Ask HN: Review my start-up: Customized Graphics

First off, I think your concept is brilliant and there's a lot of potential. To me, this is one of those markets that should be targeted at women/moms (see the recent HN post on Ravelry). My wife and her friends were actually just talking about this very need yesterday ... they were looking for ways to put tree/bird designs on their wall.<p>That being said, here's where I think you can improve the execution:<p>1. Make the site a bit more feminine. Not really a fan of the blue background. Go something lighter, more neutral, maybe a little feminine. Maybe just white like an Etsy.<p>2. It's not immediately apparent that you can make and sell your own designs. If you're going for the Cafepress angle, I think you need some more obvious buttons/labels for that. At least make the "make" and "sell" buttons on top stand out better.<p>3. Add some more social/sharing features. Let women/moms create designs and share them with other users. Maybe you do it already, but let people save their favorite users, designs, etc. Again, look at Etsy for cues here.<p>4. Add a religious/spiritual category right away. As a Christian, trust me–if you have a category with bible verses and religious quotes, it would be a big seller. It's a huge market and I have tons of friends who would buy such graphics for their home.<p>5. The home page seems a little busy. I'm not sure what's most important to you, but I'd recommend some A/B testing to see what best improves your conversions.<p>Anyway, good luck with this. I think it has potential. I already showed my wife and she digs it.

Greetings. I was the interactive designer (among other jobs) for Customized Graphics. We're trying to be the Cafe Press or Zazzle for custom vinyl products, including Giant Wall Graphics, Bumper Stickers, and Banners.<p>I work for a small company called eRetailing in Columbus, Ohio. Customized Graphics is a tremendous opportunity for us. We're treating it like a start-up within a start-up.<p>eRetailing has had some success in the custom apparel space, and now we're moving on to other custom products like stickers and wall graphics. There have been a couple questions on HN in the past about where to find custom stickers for your business. Well, you can absolutely find them here.<p>We think we're special for a few reasons:<p>1) When we were building this site there was no one else operating as the Cafe Press of Wall Graphics. Just recently, LTLPrints launched with a similar model. I've seen them mentioned on here before and it looks like they have a great product. We're looking forward to the competition!<p>2) Our Design Center is delightfully robust. It’s very easy to add your own text and art and then change colors, fonts, sizes, and more. You can also upload images, including vector art. (We think we’re the only place where you can upload vector art to create custom products, which is important for large graphics because vector art scales.) (See: <a href="http://www.customizedgraphics.com/designcenter/Wall_Graphics" rel="nofollow">http://www.customizedgraphics.com/designcenter/Wall_Graphics</a>)<p>3) We represent the next step in online customization. For example, at Café Press and Zazzle you can shop from thousands of family-themed designs. But none of those designs are actually customizable. But clicking on one of our designs sends you directly to our design center, where you can edit text, colors, and everything else. So if you find a family wall graphic you like, it’s incredibly simple to click "Edit" and add your own family name. (See: <a href="http://www.customizedgraphics.com/search/all/Family" rel="nofollow">http://www.customizedgraphics.com/search/all/Family</a>)<p>Thanks in advance for any feedback! Everything still needs a lot of testing and improvement.

Great domain name.<p>A few ideas:<p>You should run a contest for the coolest design. Winner gets cash and free print(s). You'll get some really cool designs that way.<p>The rotate feature should show what degree it's at. I can just see scenarios where this is useful. Two quick ones is if you accidentally rotate something you have to eyeball it back to level or if you like to align multiple words at a slant.<p>Directional key (up down left right) moving. Select the object and move it with your keys.<p>I don't know if it's possible but implement an undo. I guess you should evaluate the necessity of this by looking at where you lose users. If you are losing users due to frustration on creating their design at the template page then an undo would help.<p>Let people export the art. Why not? Allow people to use it for their desktop background, avatar image... etc. It'll only generate interest.

Firstly great site and great idea. But you are not (hopefully) posting here to get your butt kissed but for some constructive criticism and ideas, so here goes:<p>1. The site is a little busy and lacks a real call to action. "Start Designing" kind of disappears<p>2. I think you need two sites. One for the business market and one for the consumer market. These could both have the same backend etc, but probably need seperate names / front ends. Businesses (generally) don't buy from consumer related sites and vice versa. Your product definitely seems capable of satisfying both markets (and I would use the current domain for the business market)<p>3. Your focus both on the site and in your comments here seem to be slightly on the ability to design your own product. Personally I am useless at design so this would not appeal, but I also know a number of people who are amazing at design, but not that good with a blank canvas. I've only taken a quick look at your site but I would perhaps focus on the excellent designs you already have and offering customisations to them over actually having a blank canvas (which is where I ended up when I clicked Start Designing).<p>But overall looks really good, good luck with it.

Hi, love the idea. Although I do like the design as a whole, I do agree that the colors should be more "neutral". Also the site is a little on the busy side and I think it would benefit from some more whitespace and less "this is ALL we do!!" in the homepage.<p>Oh and btw, I'm on Firefox 3.5 on Leopard and you ve got some nastiness going on on the footer. <a href="http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7223/picture12h.png" rel="nofollow">http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7223/picture12h.png</a>

The front page does seem a bit busy. The amount of copy is a tad overwhelming, but once i slow down and start reading each one, it makes sense.<p>I would maybe have an easy start page (your "start designing" button could link to it tho I find that button rather small), with leading questions like: 1. What would you like to print? (give hints or a drop down) 2. Choose a design.<p>And so on.<p>A Preview page would be nice, preferably one that allows you to upload a picture of your own room or wall.

I love it - I have been looking for exactly this service for a while now. I have a bunch of ideas for these types of items that have never really gotten off the ground due to the overhead.<p>I opened a store front (<a href="http://www.customizedgraphics.com/alexophile" rel="nofollow">http://www.customizedgraphics.com/alexophile</a>) and the main thing I would suggest is having more categories. Work tends to get buried and poorly organized when there's too few categories. The use of tags only obfuscates this slightly, especially if someone doesn't actually know what they're looking for.

I really liked the intuitive nature of your design work space. Rarely do you see a DIY graphic/layout space that is easy for the general end user to use. I was trained as a designed to use Illustrator and I feel like most online tools try to emulate the Adobe work methodology. But with your approach you have made it easy for everyone to understand the basic tool set of move, rotate, and scale. Well done.

Holy crap man, that is the most beautiful design, with the most clarity that I've just about ever seen on the web.<p>Reminds me of a friend's Atlanta startup, <a href="http://ezprints.com/" rel="nofollow">http://ezprints.com/</a> It scaled pretty well.

Please add support for foreign language characters. I tried to make a design using Cyrillic characters but they didn't came out properly.<p>There could be a market for your service among the many bilingual and emigrant people in USA.

If I am not mistaken your site's concept mirror's <a href="http://ltlprints.com" rel="nofollow">http://ltlprints.com</a>. Competition is always good and a form of flattery, as ltl has been around for more then year.<p>Also, a site completely in flash? I am surprised the flash haters here have not made any comments - yet. The design is awesome, but why flash - that can be psd to xhtml(ed).<p>Sorry if I am not positive here, just sharing what initially jumps out. Good luck - it looks to be a solid business/market!

Hey I love it so far -- question: do you think you guys will have laptop stickers anytime soon?

The total width and height of what you are buying is not clear at all.

Nice site. Is this cheaper than buying the same product from a local store?