Wanted New Cards: Rough Collie Birthday Cards
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
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Dash of Inspiration: January 2018 Design Challenge
Another year about to disappear! Here’s hoping each of you had fun, learned something new and were inspired to step outside your designer’s comfort zone this year. Before we kick off January’s Challenge – I want to remind you that behind the scenes, Mindy, Nasser and the GCU team are all little elves working diligent to come up with the very best of the best that we artists brought to GCU in 2017.
Be sure to look for the Best of 2017 Founders’ Choice Awards! This time of year, our founders; Mindy and Nasser, will be choosing from ALL the cards created in 2017 – not just from challenge submissions. Winners of the 2nd Annual Founders’ Choice Awards is expected mid-January, 2018.
As a nostalgic look back, here are 2016 Founders’ Choice Award Winners:
https://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/content/best-of-2016
For those of you who actively read our Community Blog, you now get some extra time to create for our first challenge of the 2018 New Year …
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Theme: Ultra Violet Pantone© Color of the Year for 2018
Requirements:
- The Ultra Violet Pantone© color of the year for 2018 must be primary in your imagery. Color of the Year for 2018 PANTONE© 18-3838 Ultra Violet
- Write your own verse/message, be creative and write a message that clearly speaks to your imagery, occasion and recipient.
- Blank verse will not be considered for entry in this challenge.
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Entry Deadline: Wednesday, January 31st
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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 that is well-suited for your Ultra Violet Color of the Year design.
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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: October 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.
- Your designs should differ from those already offered in the category of your choice to offer shoppers a variety of choices, not more of the same.
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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 – nearly 56,000 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: 2K!
- 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!
- NEW starting this month, GCU will create a Meet the Team board for the winning artist under the Pinterest GCU account where the winning artist will be able to pin and promote her own storefront and all that makes them a unique card designer and one of GCU’s artistic community team member.
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Winning card will be posted on GCU’s Instagram with 2,000 followers and counting!
- GCU will create a Meet the Team board for the winning artist under the Pinterest GCU account where the winning artist will be able to pin and promote her own storefront and all that makes them a unique card designer and one of GCU’s artistic community team member.
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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Winning card will be posted on GCU’s Instagram with 2,000 followers and counting!
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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.
Color of the Year for 2018 PANTONE© 18-3838 Ultra Violet
HEX #645394 | CMYK 72, 77, 11, 1 | RGB 100, 83, 148
Color of the Year for 2018 PANTONE© 18-3838 Ultra Violet
- Dash of Inspiration: Working with Color
- Dash of Inspiration: GCU Color Chart
- Dash of Inspiration: Tools to Help Choose Color Palettes
- Dash of Inspiration: Typography – Color
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Be inspired to create and learn something new!
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Nuts and Bolts: Good Gets Great Before Making a Series.
Before I continue with this series I made a few adjustment. I darkened the background and brightened the type so it pops a little more. I also changed “stellar” to “awesome”. I figured more kids say awesome than stellar. I also got rid of the grain texture I thought it was too busy with everything else that’s going on and replaced it with a subtle circular pattern. On the inside verse I changed cluster to galaxy and spectacular to stellar. Can you please look it over and give me your thoughts.
Great job, Ron. As usual, your work is out of this world!
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: From Realtor.
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
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Freebie Wednesday – Watercolor Christmas Vectors
Freebie Wednesday:
Christmas is almost upon us and Freepik is offering a very festive and free stocking stuffer in the form of Watercolor Christmas vectors (a bit late for this year, but maybe for next year’s Christmas designs):
All items are free for commercial use.
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Rainbow Connection: Color Forecasts for Spring/Summer 2018
Here are some more Color Forecasts for Spring/Summer 2018
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Nuts and Bolts: 2017 Best Nine Instagram
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: New Year’s from Pet.
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
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Freebie Wednesday – Festive Freebies!
Freebie Wednesday:
The Hungry JPEG has some festive Freebies for your design arsenal! (click on image to go to page)
All items are free for personal and commercial use!
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Rainbow Connection: Pantone Color 2018 – Ultra Violet
The official color of 2018 is a saturated, intense, blue-toned shade of purple called Ultra Violet, also known as Pantone 18-3838.
“Purple is a complex color,” says Lee Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. “We’re in a complex time; this is a complex color.”
Purple, of all the colors in the spectrum, embodies this situation best, as Pantone explains. “[Ultra Violet] is a very provocative shade, but it’s also a thoughtful color–it sounds like a bit of an oxymoron,” Eiseman says. “This is the kind of color attached, historically, to originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking. These are the elements we need to create a meaningful future. Inventiveness and imagination is something we seek in our personal lives and business worlds. People are looking for that ‘magic bullet,’ and this shade is the perfect shade to lead right into it . . . It’s intriguing, fascinating, and magical.”
GCU Community 