Design Contest: Mum’s the Word
A fun subway art inspired word cloud card for Mother's Day featuring lots of popular sayings about mothers and sweet design elements like shoes, hearts, and other contemporary doodles.
Mother’s Day is on May 13th this year (the U.S. version of the holiday, anyway) so I thought, why not have a Design Contest to honor all those wonderful women we call Mom!
So here’s how Design Contest: Mum’s the Word works:
You have until May 3rd to give us a link in the comment’s section of this post to a Mother’s Day card at GCU. On May 4th, I’ll post all the entries and voting will begin. Voting will continue until May 9th. On May 10th, I’ll announce the winner. Sound good? Then get going and don’t miss the deadline!
The prize for the winning card will be the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate, $10 MyFonts.com gift certificate, or 5 free card credits!
BONUS VOTES:
For any artist who posts a card other than their own (another artist’s), I’ll award 5 bonus votes.
For any artist who pins 5 of the nominees on a Pinterest pinboard, I’ll award 5 bonus votes.
For any artist who does a post about Mother’s Day including at least one of the nominated cards, I’ll award 5 bonus points.
That’s 15 bonus votes up for grabs!
To claim your bonus votes, leave links in the comments section of this post. No link, no votes.
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Rainbow Connection: Juicy Summer
Summer isn’t too far away, and I wanted to share with you a set of wonderfully juicy summer colors that are really taking off. Use any of these colors (or all of them) in combination with white for the best effect.
That red’s so punchy, I can’t wait to use it myself!
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Dash of Inspiration – Don’t Dodge the Subject
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
In Collaboration with Sun at Night
Don’t Dodge the Subject
Back in the days of traditional darkroom print-making, photographer’s were taught the technique of Dodging and Burning to achieve a beautiful balance of tonal ranges from the whitest white to the blackest black. I used to save the black plastic and cardboard which came with the photo paper and cut them into varying shapes. I also saved those clear plastic florist ‘forks’ that holds the card in a bouquet delivery.
When I had a negative with blown-out highlights or deep shadows, these homemade tools were put to work by holding the shape on the end of my ‘florist fork’ over the area(s) requiring more or less exposure from the enlarger lamp. The trick was to hold a ‘mask’ approximately mid-way between the enlarger lamp and the paper to be exposed, while using a slight waving or circular motion to blend the exposure (digital term is feathering).
Though I’m glad to be out of a chemical darkroom, those dodging and burning techniques are still quite valuable and critical to the digital photographer. No matter our experience level, we all have photos that are taken ‘in the moment’ where we either could not modify the lighting, our position or offered no time to adjust the camera settings. Often those images are just too far gone, but just as frequently in the digital darkroom of today, these images can be turned spectacular using a variety of techniques.
Joining us today is SunAtNight, one of GCU’s many talented artists who has written a terrific article and created some very helpful imagery to provide you with an introduction to improving the tonal range/contrast of your images.
Introduction to Contrast in Monochromatic Digital Photos by SunAtNight
Contrast creates and stirs up visual interest in all photos but it plays an important role in monochromatic images. To quote photographer Bill Smith “the craft of photography is represented by, and visualized in, the beauty of a good black-and-white print, a translation of the world around us into shades of gray.” Contrast helps the photographer do just that. It defines shapes, areas, and regions within the picture and it makes edges clearly distinct and recognizable to viewers. It is a play between light and dark. It is what makes the image energized and pop with life.
Contrast is defined as the differences in tones. The brightest whites and the darkest shadows which make up the most distance on the tonal scale create a high contrast image. An image that is considered low contrast (often referred to as flat) has whites and darks that are closer or less of a distance on the tonal scale.
Figure1 : Broad range in tonal scale = high contrast.
Training the Eye – Practice Exercise
One of the most common learning exercises to assist in training the eye to observe and identify contrast is to simply circle the light and dark areas of the photo in your editing software. You can implement this in a new layer and delete at any time. It’s quick and easy. Once you do this a couple of times, your eye will start to gravitate to the tonal ranges and identify contrast automatically.
