Week 11 Blog Entry: w/c 30th November 2020 - Creative Enterprise

I bought my cards from Demon Print this week. I contacted the printers two weeks ago to ask about 152mmx152mm square cards. In my proposal, my original idea was to have three designs, square-shaped cards. I was going to use a shiny material, which I think added to the festive theme. However, as I've progressed through the project and done some more research, I decided this wasn't a very good decision for something that is supposed to be created on a shoestring budget, because for one design I would have been spending £35. This would have led to £105 altogether. After presenting my proposal to the class, I was advised to use a smaller, more independent printer who might charge a lot less and that was Demon Print.

I emailed them again at the end of last week to confirm that I would go ahead with placing an order but I had changed my mind about the size of the cards. When I spoke to my family about this, they agreed that rectangular cards would be better, as they were able to place them in card holders much more easily that a square one. Instead, I requested the following:

• Design 1 – 25 A6 colour front cards with black text on the inside reading "Hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

• Design 2 – 25 A6 colour front cards with black text on the inside reading "Hope you have a Merry Christmas!"

• Design 3 – 25 A6 colour front cards with black text on the inside reading "Merry Christmas!"

Each 'Design' was a certain image that I wanted to have certain wording on it. The first image was the abstract Christmas tree and because I already had the words 'Merry Christmas' on the front, so I used a full sentence and added 'Happy New Year' on the inside. For the bokeh image, I added the words 'Season's Greetings' on the front, so I added a shorter sentence on the inside that included 'Merry Christmas'. I kept the bauble image clear of any text, because I think the image is self-explanatory. On the inside, I wrote the words 'Merry Christmas'. Once I had sent these off, I got a response asking what fold I wanted (long or short fold), what font I wanted inside the cards and if I was going to collect them or I wanted them delivered. I responded that I wanted the crease along the long fold, I wanted Monotype Corsiva (from the fonts on Photoshop) for the font on the text on the inside of the card. I chose this font because I thought it was the one that fit well with the font on the front of the card. I wanted something that still reflected the festive season, but kept with the contemporary style of my images. Finally, for the last question, I requested delivery to my home. Overall, this costed me £23 for everything. I was really happy with this price, as I've never been quoted something as low as this before, especially for printing cards. I didn't get a response after this, so I decided to leave it a couple of days for them to send me some proofs.

I didn't hear anything regarding my prints for a couple of days, so I decided to follow up and ask what day I should expect delivery. I received a response saying that they would show me some proofs first. I told them that I was really pleased with them, but didn't hear anything back that night. The following day, I decided to follow up again to get my question answered about delivery. I wrote that I had confirmed the designs and asked when they were likely to be delivered. That was when they wrote back to tell me that they would have the cards printed and sent out that day for delivery the next day. This did happen and I received them on the Thursday evening. From all of this, I learnt that perseverance is key when it comes to

I did my final marketing shoot this week. I've put some initial imagery on Instagram to show off my final three designs. This got a nice response. The following day, I decided to split my shoots into three sections - one for each card. I took one image of them all together, one image of each card and then one image showing the inside of the card, so people can read the text. I have done some research on Etsy to see how people are styling their cards for sale. Most seemed to be quite simplistic, as to not take your eye away from the product or create too much of a distraction. I saw some that were stood up, with a prop in the background and some very simple props in the foreground. The backdrop was a very simple grey or white. Others had the cards lying down with several props and lights draped around them. I noticed that this tended to be for cards that people were selling as packs.

The first photo I took was for the bauble card. For this, I used my little Christmas tree in the background. I took inspiration from my research for this one, as I like th use of the blurred prop in the backround, which almost gives the image some context even if it's obvious what it's for. I placed the card on one end of a white desk and used the white wall in the background. I then put the Christmas tree at the other end of the desk, so that it was a s far away as possible to get a nice blurred effect. For the first few photos I took, I showed my Mum the photos and she said that she thought the card blended in too much with the tree and it was difficult to define the edges of the card. I then took some more shots, but I lifted the bottom branches of the tree so that you could see the top of the card. This worked much better. I did try this technique and prop with the other cards, but the colours in the bauble card worked much better than the others. I used two softboxes on either side of the subject to light it. I had to be careful here because if I didn't position myself right, you would be able to see the reflection on the card. For the second image, all I did was place some baubles around the card. I tried to make them look haphazard rather than intentional, as I was advised that it looked too organised. The colours of the baubles match the bokeh in the cards well and made for quite an appealing image. This was my favourite image because of its simplicity. I used the two softboxes to light the image in exactly the same position as the first image. The third image was a case of placing the tinsel around the card. I wanted to have end of the tinsel in the foreground but blurred out to create a leading line up to the card. I thought this worked quite well and I liked the fact the the tinsel I used for the photo was the same tinsel I used in the imagery on the card.

The final photos I took were of the inside and outside of the card, so that people could see what was on the back of the card and what was written on the inside. To do this, I had my softboxes in the same place and I used two cards - one to show the outside and one to show the inside. I then used exactly the same props as I did for the main image, but I spread the baubles out a bit more, I took a bird-eye view of the Christmas tree and the tinsel was more spread out around the cards. I am really happy with how these images turned out, as I wasn't quite sure how I was going to take the photos to market them. The marketing images are quite simple compared to the complexity of the actual imagery on the cards, which I think is really effective. If there was too much in the way of styling, the whole image would look too messy and customers wouldn't know where to look. It was important to me to make sure that I was showing these cards in the best light, as people wouldn't be able to see them in real life.

I did some very simple edits on these images which included adjusting the brightness and contrast of each of the images. I was quite pleased with the images as they were and I didn't want to do too much editing that made the cards look completely different to what they actually look like. I also adjusted how straight the image looked, which was quite difficult to do because if I tried to straighten the bottom of the image the sides would look askew. For the tinsel image, I noticed the tinsel at the bottom was quite bright, so I attempted to tone it down using the brightness tool. Unfortunately, when I deselected the area, it was obvious I had tried to edit it, so I left it as it was. The images below are the final images that I later posted on Instagram.

Once I had received my completed cards on the Thursday evening, I tried to put them in the envelopes I'd ordered from Etsy for my packaging, but unfortunately they wouldn't have fit the envelope the came with the actual card in them. One thing I did mention to Demon Print is that I wanted envelopes with my order and they didn't send any with the order. However, this has ended up working out well, as I can use the pretty, pearlescent envelopes for each card and then I went out and bought some C5 (A5) envelopes for the packaging instead. These envelopes can as a pack of 30 and there are three different colours and they cost me £5.

Next week, I'll see if I can sell any of these cards. I personally think I've left it too late, but I can always wait until next year to sell my cards and evaluate on why I might not have sold them this year. I quite proud of what I have created here, as I think my cards offer a nice change from the usual, traditional imagery.