Dash of Inspiration: February 2016 Design Challenge

January is now over, great cards have been entered into the “Back to Nature” Challenge and the judges will begin deliberating over those designs today. In the meantime, it’s time for us to move on to February’s Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge. You ready? Here we go …

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Theme: The Race is On!

Imagination is the key to this challenge. Just think of all the ways you can put a “Race” theme into play for a great selling greeting card. So many directions to go, like these for example …

• Run a race, a contest of speed.
• Competition, especially to achieve superiority, such as; the presidential race.
• Moving forward towards a goal.
• The course of time, moving swiftly against the clock.
• The human race …

Requirements:

• The race theme must be clear in your message and imagery. Other than that, anything goes!

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Entry Deadline: Monday, February 29th, 2016
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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 you can make a “Race” theme work.
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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: February 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 enters 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 behind each entry. This eliminates any and all concerns with ‘favoritism’. Results will post on the Community Blog. 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 – over 27,000 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 may not be featured as 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 GCU’s Pinterest Page followers: 1.3K!
• 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!
• Winning card will be Twitted to GCU’s followers which is over 1,410 and growing.

2nd Place:

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

  EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards may not be featured as 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.

• Writing Verse
• Occasion, Gender, Age Specific Designing
• Send the Right Message
• Sports Themes
• Design Ideas for Him

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Here is my example for this month’s theme:

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Get creative! Be inspired! Have fun!