GCU Community Newsletter #7 – June 9, 2011
It’s getting warmer in the Netherlands, and soon we will experience the annual harbinger of summer: the mosquito. We live close by a canal, and every year the mosquito population comes out to feed unless it’s been very dry. Time to stock up on citronella oil!
Hidden Gems: Fathers Day - June 19 - artist Corrie Kuipers
Last week on the blog, the Design Spotlight was on Diana Delosh and her cute Groundhog Day card; the Rainbow Connection gave you a three color palette of this summer’s hottest wedding colors, and in a new feature, Inspiration Station, you found links to wedding related sites to inspire your new designs + a collection of wedding fonts; the talented Doreen Erhardt’s column A Dash of Inspiration – A Cup of Creativity brought you tree and leaves brush sets; our Nuts and Bolts feature struck a chord with guidelines about front of card text; and finally, we announced the new Blog Carnival II: SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. Good luck, everybody!
Until next time, don’t forget to pass the love around!
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Four Tips About the Structure of a Blog Post
If you haven’t already started a blog, why not? You can write about what you love (everybody’s got to love something), entertain or educate other people – or maybe both, and promote your art at the same time. If you’re already blogging, you know it’s easy to scribble any old thing down, but somewhat harder to make a blog post that engages readers. Here are some tips that will help.
Hidden Gems: Fathers Day, June 19 - artist Eugenia Bacon
Be sure to define what it is you want to share: Have a think about the point you’re trying to get across. What’s the main theme of your post? Pare your thoughts down to the essential. You don’t want a post that’s crammed full of everything but the kitchen sink – chaotic writing isn’t attractive, and information overload is hard to digest. Stick to one idea.
Be sure to define your target audience: Don’t try to be all things to all people – you’ll end up attracting few or none. If the focus of your post is North American butterflies, don’t go off on a tangent about the quantum butterfly in the hope of broadening your audience. That doesn’t usually work. Stay focused on your main readers.
Be sure to give it a good title: What makes a really good blog post title? The same thing that makes a really good newspaper headline. It needs to inform the reader what the article is about and be punchy doing it. Once you identify the theme of your post, spend a few minutes thinking of potential titles that will attract readers’ attention. Just be careful – you don’t want to deceive readers by making a super fantastic headline and not following it up with a good post.
Be sure to structure your writing: Some bloggers write off the cuff. There’s nothing wrong with that provided you’ve got the skill to pull it off. Many other writers prefer to organize by making an outline of a potential post, and defining the format they’re going to use like a top 10 list, Q&A interview, links list, personal or inspirational story, news or other informative article, comparison of A vs. B, etc. Once you define your structure, you’ll find the writing comes easier.
With these tips in hand, you’ll be able to create blog posts that are catchy enough to catch the readership you crave!
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The Greeting Card Universe fan page on Facebook now posts the daily Design of the Day? If you haven’t “liked” the page, what are you waiting for? You might be chosen next!
Hidden Gems: Canada Day, July 1 - artist Free Spirit Designs
We’re splashing out with Blog Carnival II: SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. Just make a new blog post (or a Squidoo lens) about anything beach or sea themed: surfing, clambake, seashells, marine wildlife – you name it, as long as the ocean’s involved, it’s fair game! Use your imagination. Include 3 links to beach or sea-themed cards at GCU and publish your post before June 18. On June 19, I will publish the master post of links to share + announce the winner of a drawing for a $25 AMAZON GIFT CERTIFICATE! Who will be the lucky winner this time? Who knows, but if you don’t enter, you don’t have a chance! Plus all participants will get a very cool Community Star to add to their collection.
Unsure if a photograph of yourself or someone else at a monument (or artwork) in a public space is copyright free and okay for commercial use? Here’s a Forum post where you’ll find the answer.
DID YOU KNOW you can “like” this newsletter or any post on the GCU Community blog, or include them in your social bookmarks? 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 June 16, 2011
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Good morning! Guess what time it is? Time for another Blog Carnival!
The theme is SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. That means anything ocean or beach related is fair game: clambake, beach volleyball, sailing, surfing, seashells, marine wildlife, sand castle, swimsuits – use your imagination! Make a new blog post in the theme and include links to 3 beach or ocean-related cards at GCU on or before June 18, 2011. On June 19th, I’ll post the master list for everyone to share, and I’ll have a drawing for a neat-o prize: a $25 Amazon gift certificate! AND all participants will receive a special GCU Community star from little ol’ me.
Don’t miss out! It’s a fabulous opportunity to promote your blog, your GCU store, and your cards – come and play with us by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea!
Oh, and in case you didn’t know, GCU is now posting the card chosen as Design of the Day to their Facebook fan page. If you haven’t “liked” GCU, go do it now.
