I have been a Print on Demand P.O.D designer for almost three years and have learned so much about this topic as an author and writer but only recently woke up to my own rather scattered creativity when it comes to images.

This article is mainly directed at the P.O.D designers, but I do hope that anyone who is attracted to create a passive income from the internet might pick up on some of my ideas.

Let me make one thing clear. I’m NOT in favour of paying Facebook or any other huge social media company any money for advertising. My contribution to them is to be an active member on several social media sites! FREE OF CHARGE!

My thanks go to the people who have taken the trouble to explain through YouTube videos how to be a successful marketer, either as artists, novelist or musicians.

Most of us know that branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, but do we know how to create a branding for ourselves? I know that logos are a kind of branding and that there are graphic designers who specialize in just creating a branding image that will be seen on every product or advertising flyer on or offline, but what about the individual like me?

I’ve used this photo of myself on many social network sites for the last eight years, so my followers know it’s me, Nadine May, but that is not a branding logo.

I’m no branding expert but for me I had to go for a logo that reflects how I see myself, since it’s me as the graphic P.O.D artist that I want to promote. The eye picture is from an oil painting I did in 2008 that is hanging in my office. The four logos above are in use all over for my writings, books and blogs but because I like to see myself as the observer of life rather than taking my human experience as if that is all there is too seriously. I needed to combine my branding image.

I’ve often used ‘Just Kidding’ for my online shop names (I used to design for clothing boutiques in South Africa and Just kidding was one of my brand name labels.

I should combine the two, but I wanted to stay away from my own photo. Due to the theft of designs mostly sold on Amazon, (read my article: Amazon-sellers-of-stolen-Copyright-Material-is-on-the-rise ) I also wanted my logo to have a copyright feel to it. This was the result.

While reading up on the comments and suggestions on the two Facebook forums I’m a member of,Merch by Amazon and Merch by Amazon Sellers, I learned a great deal. I have not yet been approved by Amazon myself at the time I write this article, but it has been well worth investigating the T-shirt campaign websites I discovered through these forums. It got me thinking about what niche designs I could use to create a campaign for.

I realized that the designs I usually create have no kind of niche in mind at all. I create what I feel like at that moment, but is that the way to go from now on? When I design a book-cover I think of the content of the book, so I was used to designing with a niche in mind, but with my creations I’m like a bull in a china shop.

What does seem to work is to show off a design on a product that becomes a story board. Here is an example of a campaign:

Dolphins love to play any time, so let’s swim with the dolphins when on vacation. Plan a 5 O’clock meeting at the Dolphin Oceanarium in South Africa- Cape Town – Durban or at Underwater World or Sea Life Park Hawaii

Or my favorite: Hunting with a zoom lens I did this design well before I had a niche in mind, but i thought of one after.

I used it for a wild life preservation campaign against hunting with a rifle to just shoot and kill these beautiful animals. African Wildlife Foundation

I’m a time keeper.

Are you a time traveler? Is your life controlled by time? Are you an employer, paying staff for their time? Is your job controlled by time? Are you always on time? Is being on time important to you? I hope you like my steampunk graphic design.

Creating by having a niche in mind

I will Persevere

A Losing weight design for women used for a slimming group or companies like weight watchers -https://www.weightwatchers.com

Now it’s up to me to keep sharing these images on all the social network sites, and promote these designs on my blog and website. So far I have had no orders for my campaigns, but learning about how it was done was well worth it.

I have many boards but I realized once again that my designs had not really any subject description. Yes, on several shops I have categories, but somehow the subject of my designs was never niche marketed. Also how was I ever going to discover what subject design I would eventually became known for?

I started to catalogue my abstract designs by creating four separate Abstract boards. Suddenly it all came together. I made my computer work very hard by collecting many of my designs that fall under each niche design. By visiting several of the shops and clicking on the P button I realized that I had to create at least three African boards. SeparatingAfrican genres from African wildlifeand Cape Town. Creating a banner for each boards got me going. I still have a mammoth task ahead if I want to give many of my Pinterest boards a banner, but I feel much more organised.