Once you have identified the light and dark regions the next step is to analyze. There are some basic characteristics to look for:
- Does the main subject pop from the background?
- Where are the trouble spots?
- What is the quality of existing light? Hard, Soft or Diffused?
- Are there any areas competing with each other?
- Below is an example of this process
Figure2 : Exercise in training the eye for contrast
For this example exercise the photo depicts a pear amongst a pile of cloves and cinnamon sticks. The first photo has the dark areas identified. The second photo identifies the light areas. The third photo indicates the analysis. In this case observations tell us that the image does not pop from the background; it does actually compete with it and that causes loss of detail in the stem. The image is dark overall. The quality of existing light is one hard and one diffused (soft). Loss of detail can also be seen in the lower right hand corner of the image where the mound of cloves are located.
Popular Corrective Actions – Remedies
How to fix low contrast is in the hands of the photographer. There are many remedies to try and you’ll probably have to try a few combinations to achieve wanted results. Here are some common corrective actions:
- Add more directional light
- Increase exposure
- Dodging and burning in photo editing software
- Increase and deepen shadows in editing software
- Increase in contrast settings
- Selective focus – blurring the background more
- Main subject isolation
- Digital photo filters
- Digital Levels adjustment – or curves
Figure 3: Remedy in post of increased exposure, contrast, shadows and dodging
The photo above utilizes multiple remedies in different areas. The first corrective action to take place is an increase in exposure and contrast. This lightened the background which enhanced the pear and cinnamon sticks. The second implementation was to deepen the shadows just a touch. The last remedy was to dodge the pile of cloves in the foreground. This enhanced the texture and shapes of the individual cloves adding detail that was not readily perceived by the eye.
I want to thank SunAtNight for taking the time and such great care to create these wonderful visuals to help you train your eye to see contrast and the important role it plays in making or breaking an image.
My personal experience in digital dodging and burning is that I never use the Dodge and Burn tools supplied by these programs, rather I use layer masks and the brush tool to effectively paint with light and shadow. The reason being if you use the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop for example, the undo feature leaves artifacts behind because it does not completely undo the process . . . so experiment! Once you learn to see a full range of contrast in a Monochromatic image you will be able to use the same technique to apply corrections to your color images. Below are links to some tutorials to get you started.
See you next week!
Dodging and Burning in Photoshop by Peter Pan-tsless
Selective Lightening and Darkening in Photoshop Elements by Jan Walker
Paint Shop Pro Dodge and Burn by The Graphics Tablet
GIMP Tutorial Dodging and Burning by Wendi E. M. Scarth
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Out of the Office
Just a note to let everyone know that there will be no post on Monday, April 23, and Doreen Erhardt’s usual post will be moved to Tuesday. My partner has an early morning appointment to get her prosthetic leg on Monday, and we won’t be home. See you guys on Tuesday! 🙂
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Critique Clinic – April 21-22, 2012
How does it work? For three days a week (Friday-Sunday midnight), I will open the clinic to any artist who wants an honest peer review and critique of a card which gets plenty of clicks but no sales, so something’s probably not quite right, or you’ve got a new design you want to test drive, or you’re unsure about the marketability of a card. Or perhaps you’re a newbie who isn’t sure if a recently submitted card is up to a marketable standard. Anyone is welcome to participate. In fact, I encourage everyone to at least look at the cards in question and read the critique comments – you may learn something. The purpose of the clinic is to help artists improve the commercial appeal and marketability of their cards.
THE RULES
- ONE card per artist only.
- Card must be for sale at Greeting Card Universe.
- We will take an unlimited number of artists, including those who have submitted recently, HOWEVER I reserve the right to close a clinic for the day if the submissions become overwhelming. If the clinic has been closed, and you submit a card, your comment will be deleted.
- To submit a card for critique, post a link to the card at GCU in the comments section of this clinic post. Allowances will be made if you’ve had a card declined, or made a new design you’d like advice on. Give us the link where we can see the card, such as your private gallery, Flickr, etc.
