Virtual Hype!

A Word of Caution in in order ...

While designing apparel for avatars in virtual worlds can be fun, entertaining, and creative, it is very seldom profitable. The fashion business in Second Life is a classic example of "saturated," with a deluge of new designers chasing a very limited supply of customers. Further, even very well concieved and executed creations by top designers sell for one or two dollars each. One can invest days of labor in creating such products! Do the math. 

If you are interested in learning how to design apparel or other products for virtual worlds, more power to you. I do it and enjoy it. But don't be mislead by an ad that urges you to pay top real life tuition dollars on the promise of replacing "real life salaries." Even if you come up with a stellar design, you need to figure out how to market it. This will involve renting a store, mastering the skills of advertising and promoting your products, following up with customer service issues ... and so on. Most designers are not particularly good at marketing and promoting their products.  This is why I concieved and launched the New York Design Group. I saw that many top flight designers were not taking the steps required to bring their creations to market.  I have developed good relationships with several very creative and talented people in doing so, as well as mastering the skills required to create my own products and promote them.  This has brought me tremendous personal satisfaction. But in no way could such activity "replace" a real life salary as promised in the ad that prompted this cautionary note.

For those who missed the ad on the home page of this blog, here is the Fashion Research Institute announcement in question:

NEW YORK — May 4, 2009 — Today Fashion Research Institute announced its short course for avatar apparel design for virtual worlds. This fast-paced course takes a student from novice user to functional avatar apparel designer by building essential skills in just 20 hours of instruction. Students completing the course can go on to supplement or replace their real life salaries by developing their own virtual goods design business.