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Nuts and Bolts: Front of Card Text
FRONT OF CARD TEXT
Armed with your favorite graphic editing software, a show stopping illustration or photograph, a plethora of fonts, and a really great sentiment, how could you go wrong when you’re ready to design your greeting card?
Well…creating a good greeting card (by good, I mean commercial quality – marketable – a card that retail shoppers will find attractive and buy) is more than just slapping your text on the front and thinking you’re done. The placement of text on the front of a card is as vital as the illustration or photograph that accompanies it. This will make or break your design.
Here are some basic guidelines to text that will help you make cards that are so professional looking, they can stand up to the big boys *cough*Hallmark*cough* and win.
- Never use more than 3 fonts on a single design. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule. Look at this card of mine as an example. I can get away with it because despite the several fonts, the text is ordered so the eye is never confused. However, for the most part, you won’t need to violate this rule.
- Follow the baseline. What’s that? The baseline is an imaginary line on which your text will rest, and it should always be present in your design. For example, I’ll show you another card of mine. Because the end of the vine is curly, I can curve my text around it. Had the vine stuck straight out, doing curved text would have looked odd because it didn’t follow an existing baseline. How do you find the baseline? Look at your image. In most of your designs, the baseline will be straightforward (that is, straight across). Don’t gild the lily unless the design supports it.
- If you can’t read your font when you type out a block of text, it isn’t a good font. I’m aware there are a lot of decorative fonts out there that are fancy, funny or otherwise blinged out, but if the shopper can’t read what you wrote, all the pretty letters won’t matter. Make your text legible. Investing in a few good, legible, basic fonts (for the love of the Great Bird of the Galaxy, not Comic Sans) that are okay for commercial use will stand you in very good stead, and give you an excellent foundation to build on. Choose a font that compliments your design and is relevant to the subject. Don’t pick one because you think it’s cute. A whimsical curly font, for example, may be okay for a birthday card, but absolutely not on a sympathy card.
- Do not warp, twist, bend, wave or otherwise mess around with your text. If you want to curve your text like I showed you in my second example card (the baby shower invitation), then you need to learn Adobe Illustrator. Text effects may look okay on a website banner, but you will not attract shoppers when you put that scrunched, higgledy-piggledy, warped and waved text on a greeting card. It doesn’t look professional. Don’t do it.
- Always do a layout in your graphics editing program with your picture and text in layers so you can adjust as necessary. If you have multiple lines of text, you can play with the sizes and placements as long as you don’t forget that alignment is the most important thing. Here’s an example where I’ve been creative with the placement of each line, used a different font for emphasis, and manually adjusted the leading (that’s the space between lines), but the alignment of each line to the others and to the rest of the elements as well as to the card’s margins is what makes this a successful design. Repeat after me: the layout grid is my best friend.
- This may seem like a no-brainer, but make sure you use a font color that can actually be read against the background image. A good rule of thumb is: white or black, with color or bold for emphasis as needed (see my card here for an example). If white looks washed out, while black is too strong, consider using a color already present but at its lightest or darkest setting, such as navy blue text on a light blue background.
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Dash of Inspiration – June 6, 2011
A Dash of Inspiration…A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
Oh Those Beautiful Trees!
For me, nothing draws my eye into a painting or photograph more than a great tree. One of the first lessons art teachers will ask their students to paint is a tree, because there is no such thing as a right or wrong way to create one. Trees can express any emotion; they can be happy or sad, eerie or whimsical, goofy or majestic. We love them whether they look realistic or comical, straight or crooked, in full growth or leafless and we accept trees in every color imaginable. Just take it from children, now they know how to paint trees!
Even if you have never attempted to paint, now is the time to step out of the box and see what trees are waiting to be created from your imagination! First be inspired by these 50 Beautiful Examples of Tree Photography from our friends at Noupe. Then take a peek at the Tutorial for Painting Trees by PocketMole so you have some idea of how to get started and when you’re ready to play, grab the brush sets below which will help you add foliage to your trees. Keep in mind while you are playing with a color palette that trees are a beautiful item to use on your Harvest cards. Happy Planting!
Painting by PocketMole
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Inspiration Station
I love to sing-a about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a…
June is the traditional wedding month, and remains a popular time to tie the knot. If you wanted to make cards to tempt brides-to-be this year, that needed to be done in January. I know, I know, who wants to make sunny fresh wedding designs when it’s the middle of winter? It may be too late for this year, but you can certainly get yourself ready for next year.
Here are some sites you can visit where you’ll find plenty of inspiration!
The Knot
One of the Internet’s go-to places for everything wedding related, you’ll get very good ideas on what’s hot.
