For a long time, I avoided Quick Create, too. It just wasn't a tool that was helpful to me. After a while, though, I set up my own Quick Create templates. In doing so I was able to make them the way I needed them to be and therefore more efficient. Now Quick Create saves me a lot of time when I need to post a new design.



Your best bet is always to create the images yourself. If you MUST use images someone else created, make sure you have the consent of that image's creator! Just because something says it's in the public domain or that you have permission to use it for anything, doesn't mean the artist or photographer gave that permission. Without that consent, usage of their images is illegal and can come with serious repercussions.



You can only use a famous person's name, face, etc. on products if they are an actual politician. For example, Sarah Palin was fair game when she was a VP candidate. Now that she's just a famous person, you can't legally make new products that profit from her likeness or name. She's still VERY political, but she is nonetheless off limits. Why would they mind? Because you didn't get their permission first, and because they wouldn't be getting a cut of the profits. You may say something or promote something they don't agree with, make fun of them, misrepresent them, or just set a precedent that tells others that it's ok to sell products with their names/faces/etc. In any case, it's not good.





If the image belongs to someone else, it belongs to someone else, even if you modify it. If someone steals and a car and paints it a different color, it's still a stolen car. Same thing with art--the original image belongs to the person who owns the copyright, and using it on merchandise without their consent is a huge no-no.




Really, I'm referring to the color schemes in peoples' shops, not the products themselves. If you go into a shop and it has a black background with dark purple text, or the background is an eye-scorching shade of pinkish purple, you're not going to stick around to see what kind of products they have. When it comes to products, you want your images and text to be clear and visible, and to print well. If the design you're going for requires bright colors, then use them, but if your style is more muted, you just have to make sure you design the products in a way that will print well. In any case, if your monitor isn't properly calibrated, it can throw off the whole design, and things you thought looked a certain way can turn out to be very different. Some of the designs I created when I had an older monitor are not as clear as I once thought, because my old monitor made things look much darker than they actually were. The result is a batch of products that look faded and bleached-out. Fortunately, they are still good enough to sell, but it could have been a massive waste of time for me.



If you have problems with your order, you should contact customer support to have it dealt with, especially if you were sent the wrong items. Usually I've had very good experiences with Zazzle, but twice I have needed to request replacements because my item printed incorrectly. It's to be expected with a Print-on-Demand (POD) service that there will occasionally be errors--after all, consider how many hundreds of personalized, one-of-a-kind products a single employee would handle every day, and then try to imagine how hard it would be to identify a mistake in a single product. In normal product situations, employees handle numerous copies of the same, identical product over and over, making it easy to recognize when text is off-center, colors are misprinted, or mistakes are made. With a POD system, those kinds of errors aren't always obvious.

Also, I encourage you to understand the difference between copyright, trademark, and patent. They are three very different things, and this sort of thing is important to know if you are going to be a part of the POD business.