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- [00:00]
A
So what do you do when you search on Etsy and the product you want to make is already saturated with a bunch of other people and you just can't think of what other design that you can make to even out compete these people? Well, Lizzy Smiley has the answer for you. Today. She's going to talk about five aesthetic trends and what she means by that is the actual font and graphic design and layout on your digital product. How can you study these trends, what are trending and popular right now on Etsy, and apply them to your products and so that you can outcompete what's already ranking on page one in the search results? Lizzie is in a good friend of mine in the space. She's an incredible podcaster and she is a handmade, now turned digital product seller who is an expert in all things trends. Let's hear what she has to say. Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Crickets to Cha Chings podcast. I'm Julie Berninger and I'm here with Lizzie Smiley. She is from the number one Etsy podcast, in my opinion, right now. Welcome, Lizzie.
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B
Thank you so much, Julie. It's an honor to be here with you. I get, usually I get to interview
- [00:59]
A
you and Cody, I know it's fun with the tables turned, so let's dive right into it. If people don't know your story, can you give us the quick rundown?
- [01:07]
B
Oh, my gosh, yes. So I'm the classic story of the corporate girl gone entrepreneur. Literally, like at 5 years old, I was having lemonade stands. All I cared about was figuring out how to move the product, make the money. And of course, I end up in a corporate career right out of college. Cause that's what they tell you you're supposed to do. And it never sat right. And as soon as that first baby came along, Julie, forget it. I was like, I cannot, I cannot do a, I cannot go back to work. Um, and I'd already gone entrepreneurial before that. But I, I, it lit a fire under me. I was blogging at the time, making pretty low money. And so funny, literally. I had shared my daughter's nursery room reveal on my blog and people were commenting on the Facebook post like, oh my gosh, you should sell these on Etsy. Like, where can we buy these? And alas, the Etsy story. This is like 20, okay? This was like so long ago. And so I get on Etsy with my signs. It was a hot mess. It took me three to four months to even figure it out at all. We, we didn't exist back then. Do you know what I mean? Like, there weren't as many tools, resources to learn from. But once I did finally figure out what I was doing, I learned how to structure a listing. I learned about SEO. I learned about product, you know, placement and strategy and all of the things, all of the things that we teach now. And it's literally, I had to learn how to study the best sellers and learn for let them be my teachers and then level up my listings. And I scaled from 25amonth to 6,000 plus a month in handmade wood signs. And then once I learned about Etsy ads, we scaled from 6,000 to. We even had like a $12,000 month. And so then. So it was like. So it was crazy. So we are making sometimes, like hundreds of signs a week. My husband's building them after working on the weekends, and I'm painting them with my toddler at my feet, Hope praying that she doesn't, like, come spill something on the sign on my lap. Then we decide we're going to have child number two. And I'm like, I can't be pregnant and inhaling these fumes. I can't be, like, dealing with the stain and the paint and carrying these heavy. We did, like, big above bed signs, very Joanna Gaines farmhouse style. It was like 2020 had been insane. We had, like, one of the biggest years ever. We're, like, trying to get pregnant again, and I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna start a podcast. I was a big Jenna Kutcher fan back in the day, and I took her podcast lab. I launched how to sell your stuff on Etsy. And it did well very quickly. It was within a few months I was able to, like, turn off the Etsy shop, focus on teaching, doing, like, you know, consulting and all of the things. And, like, so then I started playing, right? Once you start talking to the Etsy community and you get to communicate, you're like, oh, I'm gonna try print on demand. I'm trying digital products and all of that. So I got to play with all of it. Most recently, I've been playing with digital products. I love PNGs because they're a great place to test things. The last couple of years, I've kind of become a. An Etsy trend expert because I was terrible at it. So I just got really stubborn and decided I was going to do that. And so now we're just helping thousands of sellers in the print on demand and digital products like PNGs and handmade space launch Grow, pivot, scale, whatever they need. It's been a blast. And you guys are some of my favorite people on the planet to work with.
- [04:12]
A
Well, we love being connected with you. And Lizzie knows everyone in the space too, and because of that, I feel like you're the collector of all this information about Etsy. I feel like your podcast, it brings it all together for people. And also, you've been coining some new phrases lately. I've been listening to you about. I think it's called niche blasting, and I'm like, that's a new one. I like it. So it's kind of fun to see that. And I know today you prepared maybe five tips and trends for everyone, so I'd love to just dive right in and let's share.
