What kind of artwork actually sells on merchandise

Specific beats general

A design about "nature" competes with everything. A design about one tree on one road in one city competes with almost nothing, and the people who know that road will buy it immediately.

Specificity is also how people find you. Nobody searches for a pretty pattern; they search for their neighbourhood, their profession, their festival, the joke their friends make.

• Places people are from
• Professions and their in-jokes
• Festivals and regional occasions
• Languages and scripts

Legibility survives, detail often does not

Merchandise is seen at a distance and printed at a size you did not choose. A design that works at postcard size may turn to mud on a mug wrap, and fine linework can vanish into fabric.

The test is simple: shrink it to thumbnail size and see whether it still reads. If it does, it will survive almost any product.

Designs that give somebody an identity

People buy merchandise to say something about themselves. A design that lets a person signal a membership — a city, a craft, a taste, a stance — outsells a design that is merely nice, because it does a job for the wearer.

Seasonality is real but short

Festival and seasonal designs sell hard and briefly. They are worth making, but a catalogue built only from them earns nothing for most of the year.

A good mix is a core of evergreen work with seasonal pieces added ahead of time — well ahead, because people buy gifts earlier than you think.

Publish more than you think

Almost no artist predicts their own bestseller. The reliable strategy is volume with variety: publish widely, watch what moves, and make more of that.

Watch what people ask you for

The most reliable signal is not a trend report; it is the requests you already get. If three people have asked whether you sell a particular piece on something, that is a product decision made for you.

Keep a note of them. Artists tend to remember the flattering comments and forget the specific ones, and the specific ones are the ones with money behind them.

Range beats repetition

A catalogue of near-identical pieces gives a returning visitor nothing new to buy. A catalogue with genuine variety gives the same person a reason to come back, and gives a stranger more chances to find the one that lands.

Variety does not mean abandoning your style. It means applying it to different subjects, formats and moods — which is also how you discover what you are actually good at.

How to start

Everything runs through one place. Artists sign in at the artist studio, upload work, choose which products each piece suits, and see what they have earned. Customers browse the artwork, pick a design, and choose what to put it on.

Nothing about it is exclusive. You can sell the same work elsewhere at the same time, and there is no listing fee and no minimum.

• Apply with three pieces so we can see how you work
• Choose which products each design belongs on
• Get paid by bank transfer on what sells

Common questions