Design Contest – VOTE!
TIME TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE
ST. PATRICK’S DAY CARD!
The submissions are in for our Design Contest: The Wearin’ O’ the Green! Here are the submissions made by our artists, and below you’ll find a poll. VOTE for your favorite St. Patrick’s Day card until March 7th.
Whoever receives the most votes will win a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate or 5 free card credits.
Every vote counts, so be sure to promote on Facebook, Twitter, other social media sites, forums, groups, etc. Submitting artists should not forget to alert the artist whose card you’ve chosen to nominate.
On March 8th, I’ll announce the winner. Good luck!
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Challenge: Pin It to Win It
Greeting Card Universe has added a “PIN” button to all pages to make it easier for everyone to “pin” cards to Pinterest. What’s Pinterest? some of you ask. Here’s the scoop from their website:
“Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.”
The really cool thing about Pinterest is that you can create your own themed boards (I have one called “Cards I ❤ So Much” among others). You can re-pin what other people have pinned, too, and get followers (as well as follow others). It’s addictive. I pin many things including my Squidoo lenses, greeting cards, products, photographs, graphics, etc.
Joining Pinterest is invitation-only. If you want an invitation, leave a comment on this post or you can make an application via Pinterest and wait for approval.
If you’re already pinning, let us know so we can “follow” you.
To make this fun, let’s have a little challenge, shall we?
YOUR CHALLENGE
St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, so over the next week, I want you to create a new board – Favorite St. Patrick’s Day cards – and pin FIVE cards from GCU in a St. Paddy’s Day theme. You have until March 7th to leave a link to the board in the comments of this post. On March 8th, I’ll do a random drawing of all participants for a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate OR 5 free card credits to the lucky winner. Let’s have some fun!
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Design Spotlight: Vicky Rubin
Today, our Design Spotlight is focused on Vicky Rubin – thanks for the insight!
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Like many of us on GCU, I have been drawing and doodling my whole life. I’m lucky enough to be a published children’s book author and illustrator. Greeting cards and picture books have many things in common. The interplay between the text and image is important. I think it’s hard to do a successful humorous card (or book). When I see them, I’m impressed. My cards that sell are the ones where the words and art work together the best.
Mostly I work on a Wacom Cintiq, and sometimes on a Tablet PC–there is not much difference. Usually I work straight from the tablet. I tend to change things as I go along, so the flexibility of the tablet is great. I also work in watercolor with pen and ink, sometimes with crayon and pencil.
It was exciting to get Design of the Day the other day with this new card. It’s spring-like, and I’m glad spring is here. It came from a doodle that started out as a Fourth of July card—the flowers and hearts were like fireworks. (As I said, I change things a lot as I go!)
With all my characters, I focus on facial expression and (in this case) gesture, and try to keep it simple. In this case I didn’t do much writing of text, as the card is decorative and didn’t seem to need it. The cards I get bogged down on, that are too complex, end up not communicating as well. I see my style getting ever simpler and looser.
Looking to the future, I definitely plan to add more cards. Having worked in print publishing (as a copyeditor), I have not always welcomed the changes wrought by the Internet as audiences moved online. Happily, GCU helps us get our work in front of people.
Thanks for reading!
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Dash of Inspiration – A Matter of Perspective
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
A Matter of Perspective
I ran across a fun collection of photographs in a post called Unusual and Bizarre Building Designs By Aquil Akhter courtesy of Noupe.com and enjoyed it so much, I thought some of you might as well. I was immediately thrown back in time to one of my first photography classes where one of our assignments was to rent an old 4×5 View camera and head out to photograph, develop and print architectural subjects. Wow, was that ever an unusual experience and one that truly gave me an appreciation, not only for the skill required to take marketable architectural photographs with buildings that don’t look like they are falling down and level horizon lines, but also for those amazing photojournalists who lugged the old 4×5 beasts around the world to provide us with images of life beyond our own country – odd where inspiration comes from sometimes!