- [04:41]
B
Okay. Yes. Okay. But we're gonna have to fight a little about that. I call it niche. So you're over there with proper.
- [04:48]
A
You don't listen to anything I say because I'm from Boston and I don't say anything correctly. My husband says he always wanted to marry someone with an accent, and this is what he got. So sorry.
- [04:58]
B
I'm actually such a sucker for Boston, though. Okay, let me go ahead and share my screen, and I'm gonna show you guys what I put together. And for those of you who are just watching, I'm gonna do my best to, like, talk you through what I'm showing in case you can't pop over and see the visual. So I love Etsy trends. I put out a trend report every Monday because this is my obsession, and I love seeing what's happening. And so what I wanted to talk to you guys about today are specifically for Q3 and Q4, because that's what you should be designing for right now. No matter what you're making, you need to be thinking ahead. So I know we want to put on our flip flops and go to the pool, and we should. But while we're at the pool, we should be designing for or thinking about Halloween, Thanksgiving, football season, Christmas, Q3 and Q4. And what I did was I took the trends and I thought of how I would spin the biggest ones that were appropriate for printables and print on demand gifts, because that's. That's what Gold City Ventures does extremely well. So the first one we're going to talk about is a massive trend that you've probably noticed. I'm kind of melding two together, by the way, are like, vintage aesthetics and grand millennial aesthetics. And when I'm talking about vintage, I'm Talking about, like, this would have been in your great grandma's kitchen. We're talking about, like, ceramic casserole dishes and stacking bowls that have just, like, super retro designs on them and, like, old wood boxes. And I will tell you what, if you. I don't know if you guys follow this, but 2024 and 2025, the big, like, kind of powerhouse niches that I. Niche that I noticed was like the book lover. Okay? It was like book lover. Everything hasn't gone anywhere. But 2026 is like the year of the thrifter. Everyone's talking about thrifting. The content's going crazy. And I think that that's where this vintage and grand millennial aesthetic are coming from. So I want you to think about those actual elements that I just. That I described to you, like the, the vintage plates, the vintage lamps, the vintage even florals. And then also, like, think about grand millennial types of patterns. So, like, we've seen lots of the chinoiserie and the toile de joie and the Jacquard things, things like that that are super hot. They have come back. So always look at them in the PNGs. That's where I study them. Because that's where I've noticed that trends tend to emerge on Etsy first. So I can be a little bit ahead of the curve. But for you, if you're doing a printable or you're doing a print on demand gift, here's how I would apply it. I have. I have examples shown up on this if you want to. If you want to see it on the video. So let's say you sell, like candle labels, you know, like as a printable. You can sell a printable candle labels. So in the background, I would apply this by putting a grand millennial style or aesthetic pattern so the. That really rich blue, cobalt, cobalt blue in like a chinoiserie vintage floral pattern as a way to incorporate the trend into what you might be creating as a printable. Or if you're selling the actual candle, you can have it, you know, smells like whatever with some great saying. But make sure you would include some kind of a grand millennial or vintage, like, print behind it pattern behind it. Any commentary, Julie? Cause I'm talking like a Gilmore Girl.
- [08:01]
A
Well, I want. I love Gilmore Girls. I wanted to ask. I'm very familiar with Coastal granddaughter, and my husband and I do have a Cape Cod Airbnb. And I've been. I cannot wait to get down there and just put hydrangeas everywhere. I just want to blast, like, hydrangeas and live my Diane Keaton moment down there. But for this vintage thing, I feel like it's not quite the hydrangea. Like, would you say it's different than floral or. It is. It is more floral when you combine it with the vintage.
- [08:29]
B
You know what's so interesting is you said hydrangea, and I went, oh, that's actually. That would be like a different. That would be a more modern aesthetic. It wouldn't bring in the vintage. You know, what I'm thinking is I'd be looking for. We always want to, like, grand Millennial wants to modern the modern. Marry the old with the new, kind of combine it together. So I'm thinking, like, I would be going to the thrift store. I would be going to, like, estate sales or the thrift store, whatever, and looking for some really amazing vintage wood pieces that. That could kind of speak with your other furniture and decor. And then I'd be looking for, like, lacy type, like tablecloths or, like, runners, you know, that someone's grandma made a long time ago, like, that kind of thing. I don't know. Like, I'd love to see, like, a little, like, an old hutch that kind of works with your aesthetic but brings in that old vintage piece. And then you've got, like, the almost doily type runner on it. And then I think you could do a vase with your favorite flowers. I think just pay attention to the colors. You know what I mean? Like, you could maybe mix, like, some white hydrangea with some blue. That would then, I think, work really well with that scene, if you wanted. Like, that's how I would bring that in.
- [09:33]
A
Okay, well, I'm lo. I'm loving this one, and it'll give me a lot to think about in the doilies. Yes. Flashback grandmother's house. Yep. Thinking about a lot about that. Okay, let's go to the next one.
- [09:43]
B
The fringe and the lace and the everything. That feels a little bit nostalgic. Which brings us to the next one, nostalgia, which is a totally different vibe, by the way, because, yes, we've got the grandma nostalgia. That's, like, vintage older, but everyone's loving. We've all seen the 90s now for, like, three years, but now it's kind of incorporating the 70s and the 80s as well, and everywhere, all over Etsy, and we're seeing it show in the aesthetic. So I've got some examples of a sticker and some PNG designs here, and we're seeing, like, a daisy that's kind of Grunge, distressed. This feels very 90s. We're seeing a good vibes. What do you call that? Is that like. What do you call that old kind of rv?
- [10:20]
A
The. Isn't it the Volkswagen one?
- [10:22]
B
Yes. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I was like, someone's screaming at us through the screen. And I. And like you should. Okay, so it looks very 70s. It's got kind of that retro groovy kind of a font as another example and then kind of those older pastel colors. And then the third example I have is showing your very much your 90s checkers with like very kind of hand drawn organic retro font and celestial stars, things like that. So these are what we're seeing all over etsy in the 70s, 80s and 90s. And so here's how I would apply it. I have an example here. Let's say you are selling a principal Christmas menu, maybe for drinks or apps for some kind of Christmas party. The way that I would incorporate the nostalgia is by. I love a monochromatic moment. I feel like it really elevates the design. So like checkers, but in more of a festive color. So our example here is a red with like a tinge of orange. And that's pulling very nostalgic along with. I would call these like, they're like pinup girls. I'd call them like retro housewives or like retro cocktail girls. They're very doodle. It feels very nostalgic and. And old school with like a really simple sans serif. And then I have another example of a giftable ornament. And it feel. It pulls very, I would say 80s, early 90s, even with the colors, with the font. And it has a cassette tape on it, so some of you don't even probably know what that is. It feels very nostalgic. So these are ways that you can take the things that we're seeing in the nostalgia, like PNGs, print on demand kind of in the main space there, and you could pull them into your space with just these kinds of aesthetics. So you're not going. I'm not like telling you to do a grunge distress daisy, although sometimes that might be perfectly appropriate. I'm telling you to think about the other elements that describe that aesthetic or in this case that era that like 10 years. And then you can apply it to your designs. What do you think, Julie?
- [12:06]
A
Any like what I love about this approach. So for Christmas, when you're making some of this stuff, you will see that the people that already are selling, they may have more typical red and green the way that you might see it in a school or something or in a classroom. But if you want to come in and sell the same type of item, providing a more modern, trending aesthetic approach to it and putting a newer, fresher design on it would will help you kind of come into those more crowded spaces. And I think we first saw it, this is a couple years ago, but when the Barbie movie came out and suddenly Christmas became pink, it doesn't mean that the red and green was out. There are people that still want that, but then there were people that wanted that pink aesthetic too. So for some of this stuff, like when you're showing, if you're not watching this, you can't see it. But I'll link to the YouTube in the description. But there's a menu here and it's. Lizzie described it, but it's very sophisticated. It's combining like the doodle, it's combining nostalgia that she mentioned and it's got that Mad Men vibe. And I can see why this particular menu would be more attractive to a certain type of person than maybe just the standard like red and green Christmas one with some jingle bells on it. So I think this is a way that you can kind of come into a crowded space and just take off with your listings.