The Wedding Channel
A sister site of The Knot, check out their Hot Wedding Colors section. It’s gorgeous.
Dessy
Bridesmaid dresses and formal gowns – you can get a really good idea about where the trends are headed.
Wedding Paper Divas
Invitations, menus, programs, thank you cards… they’re on the cutting edge of wedding design when it comes to the paper goods, so definitely worth a look.
Hallmark: Weddings
Check out what the super daddy of the greeting card industry is doing when it comes to weddings.
And here are 57 Free Wedding Fonts from Font Space for you to enjoy. Be sure to check the Terms of Use to be sure a font is okay for commercial use (thanks for the reminder, Peggy).
Have fun!!
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The Rainbow Connection: Hot Summer Wedding 2011
Super hot colors for summer weddings in 2011 remain pink, orange and blue. This trendy combination is luscious and juicy, perfect for the freshest brides. With colors like these, think about going modern or tropical in your designs.
Dubarry – FE626D
Tiffany Blue – 56F2E4
Nectarine – FC895D
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Design Spotlight: Diana Delosh
Today’s Spotlight is on Diana Delosh.
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I have a warm spot in my heart for Groundhog Escapes as this was my AHA design moment on GCU. Groundhog Escapes was originally created for an illustration Contest for Groundhog’s day. My ink and watercolor illustration depicts Puxatawny Phil climbing out his side window to escape from the animals at his front door that wanted to know when Spring was coming. Ah, the pressures of being a famous prognosticating animal. It didn’t win the contest but a short time later I joined GCU and noticed that it had a Groundhog’s Day category.
“Who buys/sends Groundhogs day cards?” was my first reaction but as GCU had the category and I had a fitting design – why not? Needless to say it sold and more importantly it was my first bulk order. Which made me realize that selling greeting cards online wasn’t just about wonderful art and quantity, although that helps, it was about fulfilling a need that wasn’t filled by your local card shop. Four years later, it’s no longer my best selling card, but it is still a steady seller.
AHA! Design holiday cards, especially for the lesser holidays and of course fill in with everyday designs. Now to match the usage with my vision. Designing cards gives me an excuse to draw whimsical animals and a story behind them, throw in some florals and yummies and I’m a very happy working artist.
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GCU Community Newsletter #6 – June 2, 2011
The sole surviving blackberry bush from last year decided to make up for its brethren’s loss by putting out an extraordinary blizzard of flowers, and now we see tiny embryonic berries. I hope the birds give us first dibs when they’re ripe! Now if only the raspberry canes do as well, we’ll be rolling in fruit this winter! Don’t you love Nature’s gifts?
Hidden Gems: Fathers Day - June 19 - artist Corrie Kuipers
Last week, our Lightning Round: MONKEYS did very well, scoring 10 participants. Doreen Erhardt of Salon of Art won the prize of 20 free card credits! On Monday, I’ll be announcing the beginning of a new Blog Carnival and a new contest. Here’s a hint: get ready for SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. Which would you rather see offered as a prize – card credits or an Amazon gift certificate? Place your vote in the comments!
Our Nuts & Bolts column offered good advice on Categories, while Promotion in Motion showed us how to get started on Squidoo. A brand new feature, the Rainbow Connection, gave swatches and HEX numbers for some of the hottest, most trendy colors of this year. Doreen’s regular column, A Dash of Inspiration – a Cup of Creativity, reminded us that it’s time to work on Halloween cards, and gave some spooktacular inspiration, free fonts, shapes and a Photoshop tutorial. An Artist Interview with Michelle Dokos of Momo Cards told us a little something about this GCU newbie. At the end of the month we posted a round-up of May’s Design of the Day winning cards.
Keep up the good work, and don’t forget the pass the love around!
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The Cure for Blank Page Syndrome
All writers (including blog writers, even me) sometime suffer from Blank Page Syndrome. What’s that? When you sit behind the computer staring at a blank page with your brain going, “huh?” – and you can’t think of a thing to write. You start to sweat. The blank page stares back at you like a big white eye, burning a hole in your skull. You suddenly remember you need to walk the dog, do the laundry, go bowling, get a root canal…anything but write. Have no fear, there are ways to defeat this terrible syndrome. Below you’ll find my personal tips to help you get writing again when you’re stuck and staring at the dreaded blank page.
Hidden Gems: Fathers Day - June 19 - artist Kathy Henis
- Quit Procrastinating: When you’re ready to write a blog post, don’t get distracted by other things. Do you really need to mow the lawn right now? O check your email? Or tweet about your haircut? Or any of the hundred little chores that demand your attention? Nope, that’s just your procrastination talking. Decide to give yourself so many minutes (like half an hour) to write your blog post and set a timer. Don’t do anything else but write during this time.
