Blast From the Past: Designer’s Tips for Photo Cards
Here’s another Blast From the Past – an article from an August Newsletter that you may have missed. Enjoy!
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Designer’s Tips for Creating Photo Cards
Since Photo Cards are the hottest topic at GCU right now, with virtually every designer feverishly creating and uploading cards, I thought I’d talk about some of the slightly more technical aspects to Photo Cards that you may not know.
The Bigger It Is, the Better It’s Liked: At a bare minimum, the photo area (this is the transparent spot where the shopper’s photo will go) should take up 1/4 of the card’s surface area. However, market research has shown that consumers prefer the purpose of the card to showcase their photo, not the artist’s work (which should enhance, rather than dominate). The bigger the space you leave for the shopper to fill, the happier they are. If possible, try to use at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the card’s surface for the photo area, if not more.
For the Purpose, Please: One of the worst things you can do is take an existing card design, and try to shoehorn a space out of it to make it a Photo Card. This does not work. In a lot of cases, it looks exactly like what it is: an afterthought. You’ll have much more success designing Photo Cards from the ground up.
Elementary, My Dear Artist: Again, we’re going back to that research thing. Shoppers love Photo Cards where an element of the design will interact with their photo (such as a frame with part of the flower detail coming over the photo). It looks cool, but you need to be careful of a couple of things. First, don’t let the element be too intrusive – that great whacking snowman you designed may look great, but if Frosty’s taking up half the photo area, that’s too much of a good thing. And second, always be aware that in general, when uploading their photo, shoppers will try to put their face in the center of the photo area; if the card is meant to be sent by a family or group, faces will be going across the length (or breadth) of the space, so never position an element that will obscure those smiles.
The Cutting Edge: At the moment, one of the hottest trends is the 100% Photo Card (that’s what I’m calling it)- meaning the shopper’s photo takes up the full 5×7 front of the card, with some kind of design element, such as a customizable text box, small banner, and/or discreet graphic somewhere that won’t interfere with the photo’s subject.
Now you’ve got a few tips to get started, or help you refine your existing plans. Go for it, and happy designing!
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Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah,
Joyous Solstice, and Happy Festivus!
We’d like to wish all our fellow Greeting Card Universe artists a wonderful, magical, joy-filled holiday season, and a wonderful New Year.
In 2012, may we all be blessed with…
The creativity and imagination that leads to great designs
Lots of inspiration to get our artistic juices flowing
Plenty of ways to expand our knowledge
Heaps of marketing and promotional opportunities
And finally, MORE GREETING CARD SALES!
Hope you and your loved ones enjoy a safe, healthy and happy holiday! We’ll be back on December 27th with some most Blasts from the Past.
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Blast From the Past: 5 Photo Card Tips
From a past Newsletter, here’s an article you may have missed the first time around! BTW, don’t forget that it takes 3-6 months for new cards to be indexed by search engines, so you should be designing and submitting holiday cards in July for any chance at sales in the same year. Otherwise, expect to see action next Christmas.
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Top Five Tips for Designing Photo Cards
Now I know some of you already have Photo Card templates available at places like Zazzle, and like me, you find this an exciting development. Others are completely new to the concept, or perhaps aren’t as confident as the seasoned pros, so I want to address them here in my Top Five Tips for Designing Photo Cards.
First, don’t panic. Whatever graphics editing program you use (Photoshop, PSP, Gimp, etc) you will find tutorials on-line for how to work with transparent layers and make .png files. Learn how to do that first, as this knowledge is paramount to successfully creating Photo Card templates.
Second, study your market. Many on-line greeting card retailers offer Photo Cards these days. Go have a look at their offerings. Do your homework. Can you identify any trends?
Third, do your best. Treat new Photo Card designs exactly the same as you would any other design: it MUST have commercial appeal, be well composed and have eye appeal. Shoppers are more discerning than ever, and there’s plenty of competition out there for their hard-earned dollars. In addition, new Marketability Standards have to be met. If you aren’t sure, feel free to submit a new design to the Critique Clinic held on this blog every Friday-Saturday-Sunday.
Fourth, find a niche. You know everybody’s going to be designing Photo Card templates for the super, ultra popular categories like Christmas. But there are many other opportunities for sales if you design Photo Card templates for less well represented categories. Study the categories list. Identify categories that have few or no cards, and make some to fit.
Fifth, don’t be afraid to try something new. Shoppers tend to be a little more fickle when it comes to Photo Cards versus traditional greeting cards. They like what’s hot and new, so a Photo Card template that’s on the cutting edge one year may decrease in sales the next. Break out of a design rut by trying new ways to express your creativity. You may find that by staying on top of the trends, and offering new templates in a timely manner, you’ll see more sales.
And don’t forget to have fun!
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Dash of Inspiration – December 20, 2011
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
Let It Snow!
Happy Holidays to All and to All Great Creations!
This will be the last Dash of Inspiration post until the 9th of January. I’m about to get lost in the holidays for a couple of weeks, the only time off I take the whole year, and I imagine most of you are as well. So I leave you this year with a White Christmas!
Enjoy A Wintry Collection of Inspired Snow Sculptures, these are truly amazing creations and a feast for the eyes. And because I can not resist anything cuddly, here are 35 Photos of Truly Adorable Animals in the Snow that are so cute they can’t help but brighten your holiday! Both from our friends a Noupe.
I love to add snow to my wintery greetings so I’m going to play Santa and give you some wonderful brushes and tutorials to add snow to your greeting cards for 2012!
Let it Snow with Photoshop from TipsSquirrel they’re nuts about PS!
