Mail Art Show

I've never entered art into an art gallery call-out, but thanks to two friend's encouragement, I entered a piece of "mail art" art to the Milk Gallery in Sacramento. I was quite surprised someone bought it and sent me a check! It's not a big one, but it taught me to consider applying for artist call-outs. I used to think call outs were only for professional artists who framed their work and shipped it to galleries (that can be quite complicated and expensive), but now there are a lot of subversive, grass root art shows popping up all over.

For me, mail art is the most fun type of art to make because it travels. If you want to see more mail art that has been submitted to this blog, see the mail art gallery page.

And a special thanks to Marie (letterpress art) and Lesli (dog humor) who is helping me find and submit to call-outs. Marie and Lesli also sold their pieces too!

8 Advantages of Working With Greeting Card Sales Reps

This is an excerpt from Get Your Greeting Cards Into Stores: How to Find and Work With Sales Reps (Updated 2017 paperback) If you like to make greeting cards, this book explains how to get your cards into stores and sell them nationwide.  Learn about changing trends in the indie card market and niche opportunities available for artists. Book includes detailed guidelines on pricing cards for a profit, getting professional feedback on your designs, finding sales representatives, pitching your card line to them, approaching stores, and the industry standards you should follow. Information is also applicable to gift items, such as magnets, journals and calendars.  

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Why Artists Like to Work With Reps

Besides generating orders, there are many benefits to working with reps. Here are just a few:

Quick Access to Stores.
Reps offer quick access into the marketplace. Once a rep has a sample set of your card line, they can start showing it to stores immediately.

Reps Sell More Than Artists.
Reps usually have years of sales experience and personal relationships with hundreds of stores. Therefore, a rep is able to sell more cards than an artist could.

Reps Know What Stores Want.
Reps know store owner’s personalities, what kind of products they like, and what types of customers visit each store. Reps build bridges between the artist, the store and the customer.

Reps Are Industry Experts.
Sales reps have valuable information on buying trends and can advise an artist on how to explore new directions.

Easier to Distribute Risk.
An artist can avoid financial risk if they have several independent reps throughout the country. For example, if you put your entire card line in the hands of one middleman, store chain or distributor, and later they drop you, your business will end overnight. On the other hand, if you lose one sales rep, it is only a temporary setback until you find a replacement.

Cost Savings.
One of the biggest advantages of working with sales reps is the artist pays a commission to them instead of a salary (usually 15-20 percent of the wholesale price). Therefore, reps have an incentive to sell more of your cards, because the more they sell, the more money they also make.

Avoid Regulations.
Another benefit of working with reps is that since they are not employees, the artist does not have to deal with state and federal employee regulations such workman’s compensation, disability and social security taxes.

Reps are Invested in the Artist’s Success
When a rep decides to carry a card line, they have made a personal investment in the artist’s success and has confidence the cards will sell. It is a win–win for everyone.

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38 Amazing Apps for Designers

Here's a great article on apps for designers. To see see all 38, go to blog republic of 3.

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Modern Victorian Card

I like this card by Beth Grove.  

It has a hint of early victorian postcards, especially the colors.

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Free Photoshop Brushes for Designers

Check out 15 different sets of cool Photoshop Brushes on the blog graphic design Junction.



See all 15 sets here.




See all 15 sets here.





See all 15 sets here.



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Adorable Cat Card

I love this Cat Card by Sharon Fernleaf!



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Photoshop CS6: The best just got better

Check out this article on Artbees blog on the new Photoshop version.
Read entire article here...

New Text Tool

Adobe paid more attention towards text editing, for instance, CS6 comes with text and paragraph formatting capabilities. Also, it added a new (Type) menu choice and typography workspace option. What’s more, CS6 offers the capability to blend alphabets in the same document, for example English with Japanese or Hebrew, maybe Russian or even Arabic!

Layers

The JDI-“Just Do It” feature is responsible for all the small features that does not require a massive amount of development time or effort but does make a significant effect on the images you are working on. The CS6 comes packed with no fewer than layer involved 65 JDIs. Some of the JDIs include a new menu option which allows you to delete a layer effect rather than disabling it, dither options to Layer Styles for Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke, and bicubic sharper & bicubic smoother options when free transforming layers.

Drawing

Artists, illustrators, and typographers, also get their share of new a la mode tools. The first change that artists will love is the most-requested feature, the dotted and dashed lines. CS6 offers these lines with lots of control; they can be simply added from the Stroke Option box with any object selected. Everything now could be customized when using this feature. For instance, you can change the length, thickness and color of both the dashes and even fill the dashes or the dots using the gradient.
Shapes now offer more flexibility as Photoshop lets you copy shape attributes, such as the fill pattern, and paste them to multiple objects. Additionally, you can now add new shapes without the need of creating more layers. More control over the vector is now offered along with raster shape manipulation, such as alignment.

Content Aware Move

One of the most fabulous new tools the Adobe has introduced with the all new Photoshop CS6 is the Content-Aware Move. What’s magnificent about this tool is the fact that while preserving the background, this tool allows you to select an object and move it in. Additionally, it lets you place multiple instances of an object onto a background. Worth mentioning, that this tool works best with consistent background textures like grass, sand, or sky.

Read entire article here...continued... →


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