- [13:20]
B
It's absolutely a way to break through because there's going to be a lot of noise around, you know, holiday menus and things like that. I want to encourage people to take to really I call this building your brain cash and it's studying the best sellers to train your brain on what people love. The two of the biggest mistakes that I see that Julie kind of touched on is they people choose the wrong color or they choose the wrong font and they try to get close enough and you really have to nail those things. So like in this case, I am not showing a really bright modern red for the Christmas on the menu. I am showing a nostalgic red that has a tinge of orange. And those things, those details matter. So I will pop to number three. And that is we. And this is like back with a vengeance. I kind of calmed down for a little bit. But the doodle hand drawn, naive core trends are just everywhere. And I think they're going to be so much fun for you guys to incorporate in your products. So in my world, we're seeing a lot of elements that look like they were hand drawn. Like maybe someone sat down on procreate with their mark with marker and it was like a little bit thicker of a nib rather than a really fine point. Like, it's not like line art. It's a little heavier of a draw, and it feels a little more organic. It feels a little more messy and free, and it's just giving us all the feels. It's just all the rage. We are also seeing line art. So I have another example here for softball. The font, it says in my softball era in, like, handwritten cursive. So it looks like someone with really good cursive wrote in my softball era with, like, a thin marker. And then above that, it has elements. They're all monochromatic, all the same color, that are in a similar. They're all in a similar line weight, and it's just different elements. There's a baseball or softball, a bow, a baseball glove, and a helmet. And they all work together, but they all look hand drawn. That I think it's like. It's so funny because most of it's probably created with the help of AI But I think something about this trend feels not AI it feels like we're bucking against it. And I love that. And I think that's an important thing to notice. I have another example here that I would call naive core. And it's where it literally looks like a kid drew it. It's so, so far from perfect or structured or stiff. And it literally looks like someone just drew bubble letters with lots of bright colors, outlined it in gold, added fun little flourishes. And so when I'm thinking about how I would apply this to the printable space, the example I came up with was a wedding invitation where rather than it feeling really stuffy and formal, which nothing wrong with that. I love an elegant wedding, but this one's a little more playful. And the invitation has literally doodled elements on it. It's a doodle card with a little bow. It's doodled rings. It's a doodled table. Like, it looks like the bride and Groo would be sitting there. A doodled wedding cake, all of that. And even the text just doesn't feel super formal. It feels a little more casual. And that would be the way that I'd apply, like, do the doodle hand drawn trend to the printable space, and that one will do really well for you guys. I have another example, which is a custom journal as a gift that you could give to somebody who just got a puppy. I decided to just be a total dork about it and literally do it for a doodle, like a labradoodle puppy, so that we could just be even smarter about it with the doodle doodle. And then it's customized with the dog's name on it. And a. I went with a trending color. So I will tell you, in doodle, a lot of times, not always a lot of times it's monochromatic. Everything is in one color. So I chose a sage green, which is very on trend right now. And then I did literally doodle elements. Like the. The actual puppy itself is doodled on there. The font all looks hand drawn. The elements look doodled. And so I think that's how I would be applying that trend to the print on demand gift space.
- [16:48]
A
Wait, Lizzie, are you saying you made those two examples on the right?
- [16:51]
B
Yeah.
- [16:52]
A
Oh my gosh. They're so pretty. I love them.
- [16:54]
B
Thank you. I had some help. I had some. I am not a procreate girl. I had some help. But yes, we. And some of it I found in Canva and then modified. But I wanted to make it so specific for you guys so you could really see and imagine how you would apply this yourselves. But yeah, so I created.
- [17:07]
A
Well, thank you for bringing all this for us today. And the visuals are super helpful. I'm curious. We had a question come up in our VIP group the other day and someone was saying, how do I get better at graphic design? I don't feel like I have an eye for it. Are you all taking courses? Are you learning about fonts? Like, what. What are you specifically doing? And it was an interesting thread, but I kind of want to hear your thoughts on this now. Because now that you've become an expert at all these emerging trends, you're suddenly having to learn a lot of different ways to design or your team is having to learn different ways to design. I'm just curious, like, how. How you're approaching that in 2026.
- [17:44]
B
Do you know what tool the person was using? Because that would be really important. Like, that's actually part of the answer.
- [17:50]
A
Well, everyone is using Canva in our group, so we have, we have people that use AI tools too, but it's mostly Canva.