Create Snow with GIMP – TURN YOUR VOLUME DOWN! This starts with a load booming beat, but stops almost immediately 🙂
10 Snowflake Brushes for Paint Shop Pro by Sparking Tea at deviantArt
Amazing Snowfall Photoshop Brushes from Brush Lovers
ENJOY! May your season be filled with love and laughter!
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Design Contest: Let It Snow – THE RESULTS
Voting is closed, and it’s time to reveal the winner of our Design Contest: Let It Snow!
In Second Place, our Runner-Up is….. Sri Devi wih 96 votes!
And the Winner is….. Priyanka Rathod with 99 votes! Priyanka wins a $15 Amazon.com gift certificate.
I can tell these artists went out and did some serious promotion. Way to go!
Congratulations to everyone who entered, you’re all winners in my book. Stay tuned for a new Design Contest to take place after the beginning of the new year.
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Critique Clinic – December 16-18, 2011
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.
- 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 Spotlight: Ramelle Richardson
Today, the Spotlight’s on Ramelle Richardson – thanks for sharing!
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I have sold several of these, as well as “Welcome Home Airman”, a variation in the same series.Share this:
Design Contest: Let It Snow – Time to Vote!
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RULES: Anyone may vote. You may cast ONE vote only for your favorite card from the above greeting card designs. Voting will take place from December 13, 2011 until December 18, 2011. Results will be posted on December 19, 2011. The artist who receives the most votes will win a $15 Amazon.com gift certificate. Feel free to spread the word on your blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – every vote counts. Good luck & happy holidays!
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Dash of Inspiration – December 12, 2011
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
Facelifts for Old Cards
When I joined GCU in April of 2009, I came with no experience for Greeting Card creation; certainly not the All Occasion type that are big sellers at GCU. As most artists who’ve spent time in the gallery and art show environments, I sold my work on Fine Art Greeting Cards; those blank cards with the same art which was offered as Open Edition or Limited Edition prints, but had never attempted cards for specific relations and occasions. So my time at GCU has been a huge learning experience.
The cards that I create today are far superior in the quality of design layout and typography to those cards in my first year with GCU. This does not mean that some of those cards never sold, in fact many did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t cringe when I see them in my store today. I have always been my worse critic and as I’ve grown in all areas of my art and photography over the years, I often look back at work I once was proud of and am embarrassed to have it sitting next to my current creations. Knowing that the ‘weeding process’ was in full swing, I began giving my old cards a facelift.
This week, I thought I would share my own redesign efforts to offer examples of what was considered, even if only by me during my own weeding efforts, designs with an unprofessional look along side the same card with it’s new facelift. Perhaps this will inspire more of you to take another look at cards you created a year or two ago. You should all see a significant change and improvement in your style of layout, use of text and overall design qualities. Every time we create a new card we should be learning something new which we can apply to future designs and to these much needed redesigns.
Each of these examples has a link below it which can be clicked on, and you will be taken to a nice large view in Flickr so you can see the difference between old and new.
Image 1:
The reviewers beat me to this series of cards and many of these cards had sold (as is) both at GCU and elsewhere, but the reviewers were right. The photograph with the carpet and baby feet was not professional and not appealing. Since these were returned to me to improve the image, I was able to swap the image out for the whole series with a much more professional looking photograph. While I was at it, improve the text and even the color . . . what was I thinking when I made these? Surely you will all agree that what the reviewer saw made perfect sense and in returning it to me I was able to redesign the entire series with a much improved design.
Image 2:
This patriotic card series had unprofessional text effects; the unsightly ‘glow’ to get the text lifted off the background I now understand to be a technique which professional designers do not use excessively like I did. Also the overall tonal values of this card and the denim background are flat and just not appealing. My redesign of this series improved the saturation, but also used professional techniques for text layout. The result is a much more professional looking design.
Image 3:
YUCK! Again, why people are buying these cards is beyond me! The sepia tone looks for like jaundice and the text is not only TOO BIG as if I’m yelling at the recipient, but once again I used that awful beveling technique which on text is rarely professional looking. Wedding and anniversary cards either need to be very elegant or fun, anything in between is usually ignored by the consumers. I now understand that text choice, color combinations and visual harmony are critical to standing strong against the competition for these categories and my redesign reflects what I’ve learned.
Image 4:
Oh, I cringe at this card and yet again it sold many times for male relations most likely because of the wording rather than the image and layout. This image was from those days (well in the past now) that I played too much with Photoshop filters, in this case Posterization; a filter I never go near anymore unless I’m making a poster for a play or event. About four years ago I stepped foot into art licensing world for getting my art on products and learned the lesson about digital manipulation using these types of filters. Professional agencies, such as Art Licensing & Publishing Companies see this as an immediate red flag that the artist is an amateur. Unfortunately when I created this card, I didn’t remember that lesson! The redesign has the imaged changed for a painting I’d done, but I wished to keep the nautical theme because the message was the key for this card and a MUCH improved text choice and layout.
Image 5:
This card series has also been quite popular. I’ve sold about 250 cards on GCU alone between custom sales and original versions, but when I look at this series, once again I don’t see professional designs, whether they sold or not. The overall design is cluttered with all the borders and the text on the background. The typography is also unprofessional, both because of the beveling and because of the layout. Again I realize that the main selling point of this series is the message, but this series is in-process as I write this with a facelift that softens the design, reduces the clutter and makes for a more elegant card that will stand proudly against the competition.
As I continue to weed my own designs and improve them with all that I’ve learned over the past couple of years, I hope that by offering these examples of my own embarrassments I might help some of you see your own cards with new eyes; or inspire those of you who haven’t found the time yet to dig in and see what treasures you can create with a few tweaks on those old designs!
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Critique Clinic – December 9-11, 2011
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.
- 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 