- Any artist is free to comment and/or give a critique of a submitted card. HOWEVER, post-and-run comments like “great card” or “you suck” will not be tolerated, nor will abuse. Criticism should be constructive, not destructive. Play nice or you will be banned.
- I also won’t tolerate temper tantrums if you decide your “artistic integrity” is being stepped on because you asked for a critique, and someone told you the photo you’re using isn’t in focus. If you can’t take honest criticism, don’t submit. Once gets you a warning; twice and you’re banned from submitting in the future.
- Artists who critique may do so by giving their opinion, posting an example of another card, or pointing the submitter to a video, on-line article, or other helpful suggestion.
- Don’t forget that artists who are giving you tips and helpful advice are volunteering their time and trouble. Be nice. A link back to their store on your website or blog is appreciated (but not mandatory).
- You are free not to take any advice offered. There’s no guarantee any card will be a bestseller, so don’t come into the clinic with unrealistic expectations.
- Rules may change as we go along and we see how things turn out, okay?
So without any further ado, I declare this week’s Critique Clinic open!
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Tips & Tricks: Foreign Language Cards
International artists at GCU have an advantage – they can include foreign language cards (non-English) in many categories. We do it, and try to incorporate cards in other languages with every new design if we can. But unless you’re a native speaker or studied a language in school, it can be downright impossible to get that non-English phrase right. Here are some tips that may help you.
TIP: Do not – and I mean, do not – rely on Google Translate, Babelfish, or any other on-line translation program. Such programs rely on literal translation, which is often incorrect. If in doubt, stick to basic phrases like Happy Birthday and leave well enough alone.
TIP: Don’t show up in translators’ forums or language forums and ask folks to help you with free translation services. Most of these people translate for a living and they charge for their time. Asking them to do it for free makes you look like a shmuck. And if you do it anyway, you’ll be interrogated as to why you’re asking in the first place.
TIP: If you want to do cards in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanscrit and other languages that don’t use a Western-style alphabet, you won’t be able to see the characters unless you download and install an appropriate font. And don’t assume that using romanization of a phrase (that is, phonetically spelling out a word or phrase as it sounds in the Western alphabet as opposed to using Cyrillic, for example) is going to fly. Most of the time, it doesn’t. Why? Because there’s little standardized spelling when converting to a Western format.
TIP: I’ve created several .psd files in Photoshop which contain, in layers, phrase such as Happy Birthday or Happy Easter or Merry Christmas in many languages, so it’s very easy for me to create a new series of foreign language cards from my design. Just pop them out assembly-line style! 🙂
The Translation Assistance thread in the GCU Forum is a good place to start. Ask fellow artists for help and you’ll likely get an answer along with the reassurance that a native speaker is giving you good information.
You can find Happy Birthday in many languages here.
Phrases and common words in a number of languages are available here.
Need to use diacritical marks? That’s the two dots over the a, the slash above the e, the wavy line above the n, etc? Don’t have or don’t know the keyboard shortcuts? Litetype’s Virtual Keyboard makes it cut-and-paste easy. And no, you can’t just drop the marks altogether and say good enough. You may be changing the meaning of the word if you do.
Now you should have a better idea of the do’s and don’t’s involved in creating foreign language cards. Good luck!
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Nuts and Bolts: Typography
To continue this week’s theme, we’re talking Typography.
Why should you care? Because you can have the most beautiful illustration, the most fabulous idea for the front of a greeting card, but if you choose the wrong font or set up your text in an ill-advised manner, it spoils the whole thing. Typography is important.
Bottom line: any typography you choose MUST be pleasing to the eye. When you choose a font or fonts, be aware of contrast, leading (that’s the space between the lines), kerning (that’s the space between the letters), length, and point size.
Remember, THE SOLE PURPOSE OF TYPOGRAPHY IS TO BE READ. Look at your typography at arm’s length. Get up and take a step back. Can you still read what you typed? If the font isn’t clearly readable, don’t use it.