- [17:57]
B
Okay. So if I was just using Canva and I was using the elements in there to design, I think the number one thing that you can do to get better is really develop your brain. Cash. So right now I'm finishing up a six week cohort with 43 Etsy sellers who are getting started. We're getting up to 50 listings up in six weeks and I'm having them spend 20 minutes a day of their two hour slot that they're required, you know, Encouraged to spend building their brain cash, which means before they sit down to design or create anything, they are staring at the things that are flying off the shelves. They're. They are filtering on Etsy by bestseller in their space, in their niche. And they are staring at those things because what happens over time, Just like how we learn a language, your brain starts to build these, like these synapses and these and these neural pathways that help you immediately. And this is how I did it, by the way, because I am not naturally talented at art, talented at design, talented at trends. It was. I had to teach myself. So it's less of like, what do I need to do course wise and more of train your brain so that when you sit down to design, eventually it just happens naturally. And I guess I would say, like, if you want to go beyond that, I think that canva templates or especially KITTL templates can be extremely powerful. And then, you know, a lot of our folks are using different AI tools. And so the prompting is, is really what you've got to get better at, learning how to prompt it really well.
- [19:15]
A
If you're building that mental model brain cash of what is popular now, I think that's the quickest way to do it. And like, what, what does this aesthetic look like? And you'll start to just pick it out apart all the listings and the different niches that you follow. Or TikTok. I would do TikTok user, but you can just go on TikTok.
- [19:33]
B
I think TikTok is huge, but like in your group. So this is what we're doing in ours to help them. What really helps is looking at like, yes, so spend time building your brain cash. But if you guys can get. Here's an example of what won't sell right next to one of the same thing that will. And then you can talk through the. This really helps people visualize it like, okay, look at this font. This is a bestseller. And then look at this other font of the one that isn't selling. And like, what's the difference? What's going wrong? Same thing with color, with elements, with positioning, with how complicated is the design? I think it really helps the brain to see the good and the bad next to each other.
- [20:08]
A
Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. That, that visual walkthrough. I think if, if someone said, okay, you have to pick three things. I feel like the three things that I see, they are consistent across everyone. Like in the digital space, people forget to put a shadow. So sometimes their, their drawing just looks flat. I mean, that's that's an easy gimme. Or they'll put a hundred different fonts and you'll notice the top ones, they don't have that many fonts and they don't have that many colors. So I'd say those are like the top. The three consistent ones. And then beyond that, I totally agree with you and that's super fun. So I love that you guys do that. That's great.
- [20:39]
B
Yeah, Highly, highly recommend for people who are like, trying to build in Canva because that's. It's a whole. And you're competing with just a whole different market as well. Okay, so I have another one for you guys. And this has been a trend for years. I don't think it's going anywhere, especially if I have anything to do about it. It's called the. It's boho. Anything Boho and wildflowers especially. And remember, I am. I have strategically chosen the trends that I think will continue into fall and perform really well for you for Q3 and Q4. So the examples I have of literally someone created this design of a cat that's made entirely out of wildflowers. It's adorable. It's like she. She's both outlined and filled with different color wildflowers. It feels very boho. The next one is a bigger, like, it's like a square design. I think it could be used as like, you know, like a digital paper, but it could also be put on a shirt or it could be used on a journal. It's a monochromatic, so just one color in white wild color. It almost looks liner cut. It looks like just printed flat flowers. Super, super in. And then the third example I have are much more muted tone wildflowers. It's a big design. Again, it could be used as like a digital paper or a PNG design or for like, you know, somebody who's scrapbooking, something like that. But the idea is that different renditions or expressions of wildflowers in and different boho tones work. So it's not just always monochromatic or always pastel or always muted. In fact, the first example is very spring summer with brighter wildflowers. The thing that carries over that I want to have you thinking about for fall and winter are just wildflowers and different color variations and seasons and tones. So the principal example that I have for you is like a sheet of journal paper or just a sheet of writing paper. This kind of thing can be sold on Etsy as a printable and it has lines on it that are Kind of faint, they're in a gentle green color. And then the edges and perimeter of the paper is lined in wildflowers. And so what I would do is I would take this, this wildflower theme and think about where can you use it as elements on your printable designs? Or like, if you create planners, where would you put, like, where would little flourishes go where you could instead sort of serve the boho community a little more and do wildflowers? Or if you're doing an invitation, could you do more of a wildflower theme? And then the example I had for a gift was a tapestry or a woven blanket. These are wonderful to do for print on demand because they have a really great profit margin with Printify and they turn out beautifully. Test it because, like, pay attention to what Printify says about the colors. You have to be really careful with the colors on these. But wildflowers look gorgeous on them. So I have an example of this huge, like tapestry hanging on the wall with the beautiful fringe like you would imagine, like a traditional woven blanket. And it's just very boho muted. It's the juxtaposition to the bright, you know, summer, spring, flowers, much more earthy, much more like browns and fall. And then it's, it's personalized with the family initial and name in order to give it that giftable feel. What do you think, Julie? I just think boho is such an easy win for people.
