Square or rectangle?

I used to browse through pages and pages of the Treasury at Etsy.  Now I never touch it at all.  I don’t know why that is…I think the novelty of it just wears off.  I also find that I keep seeing the same items…and most of all the same *sellers*…featured over and over, and that gets under my skin.  There are apparently 70,000 to 100,000 sellers/shops on Etsy; finding new items and shops to feature should not be difficult.  Especially since the search features on Etsy are so excellent.  You can look up things that are a specific shade of red, things that are made in the Ottawa Valley, things that are made by sellers named Jennifer, items that are made of suede or stirling silver…basically you can search out just about anything.

Some sellers are better photographers, and that is a big point in their favour, especially if they have items that are nicely shaped for being featured in both square and rectangular thumbnails (shop thumbnails are square and treasury thumbnails are rectangular and if you’re smart you will make sure that all your primary photos…the first one you upload for each item…looks good the way it is cropped to fit those shapes).  I still have trouble with that one, as my photos aren’t well adapted to EITHER shape, since hairsticks are long and skinny and more naturally fit a very long rectangle.  Even when zoomed in, they don’t fit gallery-size very well…they are nicer in squares, which means they will look better in my shop than in a treasury.  I’ve managed to get a few pictures that look good both ways but it’s very hard…usually if my photos look good square, then parts get cut off the top and/or the bottom, making them look funny in gallery.  And if they look good in gallery, then putting them into a square tends to cut off bits from the sides.

It seems to me that Etsy ought to stop using two different types of thumbnail.  ALL thumbnails, both for the treasury and search/shop/featured/time machine/etc ought to be of one shape.  I don’t care which…pick one.  Some items are of the nature that they look good both ways, but with hairsticks that will never be the case.  It really isn’t necessary for their to be two.  Treasury thumbnails would look just as good as squares.  Item thumbnails would look just as good as rectangles.

Maybe I should write a suggestion in to Etsy because honestly that is one thing that considerably adds to my workload and frustrates me.

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