Dash of Inspiration: May Design Challenge

A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen and the winners of our May Challenge are:

1st Place goes to Julia Bryant!

Our Runner-up in 2nd Place is Audrey Drake!

Congratulations, ladies! Every entry was wonderful and GCU is so proud to offer all these new delightful cards!

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The challenge this month will focus on tying imagery, message, recipient and occasion together which is after all, the formula for a best selling card. Your ability to ‘play on words’ may require you to do some research on the occupation you choose. So let’s get rolling with this month’s Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge! ………………………………………………………………

May Design Challenge – Theme: Occupation-Specific Birthday Requirements: Create a Birthday Card for any Occupation. The imagery must reflect the occupation and the message (card front text and inside verse) must play off terms and phrases associated with that profession. In other words, a butterfly as your imagery would not be acceptable, unless your card is specifically for a Lepidopterist (person who studies moths/butterflies) . ………………………………………………………………

Entry Deadline: May 25th, 2015

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How to Enter: Post the PID (card number) and the URL (public storefront link, please DO NOT post a link to your Manage Cards area) as a post in the challenge blog. We’ll forward your entry to the jury. ……………………………………………………………….

Category: Birthday > Occupation Specific Birthday Cards – If the occupation you choose does not exist as a sub-category, use OTHER and the review team will pass on new category suggestions based on these entries – in which case your card will be moved at a later date if a new category is created.

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Rules:

• Submission must meet GCU’s Submission Guidelines and be Approved through the usual Review Cycle – Fast Track your submission with this in the Notes to Reviewer: May Design Challenge Submission here is the link to the blog post: (include THIS blog post URL)
• Only ONE card per artist per challenge.
• Submissions must be NEW, no existing designs.
• Your entry must meet the Challenge Requirements and Theme or it will not be included in the challenge.
• Stock Card Creations entries will not be accepted.

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Judging: Entries will be judged by the GCU Challenge Jury with results posting on the Community Blog the week of June 5th. The jury will judge the entries on the following criteria:

• How well the card meets the Challenge Requirements and Theme.
• How well the card speaks to the Category the artist chooses for the card submission.
• Creativity, Execution and Marketability.

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Winners: 1st Place:

• The winning designer’s card and store will be featured on the GCU Public Blog – the blog which customers view and follow.
• As well as featured on the GCU Public Facebook Page – nearly 15,000 followers, now THAT’S exposure!
• The winning card will be Design of the Day following the announcement of the winners (within 48-hours).
  

  EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards can not be DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions.  In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.

• The winning card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board – currently over 800 followers.
• The winning card, should the artist choose, may be referenced in a new series by the winning artist and he/she may Fast Track all cards in the new series (being sure to give the Challenge URL and winning card PID in your Notes to Reviewer for each card in this series).
•  Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!

2^nd Place:

• Your submission will be Design of the Day the following week of announcing the Challenge winners (within 7-days).
  

  EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards can not be DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions. In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.

• Your card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board.
• Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!

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Tips:

Check out these tips, tricks, freebies, and tutorials from our own GCU Community Blog which would all be helpful in this month’s Challenge.

• Dash of Inspiration: Writing Verse
• Nuts and Bolts: How to Write Card Verse
• DIY Public Domain Research
• Nuts and Bolts: The Right Image

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Challenge yourself this month to create a card that the recipient who works in a specific field will be so thrilled to receive that the customer who purchased the card will want to return to GCU for all the cards they send – BECAUSE – we have every card imaginable! ………………………………………………………………………

Our entries were:

Paula Mort Mortimer

Liz Van Steenburgh

Myrna Migala

Gail Pepin

Barbara Schreiber

Michelle Lanoue

Christi Madden

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See everyone on Monday, June 1st for our next Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge!