Dash of Inspiration: September Design Challenge

Congratulations to our September Winners!

1st Place goes to Barbara Schreiber with PID 1399662

1st Place Winner: Barbara Schreiber

2nd Place goes to Julia Bryant with PID 1398620

2nd Place Winner: Julia Bryant

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Most cultures have rich traditions where costumes play a vital role in their celebrations and/or daily life. These can express identity, marital status, religious beliefs or any number of reasons to include them in celebrations. Often these garments are worn only at festivals or formal events – or –  holidays like Halloween! The heritage of various kind of costumes run deep through many generations and cultures which make this a fun and challenging theme for September’s Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge! Ready?  Let’s go …

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September Design Challenge

Theme: Costumes

Requirements:

• The costume(s) you choose to represent in your imagery must be appropriate for the occasion/category choice.
• Additional elements and backgrounds chosen to support your costume in a finished greeting card design, must stay within the theme of the celebration you are representing.

costume = 1. A style of dress, including accessories and hairdos, especially that peculiar to a nation, region, group, or historical period. 2. Dress or garb characteristic of another period, place, person, etc., as worn on the stage or at balls. 3. Fashion of dress appropriate to a particular occasion or season: dancing costume; winter costume.

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Entry Deadline: September 28th, 2015

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Doreen Erhardt©2015

How to Enter: Post the PID (card number) and the URL (public storefront link – please WAIT for the card to be available in the public marketplace, 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.

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Category: Any Category / Any Occasion where Costume is appropriate
Tips: Halloween, Masquerade, Cultural Holiday Categories
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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: August 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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BLIND Judging:  We hope each of you enter every month. Entries are submitted anonymously for judging by the GCU Challenge Jury which means that before and during the challenge, judges do not have any way of knowing what artist is beyond each entry. This eliminates any and all concerns with ‘favoritism’. Results will post on the Community Blog – by October 2nd. 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 17,000 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 might be helpful in this month’s Challenge.

Dash of Inspiration: Design for All Cultures

Nuts and Bolts: How To Choo-choo-choose the Right Categories

Dash of Inspiration: Don’t be a Copy Cat

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