- Put It Down: Whenever inspiration strikes, write it down. Carry a notebook with you in case an idea strikes you when you’re away from the computer. If you’re the organized type, set aside a time on a regular basis to brainstorm about future blog posts. Once you have a list, it will be easier for you to write a post when you need it.
- A Place for Everything: Some writers make an outline for every post they think about writing. If that’s the way you roll, then jot down the key points of your idea beforehand. These are like the bones of your post. They provide the foundation you can build on when you flesh out (pun intended) your work.
- Photo Finish: If you’re using photographs in your post, look at them one by one, and quickly write down a description (your first impression) of each image. These brief impressions will help you form the basis of your post when you begin writing.
- Play Pretend: Know what you want to write about but the words won’t come? Just pretend you’re writing an email about the topic to your friend. Don’t worry about grammar or sentence construction or any of that stuff, just be your usual chatty self. Once you’re finished, you can always clean up and/or formalize your writing, or perhaps you prefer to leave it “as is” – blogs don’t have to be letter perfect, since they’re an expression of yourself.
- Promptly, Please: Participating in prompted exercises like blog carnivals (also called blog hops) can give you an easy way to write a blog post without worrying about generating ideas. Grab that prompt and run with it!
One or more of these tips will probably help you conquer writer’s block and get back to blogging on a regular basis.
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If you make a custom card for a shopper, you can put it in their shopping cart rather than make them rummage around for it in your Private Gallery. And you can use this procedure to add a logo or other image to the inside of the shopper’s card (which you can’t usually do as an artist). How does the Share Card Link work? Check Mindy’s forum post for all the details.
Hidden Gems: Fathers Day - June 19 - artist LillyARTS
DID YOU KNOW you can “like” this newsletter or any post on the GCU Community blog, or include them in your social bookmarks? 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 June 9, 2011
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Lightning Round: MONKEYS (May 26-May 31, 2011)
Our LIGHTNING ROUND: MONKEYS proved that artists can have fun monkeying around! 🙂 Here’s the master list of posts – please share on your blogs, I’ll be contacting participants individually with the info you need – and if you would kindly visit and comment, that would be super fantastic! Thanks for going bananas on the theme. So who won the drawing? Doreen Erhardt of Salon of Art! Yay! 20 free card credits are headed her way. You could win next time, but only if you enter our next contest – all the details are coming at you on Monday!
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Sun at Night Studios, Sun at Night:
Collecting Monkey Art: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil
One of the most popular primate art is the collection of the three wise monkeys otherwise known as: See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil…
Brenda Thour’s Card Shop, Brenda Thour:
Time For Some Monkey Business
I have been looking at the Greeting Card Universe site and came across these cool monkey themed greeting cards and would like to share them with you…
Naquiaya’s Cards, Naquaiya:
Monkey Business
Why are we in love with monkeys? How much are we really like them?
SmudgeArt, Madeline Allen:
Monkeys in the Garden
I hit the pillow and before I could count to ten,
There were monkeys in my beautiful garden….
Janet Lee Designs, Janet Palaggi:
Monkeying Around With Monkeys
I love monkeys, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love monkeys…
Salon of Art, Doreen Erhardt:
The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary
This past month, I’ve had the privilege of reading an Advanced Copy for the purpose of writing a book review of “The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary…A True Store of Resilience and Recovery”…
I Love Cuttables, Cindy Johns:
Monkey Fun
Here’s my layout spread entitled, “Mommy’s Little Monkey” – and the second page is the one where I shared pictures of him playing his own little game of monkey-see-monkey-do…
Sheryl Kasper Card Store, Sheryl Kasper:
No Monkeying Around
Did you know that Monkeys are not only cute and adorable, but they can also be a service animal too?
Dragonfire Graphics, Betsy Bush:
Monkeys are Everywhere
Monkey themed greeting cards…
Cards from the heART, Lisa Charlton:
Chimpanzee
Chimps are Primates but they are not Monkeys. If you want to know if a Primate is a Monkey, look at their bums… only monkeys have tails.
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Design of the Day – May 2011
Here are the cards chosen as the Greeting Card Universe Design of the Day for the month of May 2011. I thought it might be interesting to study those cards chosen by GCU as the ones they consider most marketable of the new designs submitted. I missed a few at the beginning of the month, but my very helpful volunteers have done a good job since in giving me the daily update. Thanks so much! 🙂 If anyone wants to run over and give reviews, testimonials, or feature one or more of these cards on their own blog, feel free.
And I’ll be announcing the results of our Lightning Round: MONKEYS later today, along with the winner of our prize – 20 free card credits!
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GCU Community 