Tuesday, November 07, 2006

'For Him' range formally released

So, I've just finished the forum post formally introducing a new range called 'For Him'. I made a couple of new necklaces for the guys, and I decided I wanted a box style that differentiates them from the ladies stuff. After all, most of my womens jewellery is pretty, delicate, floaty and well... girly! So far, the men's has been chunkier, simpler, sleeker designs, and much more monotone due to just using silver. I dunno... I just can't get used to the idea of making gold jewellery for men. I'll break myself in gently, using hints of gold here and there I guess :)

Anyway, I wanted a box design that reflected the jewellery. I've been using the same style of box for 18 months or so now, and there are a few problems with it. Having the border where it is loses me a lot of box space, plus it's totally the wrong colour (being gold!). The Cailyn's logo is too hmm... well elegant and feminine for what I want. And I've never really liked the hand-drawn permission marks, just I never got around to changing them.

So, out went the logo, and I made a new one with the 'For Him' name. The border was dragged out right to the edge of the box, and recoloured silver. I've repositioned the permissions, got rid of the ticks and crosses, and just put silver dots in to show which are allowed. I've also decided to stick with just one font across the range; that will help to tie it all together. And finally, for big pieces, I've added a polaroid style photo to show the model wearing the item. This has the advantage of defining a space for the picture, I can crop photos wherever I like and it won't look strange because it has the edge around it (so I could zoom in on an ear & earring, for example). I'm very happy with the result, and it has retained enough elements to still look related to the women's line.


Eventually, I'd like to split my store in three - a section for women, a section for men, and a wedding section. That's a fair way in the future though. I'm trying to decide now whether to lose the clothes and accessories, and just focus on jewellery. I won't be making any more clothing, I lost the urge to do that a long time ago. I'm happy slinging prims around :) The recent island price increase debarcle have made me wonder how long mainland tiers will stay the same. LL have been mentioning Feb 1st as a possible date for price increase announcements... I guess nothing will change before then. But should the price go up, I'll be tiering down, and that means just focusing on jewellery :(

And having gone off at a tangent (oops!) I'll leave this post *grins*

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