ACOT Message Board

Good question and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this subject. I wish no ill feelings or misunderstandings, so as the liaison for the designers I feel I should point out, there is currently no rule of thumb against designers posting their kit images in the gallery. A designer can be just as proud to show off their kit as they would a layout. I can understand your concern though, as I imagine what the gallery would look like if all of our designers used the gallery for this. Which is why I am interested in the community's feelings toward this matter. Possibly we can come up with a better solution or guidelines that would be pleasing to everyone?

I have been seeing some of those recently as well. I know designers usually post a thread showing a new kit w/a link to their store, so I don't think they would also need to put it in the Gallery...? Unless it's something not for sale here? Perhaps some of the digi gals can enlighten us!

I just thought they were posting in the gallery as the easiest way to "host" the image so they could post it on the board.

You can post it to the gallery in order to show it in a mb post, but set it to private in the gallery so it doesn't detract from the actual layouts.

EarthMom wrote:

MamaK321 wrote:Good question and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this subject. I wish no ill feelings or misunderstandings, so as the liaison for the designers I feel I should point out, there is currently no rule of thumb against designers posting their kit images in the gallery. A designer can be just as proud to show off their kit as they would a layout. I can understand your concern though, as I imagine what the gallery would look like if all of our designers used the gallery for this. Which is why I am interested in the community's feelings toward this matter. Possibly we can come up with a better solution or guidelines that would be pleasing to everyone?

I can see your point with this, but i guess I see it as self serving as they are posting their kits to sell and thus make money. I'm not against that, but perhaps a different forum? Maybe they could have a separate gallery of their kits or elements? That way when digi scrappers are looking for newer stuff, they could look there? It would give a place to show new things and make them even more easily located.

But how is that different than the store? You can search on New in the Digi store just like paper.

I personally don't like it and I'm a designer! LOL! As far as hosting you can make it private and still be able to get the link to post it in a thread. They can always join DSP, which is sponsored by ACOT. I have no problems helping out ACOT girls when I can.

AnnOminous wrote:You can post it to the gallery in order to show it in a mb post, but set it to private in the gallery so it doesn't detract from the actual layouts.

Yes this. I do find it distracting.

I believe I am the "guilty" party. While I don't mind the increased visibility posting in the gallery brings, what I have been searching for is the way to show detail previews with the kit. This is possible at every other store with which I am familiar. Many people want a good look at the papers before they buy a kit and sometimes that's difficult if there are a lot of elements; the papers get hidden behind the elements. People want to see the designs and the texture on the papers. If I reduce the size of the elements so that more of the papers show, then those who want to see the detail on the elements can't see that. It is not possible in this store to post the detail previews. Because of ACOT's specialized software, the only way I can figure out (and I've asked in the Designer's Forum) to do it is to post the detail previews as though they are layouts. Then, through whatever magic the system performs, they are automatically linked to the kit in the store. I did ask permission before I started doing this and was told to go ahead. I have tried to post just one kit at a time so that the gallery isn't flooded with my previews, trying to be a courteous user of the gallery. Yes, I can post these previews in a thread in the forum. However, the point at which folks usually want to see these detail previews is at the point of purchase--the store. I am very sorry if someone finds it disturbing. I will see if there is some other way to accomplish this without offending anyone. Thanks for bringing the problem to my attention.

Marci
HotFlashDesigns

More was added here while I was writing my response. I'll check out this "private" thing. Hopefully it will work out just the way we all want it to.

Marci
HotFlashDesigns

Marci! Are you the guilty one! I think Brandon put it to where we can put links and pics in the description. But I don't think it's working. Or at least not for me When you click on your kit in the digital shoppe it does go to a great large preview, even as big as 800x800 ppi

I've been chewing on this all evening. Here's the problem in a nutshell: I want my previews to show up IN THE STORE, WITH THE PRODUCT, just like happens in all the other digital stores. I don't want my customers wandering off to the message board to see if they can find a better preview. Any trained marketing consultant or sales manager would throw his/her hands in the air at the very idea. You don't send the customer off to take a walk in the park in the middle of your sales presentation! You ladies, if I am reading your responses correctly, are giving me directions as to how to post in the forum. Yes, I can post in the forum, but it doesn't solve the problem.

