Zap Creatives Review
So I meant to do this before the con but my charms ended up arriving less than 12 hours before the event and I just didnt have the time. But I wanted to talk about my experience with ordering custom acrylic charms because I know a lot of beginner artists can be apprehensive with where to order their bulk merchandise from for their events. Those costs really add up and it can be daunting. Let me start off by saying that Zap Creatives is a UK based company and if youre in the US and plan to use them do not, I repeat, DO NOT wait until only 3 weeks before your venue like I did. I got VERY lucky and I dont expect that kind of stroke of luck to happen again. But I did a lot of research before ordering these charms and I had a few criteria in mind. As a "starving artist" of course I wanted the most for the least. Most # of charms, Most # of designs I could submit with a single order, etc. But I also wanted as much control over the shape and size of the charms as possible. I had a very specific vision in my head and I wanted my product to look just like that.
The third criteria was the upload method. I needed a template I could understand, in a program I was familiar with. A lot of custom charm printing shops only used Adobe Illustrator and vector images. While Ive done whole digital pieces in vector before its been many MANY years and I remember how frustrating it was. Zap not only provided a template for photoshop but also very precise step by step instructions on how to use it to get your charms looking the way you want them to look.
And lastly I just--- read review after review after review to find out about customer satisfaction. As I said before I was running on an extremely tight deadline so I didnt have the time to order sample charm sets from each company or send back a bad batch and wait for a new one. I needed them to be done right the first time. Zap Creatives had mixed reviews on their customer service and final products but I ended up being persuaded by how easy-to-use their template was.
Now, for whatever reason I was just having a hell of a time placing an order. Zap Creative's site didnt like my card, or my paypal account. I was getting very frustrated. But their customer service response to emails was VERY prompt and Im happy to say they walked through the problem with me and came up with a feasible solution with minimal headache. Im very thankful for that. My only other issue with their site itself was that you have to pay them for your order BEFORE you email them your designs. That made me quite apprehensive--- especially on a large order like that. Now, as I said the charms came in the night before I was supposed to sell them so I didnt inspect each one as closely as I probably should have but overall I could not be more pleased with the final products. The colors are bright, the finish is nice, the lines are crisp, the edges are exactly where I specified for them to be in the template. The charms are also very hardy and thick, I wasnt at all concerned about them snapping on people. Just a few, like the one pictured, have a minor imperfection in the image. (note that little brown circle) But none of them had the bubbles that a previous review Id read had warned me about.
For future reference, and for anyone who wants to order charms--- I would like to note that that little hole in the top where I attached the keychain is very VERY small. It was a part of their template. I dont know if there was a way to change it but its something to keep in mind. I had to go to my jewelry-making friend and borrow tools just to get those little teeny loops on.
All in all I was happy with the results and will probably order from them again when I need more charms--- granted that their site accepts my payment this time. (because I nearly sold out at the con!)
