Introduction
Last weekend I planned to have a “design session”. During my design sessions, I create a whole bunch of designs all at once.
However, as some of you might have experienced — things don’t always go so smooth as “sitting down and starting designing”.
So last Saturday, I was just sitting there, and my mind went blank.
Do you know the feeling? You want to create a design, but you don’t know where to start.
“WTF should I make?”
The purpose of this article is to help you answer that question, and ensure smooth design sessions in the future.
First things first
As you might have learned in my Etsy beginner guides, choosing a niche and doing good research on your designs is one of the key points in becoming a successful, profitable Print on Demand seller.
P.S I am talking about topics for your designs, not for your store.
A small recap — I’ve said this before: your store should be a “General Store”, not a niche store. I mean, you can do whatever you want, but it’s better to have a general store.
Why? Well because people usually “google” for stuff that they want. They look at the search results, click on what they want and order it. They barely click through on store and look at the other items in your shop.
Just for this reason it’s better to add ANYTHING to your store. Don’t just simply upload “I LOVE FISHING” designs, but add kayaking, basketball, tennis, roller skating, wrestling, jokes, etc etc.
So, what to do?
My first recommendation is always to do research.
I’ve recently written a very detailed article about niche research, where I nicely drill down into this topic:
TLDR; Start searching on Redbubble, Etsy, Amazon,… for designs that seem to sell well and that are popular. Write them down, or take a screenshot, and then create your own, cooler versions of them.
But in case you still don’t know what to create…
Niches that you can always use
The following niches are “general store” niches. You can always use them and create some designs around them.
Use the topics below to do a bit of research via the ways I have taught you.
Use them to create epic designs.
- Funny quotes (with a matching design)
- Bachelor / bachelorette parties (benefit is that they usually do bulk orders)
- Vintage style (60’s, 70’s, 80’s clothing style)
- Hobbies (swimming, walking, climbing, snowboarding…)
- Pets & pet lovers (who doesn’t like cute puppies)
- Special occasions (father’s day, mother’s day, Christmas, valentine, weddings…)
- Fitness and wellness (gym lover, sauna lover, massage expert…)
- Pop culture (designs inspired by movies, TV shows, and celebrities — be careful with copyright though)
- Travel (everyone likes travelling, make shirts of iconic landmarks, some city or country name)
- Humor (search for funny jokes, funny sentences, funny quotes… search for a matching free image and combine both)
- Nature and outdoors (exotic beaches, wild animals, trees, outdoor sports, outdoor activities, BBQ…)
- Fantasy and sci-fi (designs based on games, movies, fantasy characters, quotes…)
- And anything else you find during your research journey.
Seriously, once you get started, it’s hard to stop. You keep on finding designs, ideas, colors, quotes, images… that you like. You save them somewhere, to use them later. And before you know, you’ll never run out of inspiration.
And yes, I don’t mind sharing these because we’ll all make different designs, right? We should add our personal touch, many people have a different taste anyway.
And finally: Copy what already works
The final and most important tip I can give you: create different versions of your best-selling designs.
For example, let’s say that I’m selling the design below a couple of times per day, while my other designs don’t really sell.
In that case, it’s obvious that people like this, and perhaps I should make more designs in the same style, but with the frogs doing different things!
Recap
- Choose a topic/niche for the design you want to create
- Do research via one of the many available design tools (like Everbee.io, PodCS.com, Alura.io,…) — Go to Etsy.com, type your niche name and see whatever results pop up
- Add best selling designs to a list (make one in OneNote or Google Sheets or whatever)
- Start creating designs (i love using Canva.com because they offer amazing templates & designs with which you can start). If you need more help, check my article about Creating Winning Designs.
Want more?!
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Did you know? I also write about different passive income streams like Print on Demand, YouTube Automation, investing tips, healthy habits and just keeping yourself motivated to keep going every day!
P.S. Don’t forget to get your Financial Improvement Tracker Worksheet here while it’s still CRAZILY DISCOUNTED (just $2 WTF)!
