« A Little Nutty In EkaTown... | EkaBlog Home | Is that a new login cell or are you..... »

Category for Crafters

Thank god - we're pulling in the crafters YAY!

But where do they belong? Crafters are surely artists, and yet I believe more then a few would argue they deserve a separate category. So artists and crafters and anyone else please tell us, would a crafter go under shops? or artists? perhaps their particular craft would identify them under a certain category within the artist section and by way of selling those creations they are also a shop......

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.ekaweeka.com/ekablog/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/106

Comments (3)

Di:

Crafters are a complicated and diverse lot - and it comes down to defining the line between art and craft, a line that's getting blurrier by the day.

For instance, I consider what I do as a perfumer an art form - but there's solid argument for it being "simply" a craft. And in nearly all craft forms, there's a transition point - where the craft somehow morphs into art.

How to solve it? My suggestion:
1. Offer a crafts category and let the crafters decide for themselves.

There are marketing-related pitfalls with this, but it is the simplest method.

2. Add a bunch of categories to cover the different crafts out there.

Pitfall: A whole lot of work. Oh, and you're bound to leave someone out and/or have an exploding miscellaneous category.

3. Change classifications to medium and materials used.

Pretty much same pitfalls as above.

Good luck with it. I'm sure you'll find something that's suitable for ekaweeka.

I wouldn't have Crafts as a category, unless it's for craft supplies. The line between Art and Craft is completely arbitrary.

To start off, what I'd suggest is a sub-category for each of the main ones, such as

> Jewelry (Housewares, Apparel, Bath & Beauty, etc.)
> Handmade/Artisan
> Commercial

> Art
> Direct from Artist
> Third Party

You could also have one grand category for "Artist/Artisan Offerings" but only if that is an additional category.

In other words, a buyer looking for jewelry is going to first go to the jewelry category and may not think to look for a completely separate one from that. Also, one big category for Crafts or Handmade won't be sufficient for most buyers, who will be looking for specific types of items, such as are in the main categories.

Di: Thanks for your comment! I agree there is a lot of gray area between the two. A great example: The crafts of yesterday are now considered folk art.
Per your and Laura's suggestions, I think we'll stick to sub-categories by item for now. In time we'll allow item's to include materials/mediums for those who are searching for something specific.

Soon enough a new system will be needed for users to categorize themselves and their items (with some moderation). That opens a whole new can of worms though...

Post a comment

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on June 14, 2007 10:56 AM.

The previous post in this blog was A Little Nutty In EkaTown....

The next post in this blog is Is that a new login cell or are you......

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Powered by
Movable Type 3.32