I can’t believe there are only 17 more days until Surtex. I am SUPER excited, yet I can’t wait for it to be over. I’m sure Stephen would agree with that, too, since that is ALL I talk about lately!
The last few weeks have been absolutely insane with preparations. Even though I didn’t have a lot of new art at the time, we needed to start thinking about the booth design. Which meant ordering banners. But of course, I don’t want to put a lot of old work on the banners, right? So not only were we designing our booth, I was making new art at the same time. It was kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. I-need-art-for-the-banners-but-the-art-needs-to-be-created-before-I-can-put-the-art-on-the-banners. Ya know? Whew! So needless to say, there were a lot of almost-sleepless nights and sacrificed weekends while I pushed through. Once everything was ordered, a huge weight was lifted off me and I could breathe a bit.
But just a bit.
Then I had to start thinking about promos. Originally, I wasn’t planning on doing much promotion so I could focus on making new art. But then I thought, I am investing a lot of time, effort and money on this show, so it would be pretty unfortunate if no one even knew I was there! I’ve never done any kind of physical promotion, so I wanted to get it right. Lots of people do postcards, which are great – but I still think it’s pretty easy to toss them in the wastebasket or lose them in a pile of papers. I needed something more memorable that an Art Director wouldn’t want to throw away. Maybe they’d even pin it to their wall.
My answer? Felt pennant flags! I know they’re nothing new – but they’re right up my alley. They’re throwback (vintage!), involve felt (my favorite material!) and they could be screen printed (my favorite printing method!). Plus if I really got my act together I could incorporate some of my newly-designed fabric as the binding.
I was working on some Super Girl illustrations at the time, so I thought that theme would be fitting. A local screen printer, Screen Door Studio did the printing on some yummy colored felt. I scaled my colored pencil floral designs down to be proportionate to the flags and got some Spoonflower fabric printed. My friend Michelle saved me several hours by cutting, pressing and sewing the binding. And all of a sudden, I had a stack of amazing custom felt pennant flags!!
Ahhh. They make me so happy! I think they are a perfect representation of me.
I’ll be back soon with the rest of my Surtex promo plan.
Later!
Promo Mailers Part 2 {Surtex 2015} – spectrum diversified designs
ONLY TEN DAYS UNTIL SURTEX 2015!
Yup. Ten days. And so much to do. But I have to say – after the stress of the last month, I’m definitely more chill than I was, despite the pile of work and lack of time. I don’t want to go into the show totally exhausted, so I’m trying to get to bed at a decent hour (you know – 6 hours of sleep as opposed to 4 hours!) and I think that is helping to clear my head a bit. Ask me in five days if I’m still playing it cool!
I wanted to finish my series on the promo mailers I sent out two weeks ago. After the flags were all sewed and ready to go I realized I needed to mount them to something to keep them flat in their envelopes. I got some backing board, cut it to fit and stamped them with my Emily Balsley Illustration stamp to make them even more official. Here they are, drying:
It may be hard to see in the photo, but I also designed a large rubber stamp for addressing the front of the envelopes. I love how it turned out, but it wasn’t the easiest to print – the coverage wasn’t as solid as I hoped and that big blank space was next to impossible to keep clean. I actually had to put a little piece of paper there to block the ink for every print. It was a pain, but it was still worth it. They’re super fun!
And here are the flags on their boards. I secured them with cute washi tape.
I had also ordered some Surtex postcards, stickers and new business cards, so I stuffed the envelopes with those as well. The back of the postcard has a whimsical “nice to meet you” design.
Each mailer contained a flag on backing board, a hand-written note, a postcard, stickers and business card. I was relieved that the stuffed envelopes still fit through the sorter at the post office – that saved me a bit of $$ for shipping!
I’ll be honest – I was a bit nervous mailing these out. There was so much love put into these mailers, I couldn’t help but feel a little vulnerable! But that’s okay. I want people to know who I am as an artist and I think these packages were the perfect representation of me and my work. And maybe…just maybe…I’ll get a job or two from it!
If you missed Part 1 of my Surtex promo mailers, you can find it here.
‘Til next time,
Grandma’s Garden – spectrum diversified designs
When Alison of tiny blue orange approached me last year to collaborate on a project, I didn’t have to think twice. She is an awesome Madison-based web extraordinaire and super-savvy business lady that I am lucky to call a friend. The project involved gardening, and kids and television – sounds pretty cool, right?
Essentially, Alison was tasked with building a website for Grandma’s Garden – an “…educational television program…focusing on equipping children to live healthy and productive lives, teaching them how to engage with their environment and their caretakers in meaningful ways”. The program was coming to life with help from a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Alison asked me to help her create a natural world for the website content to live. Since the theme was gardening, we thought it would be cool to a garden graphic that would run along the entire bottom of the site, and a sky/sun/clouds graphic to encompass the top half. Here are some of the initial sketches:
There were also a few characters that would help out around the site, and eventually be the inspiration for costumes on the television show! Here we have some concept sketches for Billi the Bee, Sammy the Snail and Betty the Butterfly:
The concept sketches were pretty close to Alison’s vision, so I fleshed them out, digitized and added color. I made the garden footer into a repeat, so it would be seamless once it was placed along the bottom of the page. Alison worked her magic (including fun, moving clouds!) and everything came together beautifully. Here are a couple screen grabs so you can get the idea:
Didn’t it turn out great? It was such a fantastic experience, collaborating with Alison, and illustrating for a website (a first for me!). I love how it looks – perfect for both kids and their grown-ups. Be sure to head over to the Grandma’s Garden website to check it out for yourself, and while you’re at it, here is what Alison had to say about the project. So fun!
Have a great weekend,