New design!!

It took an unscheduled loss of internet to get my rear in gear, but I finally have a new design in my store. Actually, I've got four completed designs. I will put up one new design a week to help keep the store fresh for the search engines. Apparently that is a huge key to getting designs seen, a fresh front page updated regularly. They were all special requests from co-workers that were simple and quick to create. Most of what I've done and will post over the next few weeks took very little graphic design talent. Just the ability to make text look more interesting than black, blocky letters. But this first design is one I'd love to wear to my day job. Every retail employee should be allowed to wear it and wear it proudly. :D

The dark green one is for the light shirts and the the lighter one has a nifty white outline so it will pop on the black shirts. I opted for a fun font and color that were neither masculine or feminine. This design is for everyone.

The site

Finally the site is coming along great. I have content on almost all of the pages, though some of it needs to be changed. I put up my shirt designs without script to keep it from being copied. That will have to be changed very soon. I got most of the designs for Celestial Spiral's store up and linked directly to her store. We have to get this site to generate traffic to our Cafe Press stores as none of our designs come up in the first few pages of the search of the Marketplace. If you don't show up in the first few pages, you normally don't get seen. The Marketplace search is a lot like searching Google. If you don't find what you want on the first few pages, you give up and try a different search term.

All the site needs now is some graphics that will be free for all to use. After the content is added, I can start to get the meta tags and descriptions fixed to help with SEO. Then I can start to submit to other Pagan sites for link exchanges. From what I can tell, links back to my site from reputable sites can make a difference in Google search rankings. With the site well in hand, I can start refreshing my Photoshop and Illustrator skills in order to create more cool designs. It is busy circle of things always needing to be done.

Unexpected progress and a new name

As I mentioned on my main blog, I've made some strides creatively over the last few days. I got a new design up in my Cafe Press store and improved my word count on the Supernatural fan fiction story.

Tonight I made a huge leap towards one of my major goals. I've talked about, promised myself, and basically whined about needing an off store site to promote the designs that aren't being found right now, my Pagan designs. I'm thrilled that I'm making any sales, but the whole point of the store was Pagan graphics. I've owned my domain for at least two years. I paid for six months of web hosting before putting it to use. Well, happy dance all! I found a free template that was easy to tweak and to my liking. I now have 4 pages on my site with actual content. I will add more over the next few weeks. Then I can start getting the SEO stuff figured out. Check out my site at www.lunasgathering.com and let me know what you think. Time to be the guinea pig so my cohort in t-shirt design can know if it's worth it, if an off store site will generate any traffic

I am changing the name of this blog as it will now be the official blog of the website. I really want to work on brand name recognition and having the name in as many places as possible will help.

All quiet on the creative front

I only have one bit of news here. I finally have another computer. A brand spanking new beautiful laptop that will help me with many creative things. And shouldn't die on me anytime soon. She's an HP Pavilion dv6000 model with loads of memory and an awesome video card. And thanks to a suggestion by a dear friend, I've decided to give her a name. Maybe that way, she'll stick with me for many years to come. Don't laugh. I know the name is a bit cheesy, but it's part me and part my obsession that has inspired me to try new creative things. I christen the new baby computer Artemis Winchester. Told you it was cheesy, but it makes me smile. :D It does fit though. The goddess of the hunt should naturally be a Winchester and I identified very much with her long before I met the Brothers Winchester. And this baby will churn out many a fun Supernatural fan fiction story, if I have my way. I also have a general idea for series of Pagan designs. It's only a matter of specific details and implementation. I hope they work out the way my mind sees them and the newly loaded graphics software doesn't fight me. Photoshop and Illustrator have both been known to do that on occasion. Probably just user error. :D

Not much new

I haven't been able to meet my planned goals for the end of 2007, though this time not due to my own procrastination. Thanks to a dead computer (yet again) I haven't gotten any new designs or the website for my store created. Thankfully, none of my designs were permanently lost. The layered files were all saved to a CD the last time my computer started acting up. The crash also took the only digital copy I had of my fan fiction stories. Luckily, the one-shot was uploaded to fanfiction.net. My multi-chapter story started during NaNoWriMo wasn't, but I do have a hard copy. I'd printed them out so I could make additions and changes on my lunch breaks. I'll have to re-type almost 15k words. At least I don't have to rely on my memory. And I can add the new stuff as I go along.

I hope to have lots of creative news to report as soon as I have a proper working computer again. That should be no later than the end of February.

Store milestone

I'm very excited because sales have picked up for the holidays. It makes me wish I'd worked harder on new designs before now. I will make sure to be ready next year with lots of new stuff and an off-store website promoting it. My store did have a new milestone. I had my first repeat customer today. Someone actually ordered one of my shirts, got it and like it enough to order another one a week later. How freaking cool is that!?! This gives me hope that the store wasn't a dumb idea or a waste of time. My designs are better than I'm willing to give myself credit for. If I'd listened to my friend Rivercrow to start with I could've saved myself loads of self-doubt about my CafePress store.

On the writing front, as the meter on the side of the blog shows, I never got close to the 50k goal for NaNoWriMo. But the 13.5k I did get was at least two-thirds of first draft of my story. I won't stop writing just because the contest is over. I want to have the story finished to post on fanfiction.net by the end of the year.

Long time gone

I've been so sidetracked by so much that Artist's Way has been impossible. But at least the biggest thing requiring my attention is an artistic endeavor. I signed on to participate in NaNoWriMo. It is much more work than I originally anticipated. Completely enjoyable work, but still work. For anyone wanting to keep up with my progress, small compared to others but good for a rookie author, my profile is here. Next month, I plan to get some new designs uploaded to my store and start work on the website I keep threatening to create to help boost sales. As far as next year, I have no idea what it holds in store for me.