Nuts and Bolts: May Design Challenge Deadline
Nuts & Bolts – May Design Challenge Deadline
Plan ahead for May’s Design Challenge! The deadline is in one week, submissions due Monday, May 31st (Memorial Day). This means your card should be submitted AND approved prior to the deadline.
With the US Memorial Day holiday, the GCU office will be closed on Monday as well as the review team.
Theme: Fusion Design
Create a brand new design by choosing at least three objects from the list of eight objects below and creating a greeting card design. You may use more than three, all of them, or add additional items, including people and animals – but a minimum of three from the list must be clearly visible and important elements in the overall card design and message: a remote control – a mirror – a mailbox – an orange – a daisy – a beach towel – a bird – a coffee mug
Don’t wait until the last minute, this challenge requires a bit more thought and planning.
The difference is made in the details!
Mindy
GCU Community Manager
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Freebie Wednesday: Brandon Bromley Font
Brandon Bromley is a cute and quirky display font. It will add an incredibly joyful touch to your designs. Add this beautiful display font to each of your creative ideas and notice how it makes them stand out!
Available on the Creative Fabrica site for 4 more days. Don’t miss out!
This product comes with a commercial license.
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Wanted New Cards: Graduate >> Eagle Scout
Wanted Cards – Graduate >> Eagle Scout
Graduating high school is a time to celebrate for the grad and the grad’s family. Some grads have additional accolades like valedictorian, academic achievement, club affiliation, athletic honors; one of which is having attained the ranks of Eagle Scout. Some schools permit the Eagle Scout graduations to wear an Eagle Scout graduation honor cord of recognition.
These cards should go here:Occasions >> Congratulations >> Graduation >> Grade Level Specific >> High School >> Eagle Scout
Remember as of recent, Eagle Scouts can be male or female so consider designing accordingly as well as fortifying your metadata for gender.
NOTE: the following terms / phrases are trademark protected and should not be used in meta-data – BSA, Boy Scouts of America, Boy Scout, scouting
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function or your own graphic designs.
Where appropriate, in addition to standard designs, please consider custom front designs that allow the shopper to customize the name of the student.
To expedite the review of these cards, please check Fast Track Review on the card image details page when you create your card and add a Note for Reviewers like “for BLOG– Wanted Cards”.
Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
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Rainbow Connection: Allium Hues and more.
Nuts & Bolts – Dedicate Yourself to the Details – Fitting Image
It is often the little details that escape the artist’s eye. It is always a good idea to step away from a design that you have been meticulously working on or ask a brutally honest companion to give it a once over. The review team is certainly a fresh set of eyes and often catches tiny fixes or areas of improvement. GCU is grateful for artists who are open to collaborating with the reviewers on minor adjustments that make a big difference.
See this example with an improvement in the image that better suits the occasion and sentiment resulting in an overall design that makes sense and resonates with the shopper.
Original Image:
From the reviewer:
We have approved your card but wanted to share that we can’t help feeling this chef looks a little ‘drunk’ and the inside verse added to our smiles. The choice is yours to keep this as it is or make edits but we wanted to share our impression as this may affect the appeal of your card to shoppers if they view it similarly.
Resulting Image:
Thank you to GCU artist, Cisillia Tay, for her appropriate edit and receptive teamwork with our review team to cook up a fitting design with all the right ingredients for the occasion.
This is particularly challenge for Stock Card Creations when you may fall in love with an image and shoehorn it into an occasion that may not be a perfect fit. GCU strongly advises with Stock Card Creations submissions to create a captivating message that tells the story of the stock image you choose that is fitting for the category.
Here is another example of before and after improvement for fitting image by Sharon Dominick Photography.
The difference is made in the details!
Mindy
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: Mini-moon & Babymoon
Wanted Cards – Mini-moon & Babymoon
So many different spins on traditions. Enter – the mini and baby moon vacations for newlyweds and expecting parents respectively. If it means a relaxing getaway, why not?
What is a mini-moon?
The shopper will find these cards here:
Occasions >> Welcome Home >> From Mini-moon / Mini Moon
Occasions >> Welcome Home >> From Babymoon / Baby Moon
Occasions >> Bon Voyage >> Mini-moon / Mini Moon
Occasions >> Bon Voyage >> Babymoon / Baby Moon
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers.
Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
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Freebie Wednesday: Brigitha Font
Brigitha is a refined, all round, and cursive handwritten font. It has beautiful and well-balanced characters and as a result, it matches a wide pool of designs.
This font is PUA encoded which means you can access all of the glyphs and swashes with ease! Available on the Creative Fabrica site for 5 more days. Don’t miss out!
This product comes with a commercial license.
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Nuts & Bolts – Image Updates for Older Year Specific Photo Cards
With year specific cards, especially Christmas, CNY, New Year’s, and Graduation, GCU asks artists to update card images for the new year. We have recently done so for the 2021 graduation season.
Attention for year specific PHOTO cards that you have edited the image. Many are NOT showing the new image in the review tool or on the site.
As a remedy, please try one or both of the following:
1. file type mismatch – make sure the updated image is the same file type that was uploaded for the original image (png vs jpg)
2. Try removing the stock photo used as the placeholder photo and re add it to the design
Please give these solutions a try!
NOTE, a little bit of good news is that despite the old image appearing on the site, when a shopper purchases the card the NEW image is in fact being used for printing.
Here the issue was addressed on the forum: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1614377036
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation!
Mindy
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: Mother’s Day Bonus Mom
Wanted Cards – Mother’s Day Bonus Mom
Too late for this year but good for next year and to get ready for Father’s Day.
Bonus mom on Mother’s Day – a bonus mom is a step mom, or a female who parents / raises a child who is not their birth child.
The shopper will find these cards here:
Holidays >> Mother’s Day >> For Bonus Mom / Mother
Also consider cards for bonus dads on Father’s Day here:
Holidays >> Father’s Day >> For Bonus Dad / Father
Remember bonus parents come in all ages and nationalities / ethnicity. Be sure to refine your meta-data accordingly.
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers.
Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Go for it!
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Freebie Wednesday: Cinco de Mayo Stickers
This set of 25 cute Cinco De Mayo themed stickers will be sure to get your celebrations on for the event! These stickers come in AI, JPEG, PNG and EPS formats!
This amazing freebie is brought to you by HelgaKOV!
Only available on the Hungry Jpeg site for a week, so don’t miss out!
This product comes with a commercial license.
GCU Community 