Nuts and Bolts: Artist’s Notes and Product Description
ARTIST’S NOTES:
A Reason You May Be Invisible to Potential Buyers
Let’s talk about the Artist’s Notes field, shall we? This field accompanies every single card you make at Greeting Card Universe, yet many of us (myself included) don’t always take advantage of it. I’ve also seen artists use this field to add some puzzling, irrelevant information to their cards. Few of us use it properly, which is big shame, because the Artist’s Notes field is a lot more important than you think.
Why? Well, there are two reasons. One has to do with shoppers, the other with search engines (that SEO thing, but don’t run away – I swear it isn’t that complicated).
I’ll start with SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization). Simply put, search engines use complex algorithms to determine a web page’s place (ranking) when it comes up in search results.
So that part is pretty clear, but what can you do to improve your web page’s ranking, and make it appear higher in the list of results? And why is should you care?
You need to care because each and every one of your cards sits on its own web page. Yes, those pages are hosted on GCU, but there are still individual pages, each of which will be indexed by search engines. For example, when someone does a search on Google for “purple elephant niece’s 14th birthday card,” your lovely lavender elephant 14th birthday for niece greeting card on GCU will come up in the results. Where your card appears in the results – on page one, two, three, or page two million – will likely affect your sales.
Being number one on page one is preferred (much like an Olympic athlete would much rather win gold than bronze, or nothing at all).
How do you improve that ranking? Search engines are constantly tweaking and changing their algorithms so they can offer the most relevant results in a search. Exactly WHAT criteria is used by a search engine is secret and complex. However, I can tell you that while good and relevant keywords remain an important part of allowing your cards to be indexed properly, it’s HOW you use those keywords that will affect you the most.
Search engines love original content. Let me repeat that because it’s important to our discussion – search engines LOVE original content. What that means is, while search engines will definitely use strings of keywords as part of their ranking system, they tend to give preference to sites that use those keywords as part of original content.
Inside Verse: "Hope you gobble till you wobble!" - artist Corrie Kuipers
I’ll give you an example. This is a card I recently designed and uploaded (yes, I’m kind of late for this year’s Thanksgiving, but I tend to work a year ahead). It’s a “Happy Thanksgiving from all of us” card.
These are the keywords I used: thanksgiving card from all of us, thanksgiving card from group, turkey, happy thanksgiving, gobble till you wobble, pilgrims, thanksgiving dinner, feast, harvest.
So far, so good. HOWEVER, to take maximum advantage, I now include a brief description in the Artist’s Notes, using as many keywords as possible in a relevant way.
Here’s what it says: “A turkey pilgrim pair stands on top of a “subway art” inspired banner in autumn colors with a Thanksgiving feast mini word cloud on a light wood grain background. A playful and trendy Thanksgiving card that can be sent by a group.”
Notice how I’ve covered my bases in the description?
That will make the search engines happy.
It will make shoppers happy, too. This is the second reason you shoud be using your Artist’s Notes this way. Have you ever seen a catalog that didn’t have product descriptions, just pictures and prices? Of course not! And if you put on your shopper’s hat, you’ll realize that someone shopping for greeting cards really likes to see a nice description of what they’re buying. It just make your design that much more attractive.
Unless you’ve only got a few cards in your store, I’m not advocating you go back and add descriptions like that to all your greeting cards at GCU. Lord knows, I sure can’t. Not enough hours in the day! But since I learned this trick, I will be adding product descriptions to my cards from now on.
Writing good, relevant product descriptions is, I admit, not for everyone. To help you out, tomorrow I’ll be posting another Nuts & Bolts, this one explaining how to write a product description, what to include, and what to avoid.
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Design Spotlight: Doreen Erhardt
Today, our Design Spotlight is on Doreen Erhardt of Salon of Art – a hard working and inventive artist who never fails to motivate and inspire, and is always generous with her time and tips. Thanks, Doreen!
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When asked to choose a best seller or favorite card, this one came to mind first.
I usually design for the card category (as stated in Corrie’s Greeting Card Design 101!), but every once in awhile I get inspired by something that I just have to do, even when at the time the art has no specific purpose. Being someone who cannot draw or paint on an easel, but have been learning to attempt such creations digitally, I try to follow through with inspiration when it hits me.
Such was the case for this digital pencil drawing; “Smug Pug”. It was my first attempt at a digital charcoal drawing so I simply had to give it a try. When I was finished, though I was pleased with the result, I had to laugh while asking myself “now what do I do with it?”
Prior to this piece I had yet to find the time to design cards for very many of the obscure categories at GCU, but when I looked at this face I knew I could make it work for several of the Get Well categories. This Kidney Stones Get Well which on the inside reads “Here’s hoping you recover quickly and are out marking your territory again soon!” , was the first category I chose and from there realized if I stuck with the ‘doggie lingo’ on the inside of the card, several of those categories might just work.
