ALTERNATIVES TO SOCIETY6
ONE STUDIO, ONE OBSESSION
Society6 is a marketplace of millions — every artist, every category, every taste. SpicyEditions is the opposite: one studio in Paris and London, working through every UK tube station and city it can fit into a vintage Bollywood frame. Different model, different result.
WHY PICK A SPECIALIST STUDIO INSTEAD OF A MARKETPLACE?
Marketplaces solve one problem brilliantly: scale. If you want a print of a sloth in a beanie, a botanical illustration of every fern in the northern hemisphere, or a meme rendered as fake-vintage typography, Society6 has it. The catch is that every artist is uploading on top of every other artist, so curation falls on the buyer.
A specialist studio narrows the question. SpicyEditions makes one kind of poster — UK locations in vintage Bollywood style — and makes it 73 times. You don't scroll through ten thousand near-misses. You either want this thing or you don't, and the catalogue is small enough to read in one sitting.
WHAT DOES “ORIGINAL ARTWORK” ACTUALLY MEAN HERE?
Every SpicyEditions poster is built from scratch for the catalogue. The visual language is borrowed from mid-century Bollywood — hand-painted cinema billboards, saturated colour blocks, theatrical typography, the painted hoardings that used to wrap Mumbai's Maratha Mandir. Then a specific UK place gets dropped into that frame: a Tube roundel, a red phone box, the curve of Battersea's chimneys.
The result is one consistent visual world across 73 prints. Hang two of them next to each other and they look like they belong together, because one studio made every decision: palette, type weight, paper stock, frame finish. That coherence is hard to engineer when you're buying from a marketplace where each artist works alone.
WHO ARE THESE PRINTS FOR?
SpicyEditions is run by Meera, born in Northwest London to a Gujarati family, raised in Australia, school holidays at her grandparents' place off the Piccadilly line. The whole catalogue comes from that double-heritage place. Saturday morning at the gurdwara, Saturday night at the Ritzy. Mum's rotis, Dad's vinyl, your Oyster card.
If you're a first or second generation British-Asian, the prints land specifically. They aren't costume-version Indian art, and they aren't tourist-version London art — they're a love letter to both, written from the inside.
HOW DOES UK SHIPPING WORK COMPARED TO SOCIETY6?
SpicyEditions prints and dispatches from inside the UK and France. Standard UK shipping is £5.99 unframed and £9.99–£10.99 framed, free over £60. There are no customs surprises, no week-long transatlantic transit, no mystery import VAT recalculations at the door.
Society6 typically prints in the US, so UK and EU orders can take longer to arrive and occasionally pick up customs charges depending on order size and route. For a gift with a deadline — a housewarming, a leaving party, Diwali — local printing is the simpler option.
WHICH UK LOCATIONS ARE PART OF THE CATALOGUE?
Seventy-three locations across 18 UK cities. Fifty London tube stations and landmarks — Brixton, Camden Town, Covent Garden, King's Cross, Shoreditch High Street, Battersea Power Station, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Tooting, Southall, Brick Lane — plus 23 cities outside London, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Bristol, Brighton, Cardiff, Leeds, and Belfast.
HOW DO THE TWO COMPARE SIDE BY SIDE?
| FEATURE | SPICYEDITIONS | SOCIETY6 |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Single specialist studio | Marketplace of independent artists |
| Catalogue size | 73 originals across 18 UK cities | Millions of uploads, every category |
| Style | Vintage Bollywood × UK landmarks | Whatever individual artists upload |
| Print & dispatch | UK and France | Primarily US |
| UK shipping | £5.99 unframed, free over £60 | Variable, may include customs |
| Best for | Desi gifts, heritage homes, UK nostalgia | Niche artist discovery, eclectic walls |
COMMON QUESTIONS
How is SpicyEditions different from Society6?
Society6 is a global marketplace with millions of designs uploaded by independent artists across every imaginable category. SpicyEditions is a single studio with one focus: vintage Bollywood-style posters of real UK locations. You get one consistent point of view, not infinite scroll, and every print is original artwork made specifically for this catalogue.
Where are SpicyEditions posters printed and shipped from?
Posters are printed and dispatched in the UK and France. UK customers pay £5.99 unframed shipping (free over £60), with no customs delays or US-to-UK transit times. Society6 typically ships from the US, which can mean longer waits and occasional customs charges for UK and EU buyers.
Are SpicyEditions prints original artwork?
Yes. Every poster is original artwork created specifically for SpicyEditions — there are 73 designs across 18 UK cities, each one a Bollywood-style reimagining of a tube station, landmark, or city. They aren't licensed templates or auto-generated variations.
Is this a good alternative to Society6 for gifts?
Particularly well suited to it. Most SpicyEditions orders are gifts — housewarmings, leaving-London cards, birthdays for the cousin who finally got their first flat. A poster of someone's actual tube station or hometown is more specific than a generic marketplace print, and the framed 8×12 inch arrives ready to hang.
Free UK shipping over £60 · Framed or unframed · Printed in the UK and France