New Design Style filter in MP

[KeegansCreation]

I was poking around in the MP and stumbled across a new filter in the MP. Amongst the usual filters like Size, Number of Photos I saw a new one, Design Style. Adding this filter gives the customers the option to narrow down their choices by styles such as abstract, vintage, rustic, minimalist etc. But wait, there's more. There's subcategories.

Yes, all those times you went crazy trying to figure out how to tag your abstract design so customers could actually find it, now Abstract is subcategorized into such things as geometric, mandala etc. Each category has relevant subcategories. The subcategories look like they might be dynamic. I say this because some subcategories look overly specific, like "nautical coastal wood" as a subcategory of coastal. So the subcategories might be composed of the most common tags people use for a specific design.

Anyhoo, I sure do hope customers find this game changing filter. Via the internet, this old person has gathered that Kids These Days like to categorize their personal taste with incredibly specific labels such as "dark academia" and "cottagecore". I think Zazzle might be trying to capitalize on that tendency and allowing them to filter by their personal aesthetic (which is currently a buzzword). I approve and have renewed hope for my invisible abstract designs.

edited to add: The design style filter interacts with search terms in that it acts as a multi word search. For example, I used the search term "coastal" which brought up all 137k coastal products. Then I chose the design style abstract and the subcategory geometric which narrowed it down to 461 products which were arguably coastal, geometric and abstract; geometric designs in blue and green, silhouettes of coral and turtles. Interestingly, while a random sample of those products were all tagged coastal, not all were also tagged geometric and abstract. Yet they were geometric and abstract. Is there any AI in their algorithm that can tell when a coastally tagged design is also geometric and abstract?????

Interestingly, when I used coastal as a search term and then also as a design style, it dropped from 137k products to 17k products. I thought it would stay the same.

[KeegansCreation]

Having spent all morning (lazy Sunday morning) going through all the categories, subcategories and even sub-subcategories, I am now convinced this is sorting via AI, not tags.

Example: Design Style Coastal>Kid's Nautical>Fun Simple Ocean Cartoons. This pulls up the expected fun, simple ocean cartoons of sea creatures on blue or sea green backgrounds. But scattered amongst that are fun simple kid's cartoons of absolutely terrestrial creatures. There are silhouettes of dinosaurs or dogs or cars. So how did they get into this style drilldown? They are fun, simple kid's cartoons that involve blue or sea green.  There is no mis-tagging going on. I checked. That's why I think it's AI. It sees things that are arguably fun, simple kid's cartoons involving lots of blue and sea green but is not trained to narrow it down to only those things which are found in the sea.

I earlier thought it was making subcategories off predominate tags but I don't think that anymore. Now I think that Zazzle staff created the categories that seemed reasonable to them and AI (not tags) is populating the sort.

I was going to spend the afternoon going through my designs and seeing if any of them should be re-tagged to reflect the subcategory they now fit into. But then I saw the subcategory called Busy Pattern Filled Illustrations (I do a lot of those) and when I put Busy Pattern Filled Illustrations in the search bar I discovered that literally nobody has used that long tail tag yet the subcategory had William Morris patterns, sugar skulls and other reasonable choices. Gotta be AI. It has to be.

[CrazyMermaid]

It is Saturday, right? And I agree it is AI. I think this is great and it probably explains why some of my designs are suddenly selling after 4 years of dormancy. My strategy has always been to describe my designs fully and let the chips fall where they may. I love having a backup to my titles, tags and descriptions. Thanks for going down this rabbit hole and reporting back!

[KeegansCreation]

I'm getting ahead of myself. It is Saturday. 😄 It's pretty exciting if this new thing is surfacing your designs to be found and bought. 

[CreativeLeahG]

This is all very fascinating, thank you for sharing your findings!!

[Cat]

Very interesting! Commenting to follow...

[Beth]

Thank you for sharing!  I've forwarded your comments to the team. 

Beth 

[JLynnW]

In response to: Interestingly, when I used coastal as a search term and then also as a design style, it dropped from 137k products to 17k products. I thought it would stay the same.

It dropped many, if not most, of my "coastal" titled and tagged designs.  In particular in the category of disposal guest towels were they ranked high up due to some sales.  Alas, it's hard to keep one's hopes up even with new changes and improvements. I kinda wish I hadn't read your post. Not really, I always appreciate yours and others insight. Thanks!

[KeegansCreation]

I searched "coastal beach towels" so I would know what yours looked like. Lots of waves, sea grass and terns. Then I cleared that search and just searched "guest towels" and then used the coastal design style filter. Sure enough it dropped a bunch of yours, specifically it dropped all the ones with terns as well as a palm tree and some driftwood ones. It did pick up your guest towels that were pure waves or sea grass. It also threw in some really wrong choices that weren't even blue or green, let alone coastal.

Don't despair. I think this is a work in progress. The technology is still in its infancy. It did, after all, recognize that your waves and sea grass towels belonged even if it completely dropped the ball on terns. 

