GCU Community

A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen January Design Challenge Happy New Year, everyone! Today, as I personally begin another 365-day journey around the sun, I’m thrilled to kick off the first of these new challenges … For the past three-years, the GCU Community Blog has been offering tips, tutorials and design freebies to the GCU Artist Community. This New Year has inspired me to take all of you on a new journey with a monthly design challenge. My and GCU’s hope is that many of you will push yourself to step out of your ‘comfort zone’ and challenge yourself to create something completely different which will result in your growth as an artist in some way. I really hope that you will not say “I can’t do that” and instead will go find out HOW by being inspired to learn something new.
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Our very FIRST Dash of Inspiration Challenge and we have a TIE for 1st Place!
And our 1st Place WINNERS are: Liz Van Steenburgh with PID 1352750

Liz Van Steenburgh

AND

Rycky Creations with PID 1353796

Rycky Creations

With 2nd Place begin awarded to: Julia Bryant PID 1352648

Runner up: Julia Bryant

These are called challenges for a reason, they will be VERY challenging, here’s why they are different from the Design Challenges of the past:

• No existing designs are allowed. These are challenges to create a NEW card design based on very specific criteria.
• These challenges will be judged similarly to a Juried Show – the judges for these challenges will be a team of GCU experts to choose the best and the finest of the entries they wish to promote. The artist community will not be voting in these challenges, however we do hope they will take the time to comment on the entries and show support for their fellow artists, whether participating, or not in the challenge itself.
• These challenges will be varied, challenging and fun! Very different from month to month, so all of you, regardless of your ‘chosen medium’, will be able to participate in most of them – especially if you’re willing to step up and STRETCH your creativity and skill level.

READY, SET? Let’s GO! JANUARY Design Challenge – Theme: EMPATHY Requirements: Using Typography, Shape and Color ONLY – express Empathy. Empathy – [em-puh-thee] the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. ……………………………………………………………… Entry Deadline: January 26th, 2015 ………………………………………………………………. 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:  ANY – Tip: Encouragement, Remembrance and Sympathy categories are all good choices. ………………………………………………………………. 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: January 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.

…………………………………………………………………… Judging: Entries will be judged by the GCU Challenge Jury with results posting on the Community Blog the week of January 30th. 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.

…………………………………………………………………… 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 12,000 followers, now THAT’S exposure!
• The winning card will be Design of the Day following the announcement of the winners (within 48-hours).
• 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).

2^nd Place:

• Your submission will be Design of the Day the following week of announcing the Challenge winners (within 7-days).
• Your card will be added to theGreeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board.

All entries will be featured on the GCU Community Blog when the winners are announced. ……………………………………………………………………… Tips: Check out these tips, tricks, freebies, and tutorials which would all be helpful in this month’s Challenge.

• Don’t Fall Into These Traps! The Do’s and Don’ts of Greeting Card Design 
• How to Write Greeting Card Verse
• Tools and Resources for Grammar and More!
• It’s All in the Type

There are hundreds of links to fonts for Commercial Use on our blog and most are FREE. If you need a better selection of fonts which work well together for this challenge, then check some of this posts and you might find the perfect font. ……………………………………………………………………… This challenge should INSPIRE you to push the boundaries of typography and verse; and spark your imagination to use shape and color to create visual impact.  When all else fails, LEARN SOMETHING NEW! Let the creativity flow and good luck! My card example for the visual for this challenge created using this challenge criteria:

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Participants for this challenge in addition to the above two 1st place winners and 2nd place were: