Have had a busy few weeks over half term.
I have finished my business cards which has taken me weeks if not a month or more. I have been designing, talking to Lance, Steph, other students, re designing, talking myself out of what i've designed, telling myself it's not exciting enough, or it doesn't reflect me or my work.
In the end I have a logo which is made from the felt I created a couple of months ago, and which I started with at the beginning of this design process, I am just using it in a different way to how I started. Initially I created letter using the felt as the texture of the felt. I have now settled on using the felt with my initials on. It's simple, it's textured and it's me. The colours work together. The font is Typewriter font which gives a vintage feel. I have also tried stitching my logo with embroidery thread.
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| embroidery thread used to sew my initials |
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| I cropped a piece of this felt to create my logo ensuring I selected a colourful selection |
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| I tried knitting a small rectangle to use as my background for my business card as I had seen textile cards on a website |
I then thought about using actual fabric to create the cards. Lance suggested in a tutorial that we had a printer that could print out fabric so I made enquiries and indeed we do have such a printer, and fabric sheets A4 size. As a sample, one of my pictures was photocopied onto this A4 sheet - I was doubtful that the photocopier wouldn't eat it up, but it didn't ! The outcome was very interesting. Following this experiment, I purchased some further sheets and printed an image using my own printer at home and again great results. So now I had fabric I could print on to. The fabric came in sheets of silk, cotton, linen and many others. The linen is sturdier then the silk.
I set out creating various designs of business card with textured backgrounds and made a mock up with a card background, using a split pin to hold the fabric and card together. I then took about 5 final samples into college to get feedback and came out with 3 that people thought looked good. My mock ups were very much cut and paste and when discussing them with Emma, I mentioned that I thought the card I was using was too thick to go through the photocopier. Again, she said she thought it would !! So I tried it and she was right. Reflection : try thing before deciding they're not going to work. The worst that can happen is things will get stuck in the photocopier and I suppose as long i'm not putting anything with a sticky coating it will be ok.
My final samples have been used this week to give out to business owners in Borth whom I approached to exhibit there in the summer.
After creating these cards, I accidentally sat on some and discovered that the silk fabric scrunches very easily and looks dreadful when so scrunched so although these look interesting, practically, they are not good. It was suggested to me though that these fabric ones could be used on opening night of exhibition so people have something to take away that's not just a card. For day to day business use though I will not be using them simply because if I'm given a business card I shove it in my bag and if people were to do that with my fabric ones, it's going to look very unprofessional when it comes out scrunched up.
Also, in preparation for Borth visit to approach potential exhibition venues, I had to type up my creative CV and a letter so in a few days I did both.
Using the font and colour I have used for my business cards, I created a simple word document with usual letterhead details i.e. my name, postal address, email address, contact number and my logo.
I purchased some card and paper from Craft Central. I selected a lined piece in a mustard yellow colour - infact it's not lined, it's more of a ridged paper like the inside of cardboard - corrugated? Again, I did sample this and it came out well. My CV I printed on fabric, backed it with hessian and stitched into it. I did two samples on fabric one with a card as backing. They're fun, but they're not necessarily something I would give out to anyone. Infact, when in Borth I did infact give out the printed copy of my creative CV on a yellow slightly transparent paper which I felt complimented the letterhead. I have yet to received feedback on either of them but I felt confident handing them out, presented in a folder. I couldn't settle on a folder, so I bought some twin files which has a pocket at the front to put business card, and a simple A4 clear cover folder. However the latter I had to put in a poly pocket which ended up wider than the folder so..... I prefer twin folder as it had 2 pockets in it and I could place neatly my letter on one side and my CV on the opposite pocket so when the folder was opened up both were facing the reader. Cost of these folders was 90 pence and the paper was 99 pence for 6 sheets so as a starter I think that's quite reasonable.
Reflection: All the business cards I have been given and collected during the last few weeks are card based. They are all of equal quality and half of them I feel represent what I saw of the artists' work. A couple of them are ordinary and could have used stock pictures. Others though such as Lucy Gell and Bapple and Jo-Jo show a brand. Lucy's card contains one of the images on display at The Pavillion in Buxton and Bapple and Jo-Jo have a specific end product which is shown on their business cards. In addition to full size artwork being available, she had created a range of fridge magnets and coasters for the buyer who possibly can't afford or doesn't want to spend on a piece of artwork to hang up.
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| This company had good branding I feel with their logo being the simple sketched sheep with the name baa ram ewe (from the film Babe) |
This company was nothing to do with art but their whole presentation both at the Wonderwool Festival and this card showed me good customer service, good business approach. They had bags of seeds which are organic and smoked by themselves. Their stall was inviting, they were friendly and offered samples of their product without having to ask. They advised they have on line ordering facilities. And their postcard was humerous, contained all their details and I am likely to buy from them again
This lady is a one woman show who again I received good business and customer service from. I was drawn her to stall because of her Fat Fairies! Her packaging for said fairies was simple, but the wording used was humerous and drew me in. Fat Faries for the more mature christmas tree. I wanted to purchase 2 of these but had run out of cash and only had my card left. Unfortunately the Welsh Showground doesn't have cash machine facilities !! So it was down to whether each seller had card facilities. Now Maria did, however, as with other sellers, the facility was hit and miss and for me, it was a miss. She told me to pick what I wanted, and she would put them aside and I could send her a chqeue for them. This to me is good business sense.
I've seen from real world that your image is important for an artist. I picked up postcard size advertising as well which again show the brand as I saw it for the artists/companies.
The saying "first impressions count" comes to mind here. My customer service background will I feel come in handy.
