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!
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Nuts & Bolts – A Winning No as-is Usage Example
Fall is one of my favorite times of year. I love everything about it: cool, crisp air, light jackets and fuzzy sweaters, warm-glowing bonfires, and most of all, the beautiful colors of the changing leaves. My husband and I werefortunate enough to spend some time in Maine last fall and see the trees during peak season and I can honestly say that this midwestern girl was in absolute Heaven. For those who have never been to the New England states in the fall, put it on your bucket list of things to do because it is the epitome of fall color. We explored areas from southern Maine to northern Maine.Thenwe traveled to Woodstock Vermont and followed the Kancamagus Highway back into Maine for one of the most breathtaking sights we have ever seen on any of our adventures. Needless to say, it was one of the best two-week vacations I had ever spent anywhere.
When I returned home, I had those beautiful colors on my mind, and even though I didn’t get best pictures on my trip, I wanted to make a fall leaf themed Thanksgiving card to commemorate my experience. So, as I often do, I went to Pixabay.com (a public domain photo website) in search of some pretty fall leaf pictures. I didn’t have to search long before finding a perfect image.
I loved the little heart in this fall leaf, and I knew GCU had a “no as is” policy, so I knew I would have to make some changes to the image. I decided I would try rotating and cropping the image, then added a fall theme border, along with my message and submitted it for review.
Unfortunately, it did not make the cut during the first round. The reviewer told me I would have to make some other changes because simply adding a border was not enough to pass the “no as is” policy. So, I decided to concentrate on the part of the picture I loved the most. I knew I was really after the leaf with the heart shape, so I decided to cut out the fuzzy lit background and replace it with something else.
I knew I wanted something warm and inviting, something natural looking, maybe something a little rustic. I thought well, what would be more rustic and natural than wood? I could make it look as though the leaf was lying on a floor or on a table as part of a centerpiece. So back to Pixabay I went in search of a plain wood background. There were tons of images to choose from, but I wanted something dark and warm to contrast the bright color of the leaf.
I found a nice warm looking tone for my wood picture and I loved how it was shaded on the edges.
https://pixabay.com/photos/wood-grain-structure-texture-board-2065369/
I rotated my new background and added my leaf and my text. I instantly loved the contrast and the rustic feel of the card so far, but my poor little leaf looked so lonely on the card all by itself. So I decided it needed a few friends. I wanted another leaf or two with some other colors to help bring some life to the image.
So I went back to Pixabay again and looked for an isolated image of a fall leaf. And found this one:
https://pixabay.com/photos/autumn-leaves-leaf-transparent-1768366/
Then I started dropping the other leaf into my card image, but I knew I did not want to take away from my main leaf image. So, I decided to use the other leaf on the corners to take up dead space and give the appearance of other leaves. And I didn’t have to add it many times. I just rotated it in a few directions and by just adding the same leaf a few times, it gave the card a perfect completed look.
So I resubmitted the image on GCU and this time it was approved. Honestly, I was never so happy a card had been declined the first time, because the end result was simply stunning and it was a perfect image to commemorate the time and beauty I experienced in Maine.
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: Graduation Announcement Photo Cards
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Freebie Wednesday: Cacti Clipart.
Freebie Wednesday:
Cute Cacti Cliptart. 18 vector items in a collection of 18 cute cactus characters and simple plants inspired from children’s illustrations. The items are in Ai 10, EPS 10 and PNG format, all vector and editable. It’s free at Creative Fabrica for another 2 days so you better make sure you don’t miss out!
This product comes with a complete commercial license.
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Rainbow Connection: Humanae Project.
Brazilian photographer Angélica Dass is on a mission to capture examples of every skin color in the world to prove that diversity goes beyond the standard confines of white, black, red and yellow.
Read more about the ongoing Humanae Project here and here:
Watch her TED talk here.
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Nuts & Bolts – February Design Challenge Deadline.
Theme: Wild about You
See February’s Design Challenge details.
GCU Community Manager
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Wanted New Cards: Red Egg & Ginger Celebration.
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 clever, be creative. Good luck!
GCU Community 