionally, the sentences show you the leading (spacing) between lines. Some fonts have a lot more leading than you’d imagine!

ABCDEFGHIJKLMN

OPQRSTUVWXYZ

abcdefghijklmn
opqrstuvwxyz

1234567890

~!@#$%^&*()_+`-=
[]\{}|;:'”,./<>?`¡£¢§¶ªº
œ´®¥¨‘«åß©¬æç÷]

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Joyce the Bride & Joseph the Groom.

Formal Script Fonts

Below are sample sheets of the formal script fonts. If you’re doing invitations, script fonts are really key. These are set to 2.7 on the Zazzle font scale – which, BTW, doesn’t relate to anything else. Per Zazzle,

The font sizes we use are specific to the products and design engine on our site. Your product will resemble the real view offered on our site, so please refer to the Real View to be sure your text size is just as you want it.

formal script fonts 1-6

Script fonts 7-12

script fonts 13-18

Get your own!

You may find it very handy to download your own copies of some of the fonts so you can customize their appearance more and use them to accent your designs while still coordinating with the customizable text. As far as I know, all the Zazzle fonts are available for free somewhere or another – you probably have a few already on your computer. Here’s a good resource of public domain, free fonts where you’ll find many that match Zazzle’s: Eagle Fonts.

Here’s one of those scrumptious wedding fonts I mentioned drooling for. Just one version of it from MyFonts.com is $36 – not so bad, but the family is $86. And that’s for use by one company or household.

Here’s a truly mouth-watering site for designers: Letterhead Fonts. How easily could you spend your whole volume bonus there?

OK, interminable curiosity made me search for a really expensive font family. How about the beautifully quotidian Trinite´? $4,685 for one Mac user. No, I did not misplace a decimal! Whew. (shakes head) Probably not for Zazzlers!

However, if you want Zazzle to bring on new fonts, just spend a couple of days finding and printing samples of all the existing ones! It’s sure to happen then. 🙂

Happy designing!

Edited to add: I found a Squidoo lens by vgsuperheroine where she has created a pdf of the Zazzle fonts for you to download: List of Zazzle Fonts.

Video

Download your Zazzle product images 75x faster to more quickly create custom advertising

By on February 14, 2012 in Tips, Zazzle

Do you create custom category folders to show off your Zazzle products? Or use your product images on Facebook, a blog or another social media site? Or to create Zazzle advertising banners for your site or blog? Or showcase your designs on your Zazzle store header?  To showcase your products effectively, you need to show them!

But you may be doing what I’ve done in the past: taking various size screenshots of all the desired product images and then placing them into Photoshop (or other graphics software). The screenshots all have useful names like this does:

product image

Screen shot 2012-02-14 at 1.06.32 AM

Another – better – way is to download as many as 75 product images simultaneously where Zazzle assigns the product name to each image for you. What a time and trouble saver!

To see how this works and examples of instances where you would use the images, check out this video. And please excuse the wayward mouse pointer – I just got it and we’re getting used to each other!

Colorzilla is a great tool for designers

By on February 3, 2012 in Mini Tools, Tips

colorzilla tool imageColorzilla is a great little tool that sits up at the top of your browser window and lets you take color readings from any point in the browser window.

With this tool, you can easily pick a color out of your photograph or design image as you work on Zazzle (or any other POD) and use the result to give your text, border or background the best coloring. It makes a huge difference to your finished product!

Here’s a six step process of using Colorzilla to color some text using a candy jar.

STEP 1:

Start with default color text and chosen image on product, here a candy jar.
jar with default color text

STEP 2:

Switch to design view and use the magnify glass to see a close-up of the design.

candy jar
STEP 3:

Click on the Colorzilla eye-dropper and touch the point to a desired color within your design.

circles

STEP 4:

Click the drop down arrow on the Colorzilla tool and choose the Hex color without the pound sign. That will copy the number for you.

choose option

Step 5:

Open the text color box. Paste the new color number that you just copied over the old one and hit return to lock it in.

jar with default color texthex color

Step 6:

Check out the new color on your text in the product view. Good? OK, you’re done! It is a big improvement!

finished candy jar

With Colorzilla, giving your products a finishing professional touch is a lot easier! It’s available as a free add-on for Firefox or Chrome. Or you can go to Colorzilla to download it.