Do you keep inlays secret?? (2 Viewers)

Huskerchipper

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So i have an issue. I have three, what i consider, fantastic ideas for inlays that would go to specific molds by CPC. In my mind, if done right, could be HOF material. Certainly there are others out there that have ideas that they consider great. My question here is, do you keep your ideas close to the vest and keep it semi secret in fear that someone could snatch it and produce it from your design before you??
 
I have a small group of 3-4 people I share my ideas with. They help me see things that I can't see because I am too close to the content to be objective.

My first ideas (when I first joined PCF) I shared freely because.... they were pretty bad and I was pretty new. Now my bad and good ideas stay out of sight until one of them floats to the surface.

I don't show my inlay designs to the general public until the chip is produced.
 
Frankly I don't have any inlay ideas that would be worth stealing, but even if I did I don't think I would hide them. Obviously I'd like a design I made attributed to me, but it would be mostly flattering to see a lot of people use that design. If I make a design it's because it makes me happy and not because I expect to monetize it, so there wouldn't be any greater praise than other people ordering chips with it for themselves.

That being said, you might not want to show your design until it's finished. There's lots of editing and improvement you can do, and I definitely understand wanting to perfect your design before displaying it.
 
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People here who want their own custom inlays are typically pursuing some highly personal vision.

Also, aesthetic tastes vary a lot. What one person considers perfect others might dislike.

So TBH no matter how epic your concepts seem to you, they may not be of that much interest to others making their own custom sets.

Even if well-received, they would be unlikely to get copied. I can’t think of anyone making customs which imitate another custom design here; the only copies I can think of are tribute sets which imitate classic (and mostly defunct) casino designs.

In any case, if you posted concepts here and someone copied them, that would bring a lot of community heat down on the copier.

Having spent over a year creating my own design, the feedback and encouragement received from PCFers on my concepts made the set much better.
 
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So i have an issue. I have three, what i consider, fantastic ideas for inlays that would go to specific molds by CPC. In my mind, if done right, could be HOF material. Certainly there are others out there that have ideas that they consider great. My question here is, do you keep your ideas close to the vest and keep it semi secret in fear that someone could snatch it and produce it from your design before you??
So I recently went through the process and got new custom labels made for my semi-custom relabel project. The label design was kept under wraps with only the designer and label makers seeing it. I plan to keep them under wrap until the appropriate time, but none of the secrecy is due to fear of somebody stealing the idea. I just want to unveil them at the proper time. :)

Also, if you show us what you're thinking, anything else that pops up and is similar will clearly be a ripoff!!
 
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People here who want their own custom inlays are typically pursuing some highly personal vision.

Also, aesthetic tastes vary a lot. What one person considers perfect others might dislike.

So TBH no matter how epic your concepts seem to you, they may not be of that much interest to others making their own custom sets.

Even if well-received, they would be unlikely to get copied. I can’t think of anyone making customs which imitate another custom design here; the only copies I can think of are tribute sets which imitate classic (and mostly defunct) casino designs.

In any case, if you posted concepts here and someone copied them, that would bring a lot of community heat down on the copier.

Having spent over a year creating my own design, the feedback and encouragement received from PCFers on my concepts made the set much better.
Every point you made here is spot on. Especially when it comes to varying tastes. Everyone can think of popular sets here that you have zero interests in that other people love. Your other point of custom sets being personal is also spot on. Every set i have loved here has been from very personal inspirations. I honestly wasn't super concerned with the stealing of ideas. I just haven't seen many amazing ideas go from rough draft to amazing finished product. However i havent been here very long and im certain there are several examples of this happening.
 
FWIW, my chip selection and custom inlay design thoughts (with feedback) began roughly here…

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/messing-with-inlay-label-designs.62342/post-1660090

… and continued here, to completion:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/hoyle-harvest-set.104408/

I’ve seen plenty of people post mockups, asking about spot/base colors and sometimes inlay design, and getting a lot of help/advice. Posts like that seem to generate a decent amount of (benign) interest.