So, my flash-backs have provided this week’s inspiration bringing you 50 Beautiful Examples of Architecture Photography by Noupe.com, as well as tutorials for both photographers and a simple tutorial on how to draw perspective. I also included some shapes and brushes for your tool kit – as always read the TOU carefully.
The Architectural Photographer’s Rules of Thumb by Alan Blakely
Photographing Buildings by Geoff Lawrence
9 Architectural Photography Tips by Natalie Johnson
Avoiding & Correcting Linear Distortion in Buildings by Photo Tuts Plus
How To Draw Two-Point Perspective, with Karl Gude
57 Building Shapes – Vector Buildings Courtesy of All Silhouettes.com
Cityscape and skyline brushes by ~cLuddy at deviantArt
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Critique Clinic – February 24-26, 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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Design Contest: The Wearin’ O’ the Green
DESIGN CONTEST: THE WEARIN’ O’ THE GREEN
Let’s find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, shall we?
St. Patrick’s Day is coming (March 17) and I’m in the mood for some lovely leprechauns. Choose your favorite St. Patrick’s Day card – designed by another GCU artist, then give us a link in the comments section of this post. One submission per artist, please. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!
Deadline to submit your entry is February 29th (we might as well make Leap Day count for something, right?). Voting commences on March 1st and will continue until March 6th. The winner will be announced on March 7th.
NOTE: Artists who make a blog post about the card they’ve chosen will receive a special advantage – also submit a link to your blog post, and I’ll award you three extra votes!
The artist who receives the most votes will win a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate or 5 free card credits – their choice. Be sure to drum up votes on Facebook, Twitter, other social media sites, forums, groups, etc.
I want to see lots of entries in this contest, folks, and good luck to all!
Now go put some green on your blog before you get pinched. 🙂
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Design Spotlight: Liz Van Steenburgh
Our Design Spotlight today falls on Liz Van Steenburgh of Starstock Greetings – thanks for letting us catch a glimpse of you and your work!
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I’m Liz Van Steenburgh from Starstock Greetings. I’m a self-taught photographer and graphic designer from rural New York State.
After many years with a strong interest in photography and other creative endeavors, I took the plunge about 7 years ago with a cheap $100 camera and joined a few stock photography agencies, when they were all brand new businesses. Being a stock photographer has taught me quite alot about photography and creativity in general. I now work full time for one of the major stock photo companies in a much less glamorous position 🙂
My focus soon turned to graphic design, and I learned about GCU through my friend and fellow contributor, Denise, from dbvisualarts, and started making cards from my stock photos. Needing a little more variety, I started buying commercial-use graphics and clipart from people with much more talent for Illustration than I could ever hope to have.
Thanks to their talent and generosity in offering products and licenses that allow me to create cards and products from their work, I now enjoy a fairly successful graphic design business, making cards, invitations and other printable items. I really enjoy mixing graphics, type and colors to come up with something new. I also enjoy blending my photographs with grungy textures to give them a whole new (old) look, as I’m a big fan of that whole aged, textured, torn and tattered look.
Despite all the graphic art I have purchased and all the photographs I have taken, my best selling card series at GCU doesn’t incorporate graphics OR photography. I made this using some basic Photoshop shapes and 1 bow brush. It continues to sell constantly, much to my amazement. I guess there’s something to be said about “less is more”. I hope it encourages those who may feel that only professional photographers or artists can succeed, because this card clearly shows that is not necessarily the case at all.
Thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about myself with all of you.
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Nuts and Bolts: When To Make Holiday Cards
When To Make Holiday Cards
It’s a new year, and we’ve already had a couple of holidays come and go. One thing I notice in the New Cards section – which, like most artists, I check out now and then – is that when a holiday approaches, there’s a sudden flurry of cards uploaded for that holiday. I’ve also seen in the Forum when artists make a post about how long it’s taking to get a card reviewed, and how much they want it approved to be in time for a holiday that’s just around the corner.
