Friday, June 25, 2010

[shmls promo] updated cardlettes



it's my habit to always revisiting my old designs and updating it ever so slightly to make them perfect. 

case in point, these cardlettes at etsy now with rounded corner. more over, thinking as customers has lead me to split these designs to 4 different postings at etsy to make shopping much more convenient. most of them are printed on 100% post consumer waste paper!  60% off the original pricing is the icing on this newly and improved cardlettes cake. 

in the world where you can tell your friends your number, dialed in their cell phone, then have them to call you so you can have a miss call of their number, why would i ever produce this product that seemingly not needed anymore? because the act of giving a card with your information on it in a glassine envelope is much more civilized and elegant.

happy friday!

Friday, June 11, 2010

what's your worth?


Ahh... running a studio...

As a business owner, pricing decision is really important. As a right-brain-operated business owner (me), pricing is as confusing (and at times painful) as trying to solve rubik's cube. In the movie Spanglish, Téa Leoni's character said something to the effect that pricing too low shows how much you didn't value yourself or if it's too high then you just took advantage. Well, but really there's no winning in this situation, isn't it? Unless you can read mind and know exactly how much your customer/clients/buyer would like to pay.

And this is how I feel about pricing.

For products, the decision can be reached a little bit easier. Do the research, look into expenses, find a formula out there to calculate how much you are supposed to charge, and then  compare the pricing to the competitor. Even then, there will be people who will question your pricing just because they are comparing what you have to the same products with different factors (where its made, quantity, quality, etc etc). What about as a designer when your time and talent is the product? How do you determine? How do you justified the meticulous work that you do behind the scene?

Negotiating seems to work for me for now. And repeating "it's business not personal" seems to have keep me sane (for the time being). This is the only solution I have for now. I'll write more once I learnt more. I do, however, have found the solution for the rubik's cube. So may be ... may be ...  that one of those business for designer books can help me (... may be).

img source can be found here.


Happy Friday!

Friday, June 4, 2010

great small things


i still feel like i need a short break, but this short 4 days week surely helps. i leave you with the mini terranium garden by terradctl at etsy. things surely aren't what they seem on the first look is it?

happy friday!