To my surprise ALL have sold regularly! I’ve had so much fun seeing this grumpy pug on these silly cards being selected to put a smile on so many faces, just when they need it most!
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Dash of Inspiration – August 15, 2011
A Dash of Inspiration…A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
Amazing Animal Photography
Animals of all kinds have inspired artists and photographers since the beginning of time. For some these wonderful creatures are rendered with such realism that they come to life before your very eyes; for others the whimsical, silly and comical side of animals is brilliantly portrayed. So what makes great animal imagery?
A mood and/or expression is important when capturing an animal, this gives the photograph, painting or illustration life. The image has to express character, through action or expression. Animals are living beings, so they have to speak to the viewer in some way. That can be serious or funny, sad or happy, subtle or powerful…but it has to be a part of the overall imagery. Those who paint and illustrate animals have much more freedom to portray these creatures in a variety of wacky and whimsical ways than does the photographer.
Because photography is based in realism, the technical aspects of the photograph are as critically viewed as the subject itself. Color is critical. I see far too many purple gorillas and black bears in animal photography and it’s disturbing. If you are selling the shot in full color, then get the color right! If you are offering the photograph as a black and white, then get proper tonal values. When the animal’s eyes are visible in a photograph they need to be in sharply focused, clear and vivid. Many great animal photographs are ruined because of these five things:
- Sharp focus is on their neck not their eyes. Rule is Nose and Eyes MUST BE in focus
- Eyes are muddy therefore don’t have nice clarity and depth
- Flash/red-eye; whether it’s yellow, green or red…its all bad flash eye and unacceptable as a marketable photograph.
- Color cast and/or poor tonal values. Animal photography has to be realistic! Great color and if in grayscale then the range needs to go from rich blacks to bright white.
- Important elements are cutoff due to poor composition, i.e. ears, paws, etc…
From the Stray Muses (TM) A Language Unspoken Collection by Doreen Erhardt
All of the above can take the life out of the animal and render the photograph unmarketable. Enjoy these links to the Infinity Art Gallery Animal Art Exhibit Finalists and this one from our friends at Noupe “If Animals Were Models”. For anyone who missed it; Peggy Mundell – Photographing Pets article is wonderful. I’ve also included a link to Get the Red Out! for tips on photographing eyes and avoiding red-eye, as well as a Photoshop tutorial to remove red eye in your digital darkroom.
No excuses now! Go create brilliant animal imagery for your greeting cards!
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Critique Clinic – August 12-14, 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’s details page 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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GCU Community Newsletter #14 – August 11, 2011
Lots of cool stuff happening with our GCU artist community, so let’s get right into it!
Our latest guest blogs: Doreen Erhardt’s regular column, A Dash of Inspiration – a Cup of Creativity brought us a link to her newest Squidoo lens which is all about floral photography for beginners (but pros will get a lot out of it, too). Tanya (Moonie) gave us a well researched and very informative post about photographing teddy bears and how copyright may affect your right to make greeting cards from your shots. Sheryl Kasper talked about how to fix a ho-hum flower photo and turn it into marketable gold. Sun at Night gave us a very informative article on photographing in public places, with some surprising do’s and don’ts as well as important resources for photographers.
We had no newsletter last week, so let’s go on: Doreen’s latest A Dash of Inspiration – a Cup of Creativity brought us some places to go for photo card inspiration. The Inspiration Station followed that up with even more places to get inspired, including links to scrapbook templates. And finally, Peggy Mundell gave us a class in before and after photos, telling us how she turned so-so photos into commercially appealing shots.
Until next time, don’t forget to pass the love around!
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Top Five Tips for Designing Photo Cards
With GCU’s announcement that a new tool for creating Photo Card templates has come on-line, many artists are scrambling to design cards for every category.
At the moment, all cards will go into your private gallery to be released on September 1st, when the new tool goes live for customers.
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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LIGHTNING ROUND: BUTTERFLIES
We’re having a new Lightning Round for our bloggers, and the subject is butterflies (inspired by the “butterflies in the stomach” currently experienced by many artists).
The rules are simple: make a new blog post or a new Squidoo lens on the topic of butterflies. You can write about photographing butterflies, making scrapbook pages with butterflies, embroidering butterflies, drawing butterflies, collecting butterflies, creating a butterfly garden…in short, if it involves a butterfly of any kind, you’re good to go. Include links to 3 cards at GCU with a butterfly theme (any category). Give us a link to your blog post in the comments of this Newsletter post or send me an email.
Deadline is August 22nd, and I will make a master post of links on August 23rd to be shared with all participants.
And yep, there’s a prize! I’ll let the winner choose between a $25 gift certificate to Amazon, a $25 gift certificate to Starbucks, or $25 worth of free cards at GCU. How’s that for cool?