[ElizabethR]

To clarify for myself. So will add style tags to products improve positions in searches? Or is AI analyzing the design and assigning style?

[KeegansCreation]

After spending a lot of time with it I think it is pure AI "looking" at the designs and tags don't have anything to do with it.

[ElizabethR]

Thank you and thank you for sharing this find.

[CreativeLeahG]

I did some searches and a 'tag' was being picked up as it wasn't in the descriptions or titles and was NOT obvious from the design given in many cases the editors picks and diamond sellers using this very specific 'random' tag were guilty of tag spam. So there must be a 'tag' element to this? 

[KeegansCreation]

What was your search?

[CreativeLeahG]

I'll message you

[ColsCreations]

I agree with this. I couldn't find any direct correlation between tags (or titles/descriptions) and these filters. I also thought the same as @Malissa , that if you're using a cover photo as the marketplace product thumb, it's picking up that imagery. I started thinking that after seeing some things in Coastal and Rustic that didn't seem to fit unless you considered that the cover mockups showed the products on weathered boards.

Some of the filters produced very unexpected results, but others, most notable to me Glitzy --> Bling, were spot-on and coughed up exactly the type of design I would expect. There's a lot of bizarrely specific filters and many I wouldn't even know what to expect from them, like Drawings/Hand Illustrations --> Synthetic CG or Vintage & Traditional --> Mid-Century Modern --> Modern Abstracted Illustrations. Maybe Zazzle customers are more educated on art styles than I am but if I were shopping I'd need more dumbed-down filters like "madras plaids" or "pencil sketches" ...

But I do definitely believe this is AI at work and think the potential is huge. Given enough time & advancements, this could totally replace self-tagging which would eliminate tag abuse. But they'd have to make it so that manually entered search terms are using AI to find image matches, otherwise there could never be a filter list long enough to cover everything people might be looking for. That could be years in the future but this is a fascinating start.

Also, if they want customers to use this, it should be one of the default filters showing. Not sure how many end-shoppers would think to click "add filter" to see what other ways they can narrow their search down to.

[KeegansCreation]

The extensive categorization of Drawings/Illustrations is downright comical. It's like somebody was really nerding out about making specific categories for their favorite styles. But then Glitzy>Bling... and we're done. After the drawings got broken down so specifically I was expecting at least some Glitter or Faux Gold under Glitzy.

I do hope they make it a default rather than an Add Filter because I think it's terrific. But it still needs a fair bit of tweaking, or additional training. Sometimes it is astonishingly accurate. Other times it is hilariously wrong but you can see why it "thinks" it has correctly identified the design. Not everything laid down upon weathered wood is coastal. Perhaps they don't want to make it a default filter until it has been further refined.

Looking ahead (by years) this is the wave of the future and may replace tagging entirely. I don't know if they hired a team or bought this off the rack but a lot of places are probably going to start doing it. If done well it ends tag spam altogether. I can see how they'd need a drilldown for style because a lot of styles people don't know the name of (they may like Art Nouveau but not know it's called that). But in the future there may be an AI that responds to searches and can scour the MP for dogs (or even specific breeds) if that's what somebody eneters into a search bar. But that's a ways off.

[ColsCreations]

But it still needs a fair bit of tweaking, or additional training. Sometimes it is astonishingly accurate. Other times it is hilariously wrong but you can see why it "thinks" it has correctly identified the design.

I came across something in Rustic & Country --> Farmhouse with something that looked like a triangle palm (tree) on it and thought, OK, I could understand AI "seeing" this as a rooster or peacock.
You comment re Drawings vrs Glitzy had me LOL.

[Malissa]

Looking through the filters just in shirts a little this morning, I found some of my designs in unexpected categories like "semi realistic hipster...".   I am not sure what qualifies as hipster art, I am not sure mine does, but I do think some of my cover photos that showed up would definitely qualify as hipster and that is why the filter picked up the design.   I feel like cover photos may factor into the overall look of the product and how the filters are picking up the design.

[KeegansCreation]

Interesting observation about cover photos being "read".

You are the front of the pack for Semi-Realistic Quirky Hipster Illustrations. Is it because of your painting? Is it because of the hipster young woman in your chosen cover photo? Who can say? I don't even know what qualifies as a hipster illustration, other than the well-represented animals with glasses. And a Swedish horse which would be better served under Scandinavian. 

[ColsCreations]

* I added a free spreadsheet for these filters, with a useful tip on how to use them, here:
Helpful Data Sheet on the New(ish) Design Style Filter in the Marketplace

[BKMuir]

I was curious, so did a search on my small store "Felinefriends"

Most of the products found were from this store, with others thrown in.

I found some of the "drill-downs" funny. "Coastal" brought up one Item (from my store) of a cat-alphabet letter with a blue wire frame. Must be the wavy blue frame that is "coastal" - only one of the 26 bags is shown.

Tote Bag - Cat Letter L with Name in Frame
by FelineFriends