Yesterday, the dollar saw its biggest daily gain vs euro in 7-1/2 years. Hmm, good for you if this eases the downward trend, because it would allow me to adjust my US dollar prices down as well, for both the stickers and shipping postage.

dire:

Shufflesome stickers for iPods: quite a menagerie of sticker goodness ranging from cute to abstract to hip. all colorful. why don’t they do stickers for non-nano/shuffle iPods? did gelaskins corner the market on that?

So why don't they?
Who is they?
Can I make stickers now?
Hi!
Repeat loop. Or do exit:

You can make skins, stickers, stikahs, schtickts AND stickerings. I am not stopping you. Contact me. Sponsor an edition. We no longer live in a producer-dominated world (unless you still believe the news). You are the producer, if you'd just happen think as one.

More stickers for more iPod models, and in addition stickers for cell phones, laptops, and, and, and. I hear you! And I see the opportunity. I saw it in 2004, when the term skin was still mostly about animate matter.

And today, you might think there is an oversupply (and I would challenge that). Say hello to my German fellows at dein-design.com or tortoise-design.com. Say hello to GelaSkins, who shine with designs from a range of popular artists. Say hello to People Like Us Style. Say, ... do you notice something?

The creative mafia is everywhere! Don't trust designers. :)

#shflsmprice is a keyword i use in some of my Twitter messages. You can follow #shflsmprice tweets to learn about price movements. You can use #shflsmprice in your own tweets to move the price yourself. Think of it as a coupon.

The prices for Shufflesome stickers are linked to the amount of daily visitors. I invented this "game" a couple of weeks ago to encourage more visits to shufflesome.com. Setting prices is no longer a bastion of corporate guesswork. Participatory pricing i believe is more in tune with the way of the Web. Read here how #shflsmprice tweets enable you to invoke price discounts:

You can have both of course. Being able to make your art pay for you is a reason to feel proud. I am aware though that money is often not the primary motivator for artists to work with me on Shufflesome designs. However, to me the business model matters with regard to how it influences how artists approach the work.

There are only a few artists who (profitably) make use of the freedom to buy and resell stickers with their art, rather than earning royalties. Where is the difference?

I make roughly the same profit in either case. You can make at least twice as much when you opt to take charge on your own account.

As an artist, i think the first thought should be: Do i want to make this product? It is not your art that is the product, it is the sticker with your art that is the product. To make aware of this question, i am now giving the artist price list to the artists right after they sign-up. I no longer wait until i am eventually asked for it.

I have rephrased my offering online a bit to give people the idea that thinking as a producer is the basic approach to make a choice about commiting to a design. If a design is meaningful to the artist and if he can imagine to actually produce it himself, then my choice will matter less i think. If i am looking for something else in a design, that must not avert you from creating the product.

I want to choose and to invest, but that should be seen as a priviledge that makes things easier for you, but never compromises or substitutes your choice.

This is a workshop. You come in to create and to exhibit, not to exhibit only.

Like the color in your art, i provide several ingredients to make the product. I am your agent/curator too, but i see my role shifting away from choosing and investing in art in favor of letting the artist be the chooser and investor. We'll see if that really happens.

As an artist, you don't have to wait until other people find a way to make your art pay for you. At Etsy.com for example, there are no middlemen between you and the world. You are actually required to be the producer to list your products. The middlemen are increasingly evadable in other realms, too, like in book publishing. In a similar fashion, the Shufflesome workshop can be a place for active creation as an artist-producer.

The trade-off: Collaborations sometimes start out with superficial, loose, rough ideas, little sense of purpose, but then bring out great results. This interactive route is more laborious, maybe also more intuitive, and teaches me that every encounter has to be treated as unique to eventually let something great emerge. This type of work might be suppressed, when artists have in mind that the art they submit requires funding out of their own pocket to create it.

To keep ideas flowing, the sign-up form includes the option "Decide later", to let the business aspects fall in place later during or after the design process.

I believe that the real output of any company are the people, not the products. The Shufflesome workshop is not only a place to get your art produced, but also a place to try yourself out as a producer.

Sticker Guru seeks Partner for new product development in the intersection of adhesive films, print graphics and packaging. Download one-page PDF for full details:

In English: adhesive_partner_eng.pdf

In German: folie_partner_de.pdf

I have been encouraged to offer Shufflesome designs for the iPod Nano as well. That won´t happen. I conducted some research into materials and print technologies. The choices i have found do not match up to the kind of sticker that i envisage.

You´ll find some Nano skins by other companies reviewed by iLounge. However none oft those i noticed are actually made to please. Being quick on the market with anything is not good enough in my view. Although i acknowlede that Shufflesome sticker editions have improved over time, i won´t even start this process anew for stickers for the iPod Nano, since printing on white vinyl would be bad compromise.

A sticker for the iPod Nano should be transparent, because the iPod Nano display should be covered by the sticker. The rest of the iPod Nano´s front side would offer surface to create a design for. The ideal sticker then should feature a transparent square that fits onto the display, while the rest of the sticker is covered by the design. Those parts that are not designed should be transparent or white.

Do you find this out there?

Do you find a printer who is able to produce such a sticker?
If yes, contact me and i´ll gladly help to serve the designs.

The challenge is not just to find good material and the right technology. The main challenge is to find people who are good at handling both, and whose business allows for small lot sizes. Anyone who tells you it is easy to find the right printing partner - or, why don´t you go to Asia, is probably a mediocre advisor.

I do not doubt that it is possible. But i´ll stop research here. If you see this as an opportunity to find a solution, i hope you´ll be able to surprise! People have been asking for stickers for the iPod Nano.

Tags: iPod Nano stickers

Open source means open end. Famous in software creation, the open-source way of creating products has been witnessed in other areas as well, such as windsurfing. The definition of open source usually builds on a share-alike licensing arrangement, which has been adopted for Shufflesome as well.

Open source can generally be understood as product creation by users for users.

I adopted this method for Shufflesome, and in fact, it guides my perspective for doing anything. I had been observing compositions for iPod shuffle sticker outfits since around January 2005. I was baffled to see the SAA community grow - grow as a purely visual pool of ideas for sticker designs. Baffled, because how could you find satisfaction in just seeing the designs on screen?

Designs for the iPod shuffle are so interesting to me, because, worn as a necklace, the imagery adds symbolic power to the iPod shuffle. A necklace for the mp3 generation it is. Other mp3 players in contrast do not really have this characteristic, do they?

You could find several do-it-yourself instructions on the net to put your own design on sticker paper. I surely would not be satisfied with that. The time you have to invest to research materials, find/create a template that fits well, is all costly. So, why not share the learning experience, and bundle design orders to achieve better quality and lower costs for everybody?

Shufflesome advocates user-driven product creation in a setting, that also encourages contributions from professional graphic designers. With a licensing arrangement in place that conforms to the open-source model and a design template that can´t be beat* in precision and completeness, you are free to make your design more than a virtual artefact.

Do it yourself is cool. Co-creation is better.

* prove me wrong if you will.

Tags: shufflesome open source co-creation iPod shuffle shuffle DIY