So start flapping, folks, ’cause I’m getting butterflies just thinking about the great posts we’re going to see!
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The Critique Clinic is open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday to all GCU artists seeking peer review, advice and tips. Any artist may submit or leave a critique. All artists are encouraged to check the comment threads – you’ll learn something that may help you with your own marketability.
Greeting Card Universe continues to seek new opportunities to promote itself (and you, too). They’ve got a guest post on the History of Halloween at the A Frugal Life blog. Nice!
There is a GCU artists’ group on Facebook? We encourage you to join, post cards for your fellow artists to admire, share news, and have fun!
The Salon of Art Facebook fan page (by Doreen Erhardt) is a great place to go to find links to all kinds of helpful resources like tutorials, brushes, news about competitions and contests, marketing tips and a lot more. Check it out!
Our own Peggy Mundell (DogBreedz) is in the running to join the Channel 10 San Diego A-List, but she needs your votes to get there. You can vote for her here. Locals will have the opportunity after voting to purchase a photo shoot for $80 ($150 value). Deadline’s August 27th, so get moving and get voting!
If you have a question about one of your cards being “held” for review, or if your card has been declined due to the new Marketability Standards, write to cardreview@greetingcarduniverse.com and include the PID# of the card in question.
DID YOU KNOW you can “like” this newsletter or any post on the GCU Community blog, or include them in your social bookmarks? Or Google +1 them! Just click the title of the post, which takes you to the permanent link page. At the bottom of the page you’ll see buttons for social sites like Facebook, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc.
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The next Newsletter will be published on August 18, 2011
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Guest Blogger: Peggy, Photos Before and After
How to Tweak Your Photographs
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Inspiration Station: Photo Card Inspiration
PHOTO CARDS & SCRAPS: An Odd but Useful Couple
With GCU’s new Custom Photo Cards, artists are scrambling to figure out how to make eye-catching designs that will entice shoppes to buy. Some artists have already been doing personalized photo cards at Zazzle. Others don’t even know where to start. Well, if you’re looking for new source of inspiration, try scrapbooking layouts. Sounds crazy, I know, but it makes a certain kind of sense.
About 99.9% of the time, a scrapbook page includes a photo (sometimes two, or three, or more), and layout templates can give you ideas about how to creatively incorporate spaces for photos in your own designs. Here are some places to go for inspiration + a few other things I thought you might find helpful:
Scrapbook.com Gallery
With almost a million and a half layout templates and page examples, this is a resource you can spend days combing through. New stuff is added quite frequently.
Free Digital Scrapbooking Layout Ideas
No frills templates for you to study without the distractions.
Scrap Girls Gallery
Another place to find colorful, fun examples of scrapbook pages and get a good idea about layouts.
Photo Card Boutique
A nice place to explore. These are actual greeting cards that you can view to get a good idea of what’s hot in the personalized photo card world.
SLR Camera Simulator
This one’s a bonus for the photographers. It’s a site offering a free learning tool, a virtual simulation of a camera that allows you to experiment with all kinds of settings and see the outcome. Much fun!
Creature Comforts – Daily Inspiration
Another site offering color palettes taken from photographs. Very beautiful.
Before you start designing photo cards willy-nilly, I suggest you spend a couple of days studying the market trends, learning what’s hot, and above all, learning how to build a pleasing layout for your cards. A badly designed card will not attract buyers. Besides, you don’t want to waste your time creating cards that may be declined, do you? So do your homework first, absorb the basics, learn by example, and then have fun!
Please be aware that some scrapbooking sites offer “free” digital downloads of things like Photoshop brushes, digital kits with cute elements, fonts, etc. I want to point out that while these are free for personal use, they are not okay for commercial use (unless, in some cases, you purchase a special commercial license). Read the Terms of Use.
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Dash of Inspiration – August 8, 2011
A Dash of Inspiration…A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
New Photo Card Software at GCU!
GCU’s new Photo Card creation software is slick and I for one, LOVE IT! I have sold many of these types of cards on Zazzle because of the customer ease of use, though I have sold some on GCU in the past through customization, I also didn’t have many to offer due to the difficulties of the past when dealing with the customer. Now with GCU’s terrific new software this whole idea is sweet & easy for the artist…design once, sell tons!
I seek inspiration for this type of challenge by visiting the competitors, and I mean GCU competitors not my own fellow artists. Visit photo cards across the internet to get ideas for what you can do; especially places that seek submission and/or pay artists to create designs.
Today I offer a couple of links for inspiration from our competitors who include beautiful examples of photo cards – Photo Card offerings from Kodak– plus I’ve included a link to 30 Beautiful Photo Frames and Borders, Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes and Actions for you to peruse and download.
Enjoy!