- [23:42]
A
I just think that at some point I became old. And I love all this stuff because I'm looking at that, I'm like, that is so cute. I love all these things. But when I think of when I started on Etsy, I was doing the Bachelorette, but this was before Bachelorette was cool. It was all like the gaudy, just sparkles and the gold and the rose gold. This is just, this is beautiful. So I love it. And I do want to mention you aren't kidding about that. It looks almost like stationary. And it's very simple for those that are just listening. It's just like a border, like a really, a wildflower butterfly looking border with lines. And I forget, but I found this shop the other day and they were just selling digital downloads of like papers like that with borders. And I was like, this is just a joke. Like, what is this? I saved it. And unfortunately my bookmarks is out of control at this point. I gotta come up with a better way to, to do this. But you're not kidding about that. So I don't know if that bubbled to the top in One of the keyword research tools. But I found a shop that was entirely all those things and it was just like crushing with, with paper like that.
- [24:38]
B
And it was plain. Cause I mean, here's the thing, if I was teaching, I'd be like, I would make this for like make this for a third grade to put a teacher's name on or some do something to make it a little more. Were they just plain paper?
- [24:48]
A
No, it was plain. No, not personalized. And anytime when you get something that's not personalized, you're like opportunity, ding, ding. But yeah, I mean, I'm not an expert in this space, but I want to dig into it more. So if I saw it and now you're bringing it up. It's a thing, it's important. Look into it. Okay, cool.
- [25:04]
B
Everyone grab their tool and go look that up. Because that's a fun one. It's so easy to make. It's ridiculous. The last thing that I wanted to talk to you about was some trending fonts that I think will continue into Q3 and Q4 that we're seeing everywhere. And again, this is your. This is going to sound a little redundant, maybe even because the first one is literally retro. So those bubble letters that, I mean, I'm a child of the 80s and 90s and we would just sit there in class and we would doodle like 70s looking retro letters and they are back with a vengeance. So I have an example here of some print on man giftable mugs that have that very retro vibe. Those bubble letters of people's names and then bringing in the daisies, the celestial stars, the lightning bolts, all of the things that we think of the checkers when we think of retro. So I would, that's how I would do them. Giftable for principals. It's the same thing. It's just finding appropriate ways to like incorporate the font. So maybe you're doing a birthday invitation for a 12 year old and you're doing a retro style with those really bright colors. Maybe it's a girl. Like I love the example. It says mama's expensive bestie is the shirt example that I found. Or PNG example. It's a little bit grunge, distressed. It has checkers and a daisy in the background and then the colors are changing on each of the letters kind of a thing. You could do that like as font on an invitation. You could do that as font on a checklist. Like just make sure that the whole vibe of the thing you're creating has that aesthetic to it. Not Just the font. And then the next font that has just been. It's been here for a while and it only continues to get more popular is the varsity or collegiate style font. So I just think back to the 90s when we were all wearing our favorite college sweatshirts all over the place. And it had that varsity kind of block lettering. And a lot of times it was slightly curved and it was slightly grunge distressed. And so now we're seeing it in different colors and we're seeing it sometimes pattern filled. Like, for example, pro tip, use a varsity font and then fill it with a grand millennial pattern for the win. Like, that's called trend combining. And that's where the money is, like, massive. The example I created was a printable Halloween coloring page. So it says spooky season at the top in like a collegiate font. That's how I'm bringing the trend into the coloring page. And I'm combining the trend with the, like the season or the holiday. And then I made sure and threw in there. I was like, I have some stars in the background that also make it feel a little bit also like the same retro or like collegiate era. The last example I have is very much like a doodle, hand drawn kind of a font. So here it is again. Doodle everywhere. We're seeing it in all different line weights, right? You're seeing like literally line art font. You're also seeing like the naive core that I said earlier where it looks like a child outline letters. And then you're also seeing it in kind of a typo, like a brushstroke style typography. The example I have here is not quite a cursive. It just looks very hand drawn in a really thick marker. And that would apply really well into a lot of wall art. So that was the example I did. I threw in the checkers, I threw in the stars. And it says, how lucky are we very much in that thick marker hand drawn lettering. I think those three font styles will do really well for you whether you're doing printables or print on demand gifts.