Also, like many artists, I’ve experienced longer delays in approvals during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season due to the sheer number of new cards being uploaded for those important card-giving holidays.
It’s been stated time and time again that if you want your holiday cards in time to sell, you need to get them done 3-6 months in advance. Why? Because that’s how long it can take for search engines to index your new content. Last minute cards rarely sell since they haven’t been around long enough.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I, too, make holiday cards at the last minute. I mean, are you really in the mood to make Christmas cards in July? But there’s something I’ve learned over the course of my four years as an artist at Greeting Card Universe, and it’s this … even six months is probably not enough lead-in time for most cards.
If we make Christmas cards this year, even if we make them in February, we’re not expecting sales this year. Oh, we may sell one or two to browsing customers, but it’s the second year when we tend to make more sales. The third year is even better. After that, a card’s performance is usually pretty consistent. We’re designing cards for the long haul, looking 2-3 years into the future, not just 3-6 months.
How can you help overcome this gap between designing a card and selling that design? Specific marketing can gain more attention in a more timely fashion. But if you’re content to sit back and do nothing once the initial upload has been made, it can be a couple of years before you begin to see sales of a new card design.
The name of the greeting card game really is PATIENCE.
So observe the 3-6 month lead-in time for new greeting cards if you want. Make your Christmas designs in July if you can (if only to avoid the December rush). But don’t worry if you can’t get cards approved “in time.” You’re well in time for next year’s sales.
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Dash of Inspiration – Blue Skies
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
Blue Skies
Artist’s who paint can create the sky in their paintings any way they wish; in rich blue hues or deep stormy grays, but photographers must make a decision at the time of capture as to what they ultimately wish to portray.
To the human eye the sky should be blue on a sunny day, not white and washed out. Professional photographers know that regardless of what the sky looks like on any given day while out shooting, the final ‘print’ needs to be rich in color and contrast in order to attract attention.
When out taking photographs where sky will be included, ask yourself this; “Am I taking this photograph to document the area, therefore using it in journalism, or am I taking this photograph to use creatively on greeting cards, calendars, and/or prints to frame?” If the answer is for use in journalism, then capture the sky as is and you’ve done your job. If the answer is to use it to sell as an artistic rendering of the moment, then a sky without color, whether sunny or stormy, is simply not marketable. The average customer will not be drawn to a photograph with a ‘washed out sky’ (a sky with no detail and little to no color).
So today I thought I’d share some links to help the photographers out there to both improve the sky during capture and when necessary how to punch it up in post processing. There are so many ways to improve a weak sky, you are sure to find methods that suit your style.
This first link is to an article I wrote a couple years ago on Traditional Camera Filter Recommendations for use on the camera when out shooting and also a link on how to properly use a Polarizing Filter.
DSLR Tips: Using polarizing filters video tutorial by: CameraLabs
card by: M Brandes at Photography by Melissa Brandes
Post-processing is always an option for old photographs and for those occasions when you simply could not improve the sky during capture. If your exposure was calculated well enough that you actually captured the detail in the sky even though it appears washed out, you can bring those details out; and for the really tough cases, you can even replace the sky entirely through post-processing methods. Below are some tutorials and goodies to make your skies really pop. Many professional photographers, myself included, also have the Topaz Labs bundle which makes many of these types of tedious tasks a breeze. So if you are interested, they have 30-day trial offers and you may choose individual plug-ins, so look them up.
Enhancing The Sky In A Photo Tutorial by PhotoEssentials.com
Intensify A Dull Sky Tutorial by PSHero
How to Replace a Sky in Photoshop by Helen Bradley at Digital Photography School
21 Realistic Sky Gradients by Adobe.com
I hope I’ve inspired you to explore how you can get your gray skies to clear up!
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Critique Clinic – February 18-19, 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 