KERNING: Some fonts weren’t created with proper leading or kerning. Just dashing your text off and slapping it on the card won’t look good, but if the font is otherwise well designed, you can play around with the leading and kerning in your graphics editing program. TIP: If you’re not sure the kerning is right, flip the text upside down. That way, you can clearly see the space between the letters without the word itself getting in your way.
FONT CONTRAST: If you’re planning to mix fonts – which can be a very good thing – be aware that fonts which are too similar don’t look good together, but neither do fonts that are too different. Again, the most hard and fast rule of typography is to keep it PLEASING TO THE EYE. TIP: to create CONTRAST not CONFLICT, you must consider weight (that’s how fat the font appears), size (mixing sizes is okay for emphasis), and whether or not the two (or more) fonts look good together. Fonts that look too much alike don’t work. Neither do fonts that aren’t similar enough.
SHADOW EFFECT: Sometimes, using shadow for emphasis can work wonders on a website, but will shadow print well on a greeting card? In my experience, the answer is… sometimes. Too heavy shadow, or shadow that hasn’t been applied properly, WILL NOT work on a greeting card. Shadow that makes a too heavy contrast won’t look good, either. Beware of blurring the lettering. Keep in mind that what looks eye-catching on a computer monitor won’t necessarily pop when printed on a card. TIP: When using darker background colors like green and blue, instead of black shadow, try a shadow in a shade darker or lighter than your background. This can provide the emphasis needed without overdoing it.
OTHER TEXT EFFECTS: I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it – quit using text effects like beveling. Even web designers aren’t using beveling anymore. That effect came and went 20 years ago. It doesn’t look good printed 2D on a card. Let me repeat that – beveling does not print well. Period. Your cards will look much more professional if you are more judicious in your choices. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with flat text. It’s a flat card, after all. 🙂 In fact, most 3D type effects don’t print well. TIP: Print a sample out for yourself before submitting your design.
RIGHT FONT, RIGHT OCCASION: Fonts do have their own character (except Comic Sans, which has none). Choose the correct font considering the occasion you’re designing the card for. TIP: Avoid fonts that are too gimmicky unless you’re creating a “bespoke” font – that is, a font you’ve created with your own hand, which becomes more of an artistic element than an actual typeface.
Finally, just keep in mind the single most important thing: TYPOGRAPHY MUST BE READABLE AND PLEASING TO THE EYE. If you aren’t sure your design works, you can always submit a proposed design to the Critique Clinic for advice. Now go out there and have fun with fonts!
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Design Spotlight: Patty Cimlov-Zahares
We’re putting the Design Spotlight on Patty Cimlov-Zahares today – thanks for the smiles, Patty!
_________________________
Like probably most of us here at GCU, I’ve loved creating art since I first picked up a crayon. As a kid, I was always making greeting cards for friends and family. I can’t imagine doing any other kind of work for a living, although I don’t consider what I do as work, it’s more like a hobby where I get paid to do what I love.
This is my Mom in the early 50’s, striking a dramatic pose. She was actually imitating my grandmother (her mother-inlaw) who was a bit of a drama queen. My Mom loved spoofing people. The photo was taken by my Dad and I added the vintage background and photo corners to give it a nostalgic look. The Academy Awards came to mind when I found this photo, so I thought it would be a fun and unique way for a woman to send a thank you card to someone. I work in Photoshop and/or Illustrator and layout my cards in InDesign.
With my warped sense of humor and wild imagination, I love that I can do just about anything with Photoshop. To create this fun birthday card, I photographed the pansies and took some self-timer shots of myself. I exaggerated my features with Photoshop and laid out this card in Indesign.
I’m a native Californian and live in Discovery Bay with my husband, Mike and Riley, our spoiled Golden Receiver. I’ve been a graphic designer and art director for various ad agencies since the early 70s. In 1980, I started freelancing full time as Patty Cimlov-Zahares, Another Artist, designing everything from logos to ad campaigns, annual reports, brochures, point-of-purchase displays, web sites, etc. for large high tech companies and retail accounts.