- [28:03]
A
And I know my kids would love coloring those coloring pages. And this, like we said before, this would help you stand out because you might think, oh, there's already a lot of people selling Halloween coloring pages, but are they combining the varsity font? Which is. I think it was supposed to be embossed if it was on a physical product. But like you said, it looks kind of blocky. And if anyone, if you see it, you know what it is. But I love the idea of mixing things up, creating something fresh, rising to the top of search results with this. And this is what Etsy wants us to do. Etsy, the company sends us these report trends and they talk to us about all these different things that are trending because they want us to make new things that they can show to customers and that customers really love because they make money when we make money. So I'm all about it.
- [28:43]
B
I just really encourage you if you've been a little shy about trends. I was too. It did not come naturally to me. In fact, in my sign shop, I literally had picked the one trend which was the farmhouse at the time, and I stuck with it. And since then I've learned and it was really trying to help my students, like, how do I help you stand out in this marketplace? And if someone takes a trend and they use it in a micro niche, like there's nothing wrong with trying to compete in the bigger niches. But sometimes in the beginning when you're not as like as good yet and you need to level up your design quality, you can take like the collegiate and like what if you did a collegiate font with a spooky season coloring page but you made it for teachers specifically to hand out in class or you made it for a doctor's, a pediatrician's office to have there. You did things that actually that made it so niche, it was so niche down that people are going to grab it because it feels it's the most on trend option they have. They're a micro niche. They don't have like the millions of options that the mama niche or the football niche or the just, you know, generic Christmas niche have. So I just really encourage people to like stretch themselves a little bit. This is very learnable. And like I said, the best thing you can do for yourself is actually like studying the best sellers every day before you sit down to design.
- [29:56]
A
Yep, I love it. I do that all the time. I just take a little walk on Etsy and I go to the filter and I do the to choose digital download. You select star seller and hack the URL to delete it and change it to best. And then you get a good sense for what, what's trending right now. When you type in different stuff and just. I do it all the time like just to get a good sense of what's working. So I'm sure it sounds like you're doing it as well. It's a good pattern to get into.
- [30:22]
B
It's the best way we can do market research for Specifically what's selling on Etsy, I think and it keeps us really in touch with what's happening. You know, we can get really, we can like get so lost in the chatgpt or so lost in what the YouTube is saying and all of that and those are great resources. But what has made the biggest difference for my students and me is staying really locked in on Etsy and letting it be our teacher.
- [30:42]
A
Yep, that makes a lot of sense. I love it.
- [30:43]
B
Stop sharing.
- [30:44]
A
Okay. Well Lizzie, this was so fun. I feel like I, my head is now buzzing with all of these ideas and I love learning about new aesthetics. I think this is, it's fun. I don't think you always have to. You know, I think for some people may think, oh, I don't have time to learn new trends and this and that. You don't have to. You could, you could put out like I said, a regular red and green Christmas item and you probably will make sales. But if you are entering a crowded niche for the particular product that you're making, why not test some things out, mix some stuff up and create something new that someone would take a look and say oh wow, like that's exactly what I, what I was hoping to see and purchase it. I think it's great. So Lizzie, if people want to learn more about you and these amazing trend combining research stuff that you're doing, how can they find you?
- [31:29]
B
So what I am known for is my weekly trendspotting report. I put out a PDF every Monday to my trendspotters and it shows them like lists and with pictures of exactly what's happening with the aesthetics are they also get a trend training every week to see what I'm seeing on Etsy and also listing ideas. So we do three print on demand, three digital product listing ideas with done for you SEO. You get to join me on a call every month as well with the group and so that's my trendspotting and you can get your first month for just 17 doll with code keep 20. So I'll give that to you Julie. And that's the best way to get into my trend world.
- [32:01]
A
Awesome. And I'll put the link below if people want to check it out. It sounds super fun. I know, I love this stuff. Sometimes I'm like how did I get this job? This is the best, this is the best job. Isn't this fun? I mean to talk about shopping and trends and fun things. I think it's great. So creative. So thank you Lizzy for coming on and sharing your light and your knowledge with all of us. We're so lucky. Thanks for coming.