Let's see if I can put this in perspective. Suppose a new dress shop opens up in town. You see a great photo of a dress in their shop window. You walk in. There, hanging on the racks, clipped to the hangers, you find enlarged photos of what might be some great dresses, except, right across the middle, from the bustline down to the bottom of the buttocks area, there is a big logo. You can't tell if that dress has a drop waist or hits at the natural waistline. Maybe it's a straight skirt, maybe it's gathered, maybe it's pleated. That darn logo! You call the sales girl over and as politely as possible tell her that you love the color of the dress, but you need a better idea of how it is styled, how heavy the fabric is, how the fabric reacts to different kinds of light, etc. She tells you, "No problem. All of our dresses are on display at our warehouse. Just go back out the front door, turn left, walk 3 blocks, and......... I'm not sure of the street address, but right there somewhere is our warehouse. Just search around til you find it, then come on back. Would you like to pay for the dress now?" Would you whip out your wallet and pay for the dress? I think not. I'm also betting you'd head for the closest Starbucks, shaking your head in dismay, rather than going off in search of that warehouse. AT THE POINT OF PURCHASE, IN THE STORE, you want to see what you are buying, right?

My customers are not buying a single sheet of scrapbook paper, easily visible like in the paper side of the store. They are buying kits where a preview file can contain 50-60 items easily. It's all there but maybe not so easy to see. And every marketing class I've ever taken tells me they want to see what they're buying where they're buying it, not go searching for a warehouse down the street somewhere (searching in the forum).

Yes, the gallery is for showing off all our pretty layouts. If there were a separate gallery for previews, I'd have no problem with that as long as those previews could be linked to my product IN THE STORE. I wouldn't even care if that gallery were not visible to anyone but the designers who post there. But we don't have that. And, like Amy, I've not been able to get extra previews to post when the kits are uploaded. As to using the gallery to sell something, I suppose indirectly I am. It is not my intent to misuse or abuse the gallery, or to use it as a sales aid, and, as I said before, I have been careful not to post a zillion kits at once and be a piggy about the gallery.

What I am doing is different. I haven't seen any other designer do it recently, although I think some did, years ago. Different isn't necessarily wrong; it's just different. Because someone hasn't seen it done before doesn't make it wrong or nasty or distasteful, just different. Frankly, I LOVE the custom software we have for putting kits in the store here at ACOT. It's great. (Thank you, Brandon!) I do view this preview thing as a flaw in the system; all I've tried to do is reason a way to overcome what I perceive as a problem. I will gladly stop doing it if you will please just tell me some other way to display my product in full detail in my store. In the meantime, my apology to anyone who feels I am doing something inappropriate.

I really don't have an opinion either way, but I do have a suggestion (same and Nancy I think), why don't we just have another folder for Digikit previews. I'll be the first to tell you that it's exhausting going through each designer, each kit etc, especially when you are looking for something specific. I think it would be great if a designer could post close previews of their kits in one spot. A lot of the paper scrap/tools etc, get highlighted when they are new, why not digiscrap?

I'll be honest but hopefully polite. I skip over the previews as well. I search the gallery for inspiration and to love on my fellow members. It doesn't bug me to skip over it. And I understand wanting a full preview for your clients. When I am looking to buy a kit I search for what I am looking for. I'm not just a browse and buy girl, sorry.

No ill feelings here! And I don't mind a bit if you're able to just skip over them. I'm just trying to serve my customers better...........

Marci

Not having previews is a major flaw not only for the designers but the customers as well. I usually have to resort to using the layouts made with the kits as an additional preview, but that doesn't always work because a lot of the layouts may use only one or two items from that particular kit and it's hard to distinguish what goes with what kit.
One solution would be to sell the elements and papers separately (and then there would be separate previews and you could even add close-ups on those previews), but as a designer, you may not want to sell your products that way. I must admit that I would get aggravated if I saw a lot of kit previews in the gallery. The digi gallery tends to move rather quickly as it is.

Art_Teacher wrote:I just thought they were posting in the gallery as the easiest way to "host" the image so they could post it on the board.

That's what I thought too! On a side note, I feel they worked hard to create the kit and are just as excited to share it as we are to share our pages or photos of our family or whatever. We're all here to create and share:)

Scrappy69 wrote:

Art_Teacher wrote:I just thought they were posting in the gallery as the easiest way to "host" the image so they could post it on the board.

That's what I thought too! On a side note, I feel they worked hard to create the kit and are just as excited to share it as we are to share our pages or photos of our family or whatever. We're all here to create and share:)

I agree!

I also don't care for having the product preview in the layout gallery. But, as a designer, I would LOVE to have additional product previews available in the store. There is no way for us to showcase the close-up detail views aside from posting a message in the forum or posting them in the gallery.

Also not a fan of having them posted in the gallery, but I understand why they do it.

Marci that makes total sense now that you've explained about the previews; I completely understand! My opinion is do what you need to do, we can just skip over them.