The pressures of commercialism
I was faced with a decision today, and it was a difficult one for someone like me. As I have ranted about in my previous blog, I have never been one to jump on fashionable bandwagons to gain downloads or fame, but as my new website nears completion and I began to look at selling some premium skins, I realised I would have to compete with the trends of the day or remain graphically "off the wall" and retain my artistic integrity. Now, I do know what makes a fashionable skin, and creating the graphics for one is definitely not a problem, but I had to decide whether I wanted to make a "Glass and Steel" type skin. Although this type of skin always gets multitudinous downloads, they are just not my "thing".
So, my decision was, that if I wanted to sell a premium skin, I would have to give the people what they want or the whole notion of trying to make a few bucks from my skins would be a waste of time. And so, today, I began what will be known (to me) as "The Integrity Project", where I attempt to make a Glass and Steel type skin, but somehow try to give it my own individual stamp, and thereby (in MY head at least) retain my artistic integrity.
Because of the reasons outlined above, this will probably turn out to be a very interesting and challenging project for me, and one that I am looking forward to. I will give updates on my progress and my thoughts about this as I go along, so tune in later to see how I'm doing.