Figuring out which images actually translate to merchandise
I've been thinking about putting some of my night sky work on merchandise, things like mugs, phone cases, tote bags. The problem is that what makes an astrophotograph work as a large print doesn't necessarily make it work at four inches wide on a curved surface.
Some of my best sellers as wall art are wide panoramic compositions, Milky Way core arcs over desert silhouettes, and I can already tell those would turn to mush on a phone case. Meanwhile some of my simpler shots, a single Joshua tree against a gradient sky, might actually hold up better at small scale even though they're not what collectors typically go for.
Do any of you have a reliable method for evaluating which pieces will actually look good on product mockups before committing to inventory or a print on demand catalog? Is it purely about composition simplicity, or is there more to it?
From my experience shooting film landscapes, the pieces that translate well to smaller surfaces are the ones that read in about two seconds. When I started testing some of my work on product mockups, I noticed the same thing you're suspecting. My wide panoramic compositions, the ones with all that subtle gradient detail across the sky, just collapsed into noise on anything smaller than a print. But a centered subject against a clean background, like your Joshua tree example, those held up surprisingly well. I've found high contrast matters more than I expected. Something with a strong silhouette against a bright or moody sky punches through even on a curved mug. Composition simplicity is a big part of it, but really it comes down to whether the image communicates at a glance instead of asking someone to lean in and study it.