This thread has 83 pages and counting, or you can start your own of course:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/post-mockups-for-fun-science.8283/page-83

And then, for masochists, there’s always this:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...will-brutally-eviscerate-it-with-words.94890/
 
I, personally, would lean towards sharing. I like hearing feedback, even if that doesn’t mean I’ll accept it. I echo what other folks here have said, too, that it’s hard for me to imagine scenarios where people copy your inlay design for their own customs, since it’s such a personal design decision.

But if you were really concerned, you could always share with watermarks. Yes, that’s not bullet proof, but if someone is willing to rebuild an inlay design from the ground up to copy you, they’d be willing to do that from pictures of the final product as well, so, shrug.
 
I kept mine a secret until they showed up on chip guide!

M4r4IPj.jpg
 
Digging many of your color combos. The lion logo is very cool. Letters are giving me a headache lol. Nice work, keep going!
 
View attachment 1235397EXTREMELY rough draft....cant hardly read the letters but its: Lions Den Poker Club
The color combo on the $20 and the $100 are my favorite here. I agree that the font is a little difficult to grok, but it’s not that far off, be she’s the denoms read fine to my eyes, it’s the words around the rim that I have a little issue.
 
View attachment 1235402
Yeah they are showing up pretty $hitty...
Cool idea! needs tons of work though. The font is lost and bad for this type of work, being stretched. The spacing between the letters and denom also needs some work. I can hardly read the 5 lol.

Keep working at it, and definitely start a thread to workshop it. Most of the amazing designs that are revealed here have been in the works with seasoned designers; yours could use some more hands on. All said in love, really cool idea.
 
Cool idea! needs tons of work though. The font is lost and bad for this type of work, being stretched. The spacing between the letters and denom also needs some work. I can hardly read the 5 lol.

Keep working at it, and definitely start a thread to workshop it. Most of the amazing designs that are revealed here have been in the works with seasoned designers; yours could use some more hands on. All said in love, really cool idea.
I agree completely with everything you said. I have not spent much time on it honestly and have just started messing around with Canva.
 
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Yep, i have looked at these many many times. Some amazing stuff in there. Some i absolutely love and some that miss the mark for me personally. Just like im certain how people will see these.I really hope people don't misconstrue my words. Do i think this has the potential to be on the level of The Hitching Post or Story Hill? Absolutely not imo, but i think it has the potential to be close to the quality of some of the sets in there.
 
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I’m curious. What parts of your design do you see as HOF worthy. I know it’s rough but I don’t see it.
Well it certainly isn't on the level of Hard Candy Mafia but i think there is some potential to be special. Honestly i shouldn't have posted it until i put some time into it but oh well. I have some ideas on some things to make it pop but i dont know how to do it myself and i have a completely different ideas for the Font that i haven't found yet. I probably spent 30 minutes throwing that inlay together.
 
I'm going to go the other way here and say once you get with an artist, they will likely help elevate your vision. Some of my initial sketches are an embarrassment to the word "sketch", but if you can articulate exactly what you want through a combo of mocks and statements, that's a good start.

As a bonus, I shit you not, I sent both of these (along w/ bullet-points detailing preferred font, colors, etc.) to who I was working with. Tons of back and forth and tinkering from there to completion, but I would be laughed off the site if I posted this publicly when I did it in January. So as to your OP, I would just keep it between your artist/whoever you're working with.
2.png
Untitled.png
 
I'm going to go the other way here and say once you get with an artist, they will likely help elevate your vision. Some of my initial sketches are an embarrassment to the word "sketch", but if you can articulate exactly what you want through a combo of mocks and statements, that's a good start.

As a bonus, I shit you not, I sent both of these (along w/ bullet-points detailing preferred font, colors, etc.) to who I was working with. Tons of back and forth and tinkering from there to completion, but I would be laughed off the site if I posted this publicly when I did it in January. So as to your OP, I would just keep it between your artist/whoever you're working with.
That first one looks like @BonScot special
 

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