GCU Community

Another year has disappeared! Here’s hoping each of you had fun, learned something new and were inspired to step outside your designer’s comfort zone last year and are ready for new challenges in 2020! Before we kick off January’s Challenge – I want to remind you that behind the scenes, Mindy, Nasser and the GCU team are all little elves working diligent to come up with the very best of the best that we artists brought to GCU in 2019.

Be sure to look for the Best of 2019 Founders’ Choice Awards! This time of year, our founders; Mindy and Nasser, will be choosing from ALL the cards created in 2019 – not just from challenge submissions. Winners of the 4th Annual Founders’ Choice Awards are expected mid-to-late January, 2020.

Now it’s time to create for our first challenge of the 2020 New Year …

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Theme: Classic Blue Pantone© Color of the Year for 2020

Requirements:

• The Classic Blue Pantone© color of the year for 2020 must be primary in your imagery. Color of the Year for 2020 PANTONE© Classic Blue
  
• Write your own verse/message, be creative and write a message that clearly speaks to your imagery, occasion and recipient.
• Blank verse will not be considered for entry in this challenge.

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Entry Deadline: Friday, January 31^st

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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 Classic Blue Color of the Year 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: January 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.
• 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.

2^nd 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!
• Winning card will be posted on GCU’s Instagram with 2,000 followers and counting!

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Tips:

Check out these tips, tricks, freebies, and tutorials from our own GCU Community Blog which might be helpful in this month’s Challenge.

Color of the Year for 2020 PANTONE© 19-4052 Classic Blue

• Dash of Inspiration: Working with Color
• Dash of Inspiration: GCU Color Chart
• Dash of Inspiration: Tools to Help Choose Color Palettes
• Dash of Inspiration: Typography – Color

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Be inspired to create and learn something new!