Critique Clinic – January 10-12, 2014
How does it work? For three days a week (Friday-Sunday midnight), I will open the clinic to any artist who wants an honest peer review and critique of a card which gets plenty of clicks but no sales, so something’s probably not quite right, or you’ve got a new design you want to test drive, or you’re unsure about the marketability of a card. Or perhaps you’re a newbie who isn’t sure if a card is up to a marketable standard. Anyone is welcome to participate. In fact, I encourage everyone to at least look at the cards in question and read the critique comments – you may learn something. The purpose of the clinic is to help artists improve the commercial appeal and marketability of their cards.
THE RULES
- ONE card per artist only.
- Card must be intended for sale at Greeting Card Universe.
- To submit a card for critique, post a link to the card at GCU in the comments section of this clinic post. Allowances will be made if you’ve had a card declined, or made a new design you’d like advice on before submission. Give us the link where we can see the card, such as your private gallery, Flickr, Tinypic, etc. If you do give a private gallery link, be sure your private module gallery is ON. Please do not post links to your Manage Cards section – do you really want strangers tinkering with your cards? And please don’t ask us to critique a card that’s pending review – we can’t see it until it’s approved.
- Any artist is free to comment and/or give a critique of a submitted card. HOWEVER, post-and-run comments like “great card” or “you suck” will not be tolerated, nor will abuse. Criticism should be constructive, not destructive. Play nice or you will be banned.
- I also won’t tolerate temper tantrums if you decide your “artistic integrity” is being stepped on because you asked for a critique, and someone told you the photo you’re using isn’t in focus. If you can’t take honest criticism, don’t submit. Once gets you a warning; twice and you’re banned from submitting in the future.
- Artists who critique may do so by giving their opinion, posting an example of another card, or pointing the submitter to a video, on-line article, or other helpful suggestion.
- Don’t forget that artists who are giving you tips and helpful advice are volunteering their time and trouble. Be nice. A link back to their store on your website or blog is appreciated (but not mandatory).
- You are free not to take any advice offered. There’s no guarantee any card will be a bestseller, so don’t come into the clinic with unrealistic expectations.
- Rules may change as we go along and we see how things turn out, okay?
So without any further ado, I declare this week’s Critique Clinic open!
GCU Community 
What’s going on? Am I the first? Or maybe I’m missing something? Sorry I’ve been away but I haven’t had the card bug for awhile now and after the whole commission fiasco I was debating on closing my store yet here I am and I have five cards waiting for approval. Here’s an old one that hasn’t done that well – there is a red version as well: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/10th-birthday-cards/blue-racing-birthday-10-823059?aid=136464
Thanks for looking!
Glad to have you designing again Robert!
I definitely agree with the text being the primary area in need of a change. I like the stripes and placement of them, although I think for the age group if you replaced those stripes with a road or rack track, you would be much closer to a winning image here.
I also like the idea mentioned of giving more depth to the image by adding shadows and movement to the flags.
You have some great ideas to play with now … be sure to let us see what you come up with!
Doreen
Glad to hear you’re back and your creative juices are flowing! 🙂
As for the card … the most immediate improvement that comes to mind is the “happy birthday” in a box. The text is too warped and looks downright weird. I think you’d have better luck if you integrated the text and the graphics in a more interesting way rather than so linear, and don’t warp the text.
Good luck!
Corrie
It looks a little plain for a 10 year old. Perhaps have a photo or drawing of a car on the front?
Hi Robert, I agree with Corrie about the text needing an overhaul. I feel like the stripes make a big imbalance in the design as well. I would get rid of them and center the 10 with the flags. Maybe add a drop shadow to get them to pop off the page a bit and give the flags the illusion of movement. I also would maybe carry over the flag element or the 10 in a subtle texture pattern in the background.
Or maybe incorporate some flames into the design. When I think of racing I think of flames running down the sides of a car! That may be suited better to your red version.
Have fun experimenting!
Hello,
I am a beginner in greeting card design and I would appreciate some feedback on a card I am working on: http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/community/gcu_product.asp?pid=1212220&return=/community/my_cards.asp
I am especially looking for comments on the quality of the photo I took of my drawing. The photo shows the texture of the watercolor paper, if this is a problem how can I change it? Any other comments about the photo and/ or the drawing would be very helpful. Thank you in advance,
Nat
The image looks very distorted … I’m pretty sure it would be declined as is. As for how you fix it, I’m unsure as my illustrations are done directly into Photoshop using a tablet.
Corrie
Hello Nat, welcome! I agree with Corrie on the distortion. Did you by any chance stretch this image to fit the horizontal format? Here’s the thing, the quality of the photograph based on what I can see is probably okay, in other words seeing watercolor paper texture in general is not a problem unless it becomes a distraction or is excessive.
However if your image, as created, is square for example you absolutely can not stretch it to fit a vertical or horizontal format. Instead you have to either crop the image to meet the 5×7 format or you need to bring the square image into an creation tool such as Photoshop and place the square image on the 5×7 background, then create a card with your square painting as part of the design. Here is an example of one of my square paintings on a 5×7 card front.
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/holidays/christmas/forfamilyrelationspecific/daughterandfiance/for-daughter-and-her-fiance-1122314?gcu=43045123714
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Doreen
http://www.SalonOfArt.com
http://www.facebook.com/salonofart
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/SalonOfArt
Hello there – thanks for the input! As soon as I posted the link my mind started ‘racing’ – hah – with ideas but I am glad for the input. I’ll see what I can do 🙂
Hi Robert,
Thank you for seeking advice here. Sounds like you’ve gotten some great input on your design. I’d like to add that fine tuning your descriptive terms may help your cards cross that finish line. You’ve done well but there’s room for improvement.
Your Title: Blue Racing Birthday: 10
Your Keywords: 10, Ten, Blue, Racing, Flags, Checkered, Happy Birthday, Stripes, Reel Cards
Your Artist Notes: Happy Birthday on a silver plate in front of two checkered flags. Two white racing stripes accent the right hand side of the card. All over a blue metallic-effect backdrop. Customize the inside to suit your needs.
I’d suggesting adding “car” to all three of these fields and include the following derivations in your keywords: “race, car, auto, automobile, 10th”.
You could include something like the following in your Artist Notes:
The perfect birthday card for 10 year old car racing fan!
Although your current image does not show a car it is certainly strong enough to be considered a related term. This would be a very common search term for car lovers.
See here on the blog for more info on both of these important fields:
Hope that is helpful advice!
Nat: the distortion is an issue and I’m a little surprised that I am seeing the ‘Manage Card’ screen – when I tried to ‘change image’ – my image library came up – I didn’t continue but theoretically – could I have updated the image with mine? I’d say make it a vertical card and see what happens but the actual image looks very charming – a ‘home sweet home’ kind of feel.