Attack Of Design(back to home)

Not many authors on Themeforest can boast a gold paw. But even fewer can say they earned it in less than 7 months, and with only 3 items. What’s more, this author’s best-selling theme doesn’t use rounded corners, a single gradient, and looks nothing like Themeforest’s other top themes. If you’re wondering who I’m talking about, let me introduce  freshface.

SachaG: Can you quickly introduce yourself?

FreshFace: Hi, I am a web addict and I love perfectionism and well crafted things.

SG: Recently, Themeforest has started turning down themes that are too similar to current best-sellers, even through they might be very well crafted on their own. Although this move will probably improve the diversity of the marketplace, it can be seen as unfair by authors who are just trying to make a living. What is your position on this?

FF: My position on this is accept those overused layouts only if the theme looks better then the ones already on Theme Forest. Definitively don’t accept the overused layout if it doesn’t look like a truly premium theme.

SG: Your best-selling London Creative theme has been sold more than 1200 times despite looking nothing like other best-selling themes. Were you surprised that it sold so well? Did you ever have doubts about making something so different and so bold?

FF: Frankly, it surprised me a lot. LondonCreative+ was my first try for ThemeForest and all I cared for was to be accepted and get familiar with ThemeForest. I also didn’t like it at first, but I’ve decided to send it for review without any further modifications anyway. It took me around 3 weeks to finish it. If I compare it to second theme, CreativeZodiac, it took me 3-4 months. The sales of Zodiac are OK, but considering the amount of work, it wasn’t worth the time. But the design is very eye-catching so I will maybe use it later for some advertising, just to bring more traffic to my portfolio.

SG: There’s been some talk about sales slowing down recently, and some people have even been predicting the collapse of the wordpress premium theme market. Do you think there’s some truth to this? What can theme authors do to prevent it?

FF: Collapse of WordPress premium theme market is bullshit if you ask me. And giving away free themes doesn’t make much difference. Slow sales on ThemeForest are just diversified among more authors in my opinion. A year ago there were only a few top authors, now there is much more of them. This situation will be worse and worse every year. ThemeForest is a market like any other, so the kings of the market are usually those who will start big when the market starts. The rest of us is just trying to keep up.

SG: What motivated you to create FreshKiller? Some might say that people who pirate themes wouldn’t have bought them anyway, so going after them won’t raise your sales and isn’t worth the effort. So do your sales go up when you take down the bad guys? Or would you do it anyway just as a question of principles?

FF: FreshKiller is just a byproduct of my occasional procrastination, enjoy it! Most people who downloads warez wouldn’t buy digital goods anyway – and that’s true. But I can tell you my sales went up since I’ve started to killing links on a regular basis. To those who didn’t try it, I really suggest you to give it a shot (http://killer.freshface.cz) for a month and then see if it bumped up your sales. One more advice is to keep the warez scene clean of your newest item. The more bad guys have downloaded your item from Rapidshare, the more they will share it through other sites and other links – they are like rats, so it’s good to keep an eye on them straight away.

Thanks to Freshface for answering all my questions! If there’s another author you’d like me to interview, let me know in the comments!

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