Wanted New Cards: Coronavirus / COVID-19
First we would like to send a message of support and concern to all of our artists to be safe and healthy. We find having an entire artist community of mobile workers and online shoppers comforting in a time of chaos. GCU HQ employees are working remotely. And as of today, our printing partners are still in production. Of course, conditions can change from one day to the next.
Not to make light of a very serious situation, but levity goes a long way in easing anxiety, stress, and worry. This may also be a good creative outlet for artists to express your support, perspective, compassion, frustrations, humor, etc.
An interesting read:
https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-memes-humor/
We’d like to put a call out for any cards that are Coronavirus themed. They all should reside here that will serve as a catch-all category. Shoppers will find them via search so your keywords and titles will be key:
Collections >> Health Awareness >> Coronavirus / COVID 19
Consider occasions like Get Well, Miss You, Thinking of You, Birthday, Anniversary, hygiene awareness, quarantine, social distancing, TP shortage … you name it.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new Stock Card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be colorful, be clever, be creative.
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Freebie Wednesday: Samellya Font.
Freebie Wednesday:
Samellya Font (by Mas Anis) is a font created specifically for crafters. This stunning font allows you to create gorgeous designs. With all its swashes and alternates, its the perfect font to use over and over for each design project. It’s free at Creative Fabrica for the next 5 days so be sure to check it out.
This product comes with a complete commercial license.
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Rainbow Connection: Chinese Porcelain.
I’m sharing some the beautiful ways to incorporate PPG 2020 Color of the Year in a design, which is a stunning rich blue called Chinese Porcelain.
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Nuts and Bolts: How to Become a Star Submitter
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: Birthday My Twin Age Specific
Remember, when you’re submitting your new Stock Card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be colorful, be clever, be creative. Good luck!
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Freebie Wednesday: Hygge elements.
Freebie Wednesday:
Let’s Hygge? Meet cute hygge illustrations for your cozy designs 🙂 This beautiful freebie is brought to you by Inspiration Design . Available on The Hungry Jpeg for free for the next 6 days, so don’t miss out!
This product comes with a complete commercial license.
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Nuts & Bolts – Vehicle Trade Dress Edits
https://gcucommunity.com/2013/09/23/dash-of-inspiration-intellectual-property/
Elements of this image infringe on copyrighted, trademarked and licensed materials. Specifically, cards that contain references to or images of Volkswagen vehicles cannot be sold on Greeting Card Universe. This includes the manufacturer’s trade dress rights which bars the use of any silhouette, picture, caricature, or reproduction of the shape or appearance of the manufacturer’s vehicle.Car image cards must be abstract or partial in nature so even the defining body lines and profile can not be identified. This is due to Trade Dress laws. Antique/Vintage cars of the 20s and 30s will be considered with a softer eye ie: Model-T but still must not contain any logos, emblems, make & model names.
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: Tie-Dye Party Invitations.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new Stock Card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be colorful, be clever, be creative. Good luck!
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Freebie Wednesday: Curlee
Freebie Wednesday:
Curlee (by Craf-N-Cuts) is a thin, lovely font that can be used on various occasions. It was first planned to be a simple, sans-serif font, but later on it evolved into a more natural, jungle-looking typeface. Available on The Hungry Jpeg for free for the next 6 days, so don’t miss out!
This product comes with a complete commercial license.
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Dash of Inspiration: March 2020 Design Challenge
As spring quickly approaches, it’s time for another fun Design Challenge, so let’s get to it …
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Theme: Shower – Showers – Showering
Requirements:
- Use shower, showers, showering, showered (any form of the word) as part of your card design message with supporting imagery.
- Any category which your card speaks to.
- Blank verse will not be considered for entry in this challenge.
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Entry Deadline: Tuesday, March 31st
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How to Enter: Post the PID (card number) and the URL (public storefront link – please WAIT for the card to be available in the public marketplace, please DO NOT post a link to your Manage Cards area) as a post in the challenge blog. We’ll forward your entry to the jury.
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Category:
Any category that is well-suited for your Shower themed design.
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Rules:
- Submission must meet GCU’s Submission Guidelines and be Approved through the usual Review Cycle– Fast Track your submission with this in the Notes to Reviewer: March Design Challenge Submission here is the link to the blog post: (include THIS blog post URL)
- Only ONE card per artist per challenge.
- Submissions must be NEW, no existing designs.
- Your entry must meet the Challenge Requirements and Theme or it will not be included in the challenge.
- Stock Card Creations entries will not be accepted.
- Your designs should differ from those already offered in the category of your choice to offer shoppers a variety of choices, not more of the same.
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BLIND Judging: We hope each of you enters every month. Entries are submitted anonymously for judging by the GCU Challenge Jury which means that before and during the challenge, judges do not have any way of knowing what artist is behind each entry. This eliminates any and all concerns with ‘favoritism’. Results will post on the Community Blog. The jury will judge the entries on the following criteria:
- How well the card meets the Challenge Requirements and Theme.
- How well the card speaks to the Category the artist chooses for the card submission.
- Creativity, Execution and Marketability.
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Winners: 1st Place:
- The winning designer’s card and store will be featured on the GCU Public Blog – the blog which customers view and follow.
- As well as featured on the GCU Public Facebook Page – nearly 56,000 followers, now THAT’S exposure!
- The winning card will be Design of the Day following the announcement of the winners (within 48-hours).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards may not be featured as DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions. In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.
- The winning card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board – currently GCU’s Pinterest Page followers: 2K!
- The winning card, should the artist choose, may be referenced in a new series by the winning artist and he/she may Fast Track all cards in the new series (being sure to give the Challenge URL and winning card PID in your Notes to Reviewer for each card in this series).
- Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
- NEW starting this month, GCU will create a Meet the Team board for the winning artist under the Pinterest GCU account where the winning artist will be able to pin and promote her own storefront and all that makes them a unique card designer and one of GCU’s artistic community team member.
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Winning card will be posted on GCU’s Instagram with 2,000 followers and counting!
- GCU will create a Meet the Team board for the winning artist under the Pinterest GCU account where the winning artist will be able to pin and promote her own storefront and all that makes them a unique card designer and one of GCU’s artistic community team member.
2nd Place:
- Your submission will be Design of the Day the following week of announcing the Challenge winners (within 7-days).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards may not be featured as DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions. In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.
- Your card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board.
- Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
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Winning card will be posted on GCU’s Instagram with 2,000 followers and counting!
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Tips:
- Nuts and Bolts: Categories
- Nuts and Bolts: Don’t Fall Into These Traps!
- Nuts and Bolts: How to Write Greeting Card Verse
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by Doreen Erhardt©
Be inspired to create and learn something new!
GCU Community 