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!
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Design Contest: Let it Snow!
REMINDER: You’ve got a few more days until the end of our Design Contest: Let It Snow – December 12th, to be exact. On December 13th, I’ll post all the entries and open the poll so voting can begin. If you have a Christmas card design featuring SNOW, submit it! You could win a prize! And when voting opens, don’t forget the encourage folks to vote for you. Every vote counts – not just GCU artists, but everybody!
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Design Spotlight: Anura Design Studio
Today, the Design Spotlight falls on Kathleen Cheldelin of Anura Design Studio. Her chosen card is a recent Design of the Day winner. Thanks for stopping by, Kathleen!
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I grew up loving to draw and paint. Creating Christmas designs is a special pastime for me because at an early age my Mom encouraged me to share my talent. She would wrap the gift packages in white paper and I would draw and later paint holiday designs on each package. These childhood treasures became a big hit with family members and bring back many fond memories.
For many years I did commissioned portrait drawing, mostly of children and pets, that provided supplemental income for college, family and later teaching projects. After retiring from teaching and struggling with arthritis in my hands, I discovered digital art and it has opened up a whole new world of creative expression for me.
I feel so fortunate that I found Greeting Card Universe as an outlet for my creative juices. I’ve learned much from the many creative artists on the site who are very supportive and willing to share their expertise. It is great fun and very rewarding to create a design that someone finds meaningful for expressing and/or celebrating a memorable moment in their life.
This little snowman with blue fuzzy hat and mittens was first created for my first grandchild many years ago and what a surprise for me when I discovered that I could recreate him digitally. The pen tablet, mouse and supportive art applications are a wonder!
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Custom Corner: Barbara Schreiber
Today is the first of a new series I’m calling Custom Corner, where we’ll be highlighting an artist who’s done a custom job for a shopper, and experienced a success story. Our own Mindy came up with the idea, and is providing the information. We invite all featured artists to add their own story in the comments.
Today, for our inaugural post, we’ve chosen Barbara Schreiber, whose recent holiday greeting card featuring a lacy Christmas box with tags on a gray background has a lot of modern flair. Good luck, Barbara, with your sales!
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Christmas Blessings - Barbara Schreiber (original design)
Custom design by Barbara Schreiber
Request: “Please change Merry Christmas to Season’s Greetings on the red tag. Add “CCSO” on green tag to read: To a great CCSO colleague.”
Result: “Thank you so much for accommodating my requested change on the holiday card. The Sheriff loved the card so much, we ordered an additional 21 cards to send to his Command staff in addition to the Admin Assistants.”
GCU Community 