After winning a few Hallmark Card contests, I got hooked on creating my own line of greeting cards, so I opened a store at GCU in November 2011. I have so much fun creating cards now, I sometimes have a tough time focusing on my advertising accounts. For fun, I also wrote and illustrated my children’s book, “Ugh! I’m a Slug.“
I love seeing everyone’s creations here at GCU and honored to be in the spotlight. Thank you! You guys are great!
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Dash of Inspiration – Typography Speaks
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
Typography Speaks Louder Than Words
Every week I stop by some of the online graphic art magazine sites to see the latest articles for designers. This past week, Smashing Magazine published a wonderful read about “visual language” and a designer’s use of typography to explore the interaction between the look of type and what the type actually says. Carolyn and Jessica; the authors of this article, do a fantastic job of providing both written and visual examples of how showing the same message in a design can be presented in a number of ways to convey and encourage a diversity of responses.
I think you’ll see here how important typography is to the overall design and that it should be kept in the forefront of the designer’s mind from the early moments of creating that design, particularly in greeting cards where both imagery and message are paramount to the customer. Typography should NEVER be an afterthought on the card face that gets stuffed wherever there is space left, the designer should know at the beginning of their card design where the text will go, what it’s visual attributes will be and how it will convey the message of the imagery it shares space with.
We’ve talked about typography before; so if you are new to the GCU Community Blog, be sure to visit our old posts where both Corrie and I have shared many great articles on typography for greeting cards as well as some terrific fonts for you to grab!
Image courtesy of SmashingMagazine.com
On my Facebook Fan page, I post links weekly to great CU downloads and often those are fonts. Here are links to some from the previous months posts and feel free to stop by and Like the Salon of Art Facebook Page to grab new goodies for your design arsenal every week!
See you next week!
When Typography Speaks Louder Than Words by Carolyn Knight, Jessica Glaser
Curse Casual Regular by Jayvee D. Enaguas
SpicyRice-Regular by Astigmatic
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Critique Clinic – April 14-15, 2012
How does it work? For three days a week (Friday-Sunday midnight), I will open the clinic to any artist who wants an honest peer review and critique of a card which gets plenty of clicks but no sales, so something’s probably not quite right, or you’ve got a new design you want to test drive, or you’re unsure about the marketability of a card. Or perhaps you’re a newbie who isn’t sure if a recently submitted card is up to a marketable standard. Anyone is welcome to participate. In fact, I encourage everyone to at least look at the cards in question and read the critique comments – you may learn something. The purpose of the clinic is to help artists improve the commercial appeal and marketability of their cards.
THE RULES
- ONE card per artist only.
- Card must be for sale at Greeting Card Universe.
- We will take an unlimited number of artists, including those who have submitted recently, HOWEVER I reserve the right to close a clinic for the day if the submissions become overwhelming. If the clinic has been closed, and you submit a card, your comment will be deleted.
- To submit a card for critique, post a link to the card at GCU in the comments section of this clinic post. Allowances will be made if you’ve had a card declined, or made a new design you’d like advice on. Give us the link where we can see the card, such as your private gallery, Flickr, etc.
- Any artist is free to comment and/or give a critique of a submitted card. HOWEVER, post-and-run comments like “great card” or “you suck” will not be tolerated, nor will abuse. Criticism should be constructive, not destructive. Play nice or you will be banned.
- I also won’t tolerate temper tantrums if you decide your “artistic integrity” is being stepped on because you asked for a critique, and someone told you the photo you’re using isn’t in focus. If you can’t take honest criticism, don’t submit. Once gets you a warning; twice and you’re banned from submitting in the future.
- Artists who critique may do so by giving their opinion, posting an example of another card, or pointing the submitter to a video, on-line article, or other helpful suggestion.
- Don’t forget that artists who are giving you tips and helpful advice are volunteering their time and trouble. Be nice. A link back to their store on your website or blog is appreciated (but not mandatory).
- You are free not to take any advice offered. There’s no guarantee any card will be a bestseller, so don’t come into the clinic with unrealistic expectations.
- Rules may change as we go along and we see how things turn out, okay?
So without any further ado, I declare this week’s Critique Clinic open!
GCU Community 