Jack Skagnetti AKA djskagnetti
Rico:
What's Your Name?
Jack Skagnetti
Rico:
List your shop(s) -
Jack Skagnetti :
BlackOgre Online SuperStore
over 24,000 products, ranging from abstract art, political musings, nerdpower, other funny stuff and just plain weird. Something for everyone!
PlaidWorkz Online SuperStore
Over 150 plaid designs on mugs, stamps, shoes, ties, binders and more! The evolution in plaid.
DarkArtz Online SuperStore
Dark, gothic imagery.
BlackOgre Online iSuper Store
A place for all my designs on iPad and iPhone cases, as well as the Doodle USB Speakers.
Right on the Monet
The complete works of Claude Monet 1862-1926 (work in progress).
Rico:
How long have you been at Zazzle?
Jack Skagnetti :
2/25/2008 3:26 PM is when I made my first tshirt.
Rico: Are you a ProSeller?
Jack Skagnetti :
Yes.
Rico: How long did it take you to reach ProSeller?
Jack Skagnetti :
3 years.
Rico:
What's the best advise you got when you were starting out?
Jack Skagnetti :
Don't put 6000 things on your homepage so it takes forever to get to your designs. The potential customer should see the designs almost immediately to pull them in.
Rico:
What medium/tools do you use to create your designs?
Jack Skagnetti :
Photoshop, Apophysis, Bryce
Rico:
Who or what inspires you?
Jack Skagnetti :
HR Giger, 4chan
Rico:
How much time a week to you spend on Zazzle?
Jack Skagnetti :
Summertime 10 hours, Wintertime 100 hours (Minnesota winters Suck.)
Rico:
What's the best advise you can give someone just starting out on Zazzle?
Jack Skagnetti :
Instead of 1 piece of advice, how about 8? Here is a Squidoo lens I made to help generate serious income! - 8 Zazzle Store Promo Ideas
But if I had to choose, above all keep it simple, keep it real, don't just make 1000 wedding invitations like everybody else, make something unique.
Rico:
What do you like to do when you are not creating art?
Jack Skagnetti :
I make electronica - my name is DJ.Skagnetti - and am also in a band called Precious Metals. I'm making a role-playing game in RPGMaker XP called Dungeon Hunters, and am making music for it. I make websites. I facebook way too much. I started a group called Celebrating the VSUs (Vague Status Updates), and we post various vague postings people say on facebook and then make jokes about it - I from time to time post a list of them on my wordpress blog (listed below.) I started a series of squidoos called I've Been BeZaZZled, where I feature the top 10 items of a person I like on zazzle. I try to do them weekly, but lately I've just been too busy and am on hiatus.
Rico:
Tell me 5 random things everyone should know about you?
Jack Skagnetti :
1. I'm pretty much on the interwebz from the time I get home from work to the time I go to bed. I am the evolution of nerd. Always learning something new, always trying new technologies, always creating, always getting better. If I didn't have to eat or work I would never leave the house.
2. I never watch TV. People tell me about a show and I'll get all the seasons and marathon it over the course of a couple weeks.
3. I'm a "conspiracy theorist", but theories are not theories when they are real and completely proven.
4. I have 2 cats who are sisters. One was my brother's, one mine. When we first got them we were told they were boys. So we named them Stuart and Belushi. A year later they went into heat, and we realized they were girl cats. But by then they'd been Stuart and Belushi for so long that we just couldn't change their names. My brother moves around the country a lot and couldn't take his cat with him, so now I have 2 girl cats with boys' names.
5. I played Anarchy Online for 6 years, ending around 2008ish. I logged probably 500-600 days worth of real time in the game. People complained about the graphics a lot, but I truly loved playing it. I never played WoW, but the saying was: "Anarchy Online is an IQ test. Those that fail go to WoW." I also played Dungeons and Dragons Online (which I loved, but I just don't want to pay another monthly fee to a game), wasted my time on Second Life (I'd rather slit my wrists than play that 'game' again), and ruled the map on Evony (time consuming, almost worse that Anarchy Online.) Nowadays Zazzle is my MMORPG :P.
Rico:
List 3 of your favorite designs you want me to feature. Tell me something about each design.
Jack Skagnetti :
1. Punk Rock Panda Poster:
Punk Rock Panda - one of my first designs, near and dear to my heart =)
2. Ancient Egypt Poster 3:
Ancient Egypt - people love this one. The coloring is really cool.
3. THERE IS POISON IN THE TAP WATER! Poster:
There is poison in the tap water - Sodium Fluoride is a horrible poison, yet they pump it into the water supplies so chemical companies don't have to pay millions disposing of the toxic chemical waste. Hitler used it to keep prisoners in his camps docile. It's used to make rat poison and nerve gas. Do you really want to be drinking this?
Rico:
This is one of my personal favorite designs from 1 of your shops:
ShatterLinez 39 Posters:
I see a neon sword fish jumping in the water. Electrifying!
Rico:
Where else can our readers find you online?
Jack Skagnetti :
WordPress
Website
DJ.Skagnetti
MySpace
StumbleUpon
BlackOgre Online SuperStore QuickList
I've Been BeZaZZled list of artists
Digg
SoundCloud
Squidoos
- Google DJ Skagnetti :P
Thanks so much for this opportunity =)
ReplyDeleteThis is a great interview - fun to meet someone else who does Bryce. Love the cat story!
ReplyDeleteThank you! ~ Diane Clancy
How witty!
ReplyDelete