Artist Doreen Erhardt, Salon of Art
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Critique Clinic – August 5-7, 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’s details page 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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Guest Blog: Sun at Night, Photographing in Public Spaces
Today’s guest blog comes from Sun at Night of Sun from Sun at Night Studios – a really hot topic at the moment for the photographers, and useful to know whether you’re designing greeting cards for mass market commercial use, or selling to micro-stock sites. Thank you, Sun at Night, for your hard work in researching this difficult topic!
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Beginner’s Guide to Photography in Public Spaces
How does a photographer create a photo in public spaces and use it in a commercial project? Believe it or not, this question is asked more times than anyone expects. The answer is simple, legally. To achieve this takes three things: Photography permits, property releases and model releases. To obtain these takes time, preparation and project planning.
Just what are public spaces? These are locations that entail: city streets, neighborhoods, businesses, residences, parks, gardens, county roads, beaches, some parking lots, and historical landmarks. All of these types of public spaces generally require a permit. A permit is often required when any kind of commercial photography is taking place. In some areas of the U.S. (California for example) it is based on commercial intent.
Commercial photography is defined as either photographs or professional photography services for sale or profit aside from filming for motion pictures or television. Many times when applying for permits there will be pre-requisites involved. These pre-requisites are constantly changing, and can range from simple requests for copies of itineraries or it can include proof of insurance for public land liability. Production insurance is more affordable than most people realize and it is always a good form of protection for any type of photography business.
A location permit is only the first step. Additional releases will more than likely be needed. If the public space location includes intellectual property that is copyrighted, trademarked, or privately owned property releases are generally required. Some common examples are statues, skyscrapers, bridges, and city seals or other insignia.
The reason that property releases are needed is fairly straightforward. There may be times when photographers will use property belonging to others. The release is a contract that details the terms of use of the property.
The other type of release is a model release. This is for any person(s) that are in your photo. Crowd photos do not require model releases – the model release is typically for any identifiable person(s).
Other identifying marks that can creep into the public space photo need to be removed, such as: license plates, logos, airplane call letters, boat names, and of course addresses need to be out of the picture. In certain circumstances photographers will use the location permit as the property release, forgoing the need for an extra form. This works well for national parks, county and city parks, gardens, and arboretums where there are no additional objects with intellectual property.
We’ve all heard about the quirky state laws, but needless to say some of these are still enforced while others are not. Some of these quirky laws don’t really pertain to photography, but they do pertain to the location.
For instance, in the state of Virginia any individual is not allowed in a cemetery at dusk. That may put a damper on vampires, ghosts, and other eerie themed photos.
Quirkiness can be found elsewhere that actually does pertain to photography. In the state of Washington, it is reported that it is illegal to photograph ghosts. In Alaska, it is reported to wake a sleeping bear to take a photograph of it is illegal. In the state of Wyoming, it is reported that photography of rabbits can only take place between the months of January to April without an official permit. In the state of Hawaii, it is illegal to annoy any birds in park areas.
These old laws are not only at the state level but at the county and city levels as well. It is best to research what is required. Identify what paperwork is needed, obtain it, and have it handy and ready for proof while on location. Abide by all rules outlined by the permit.
Legal commercial photography is important. Beginners are often tempted to go to any public space and start clicking the shutter. If you have any commercial intent, resist this urge. One photographer found themselves in the middle of a lawsuit between a muralist, a trade association, and one of the biggest distributors of stock photography (Cerventes & Dolores Huerta of United Farm Workers vs. Corbis). The photographer did not obtain property releases for the traditional art, nor the logo that appeared in the photograph. Just remember that being commercial equals legal photography.
Project Planning Do’s
- Plan for at least a 1-month lead-time minimum.
- Gather site location requirements
- Scout suitable locations
- Identify applicable city, county, or state photography permits that are needed.
- Research state and local laws that prohibit photography.
- Know your budget. Expect fees.
- Think safety first – always make sure the site is not hazardous.
- Documentary photography is not always considered editorial; some governing entities treat it as commercial
Assumptions
- Do not assume that public space includes interiors, museums, galleries, airports, railroads, bus stations, carnivals, events (example: Burning Man), state and county fairs.
- Do not assume that all locations accept flash photography.
- Do not assume that photography is allowed at playgrounds (currently this being talked about in Ireland), cemeteries, schools and transportation areas.
- Do not assume that just because editorial photography is allowed that commercial has the same rules. Many locations have exceptions for editorial photography but prohibit commercial photography.
- Do not assume that aerial photography (including kites) doesn’t need a permit.
- Do not assume that police understand photography rights or laws. Be prepared to answer any questions.
- The photographer can assume to expect the unexpected.
Starting Out Resources
ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers)
Minor or Under Age Model Release
Easy Release Smart Phone Application
California Photography Permits
Shutterstock’s Prohibited Stock Photography List
GCU Community 