PROMOTIONAL ITEM - Handmade mini postcards

For the day of attending the London Book Fair I decided I want to create some handmade content (promotional item) that I can hand out to people who would be interested in my works. After the reassurance that my website is now running as normal after the complications I have gone through, I initially planned on printing a second batch of business cards with the addition of my website URL on the card under my social media information. However due to the time I had left before the London Book Fair it is not possible as it would be too late for the 2^nd batch to arrive, so instead I decided to create handmade mini postcards with my website at the back, which will be a good addition to my current business cards as I can give them both as a set to people.

A set of 4 mini postcard images, 2 landscape and 2 portrait illustrations, looks ideal as a mini set that can be handed out as a small promotional item along with my business card. The Illustrations chosen for these handmade postcards will showcase the content I create (like a sneak peek to what I produce) to the people I give them too. 

Chosen images for the mini handmade postcards.

The printing process wasn’t as difficult compared to the printing for my physical portfolio as I was confident in choosing cartridge paper for the creation of this promotional item. The only issue I have come across was the back-to-back printing with the website name and the illustration on InDesign, as the placement of the text on the back would need to be correct otherwise it would mess up the text placements that will correspond to the landscape and portrait images. 

After printing the dummy version with the text at the back of the images, I created and printed a belly band that will hold the set of 4 mini postcards together so they will packaged as a promotional item. The process of printing cutting out the cards and assembling them as a package (and printing/cutting out the belly band) took some time and I was aiming to produce around 20 of them, though due to defects (from the printing process) as well as cutting them out using the guillotine, cause the overall number of producing them to a finished standard dropped to 15. Personally this is still enough for it to be handed out as a promotional item as I will include my business card to go with them. 

Mini postcards with the dummy band to package them in place. 

Finalised product with my current business card attached to it.

This item will be displayed at the shared table the Illustration course have at the London Book Fair along with other classmates’ business cards/promotional items for people to pick up if they are interested. 

The creation of this promotional item stems from the absence of my website on my current business card, which in turn led me to create an additional item outside of my current plans for promotional items for this module. I believe that this last minute action does have its strengths where I treated the London Book Fair as a mini deadline to get things sorted for such a big event. The final product of the mini postcards could have been better in terms of the paper quality, I would have preferred printing using better paper online, though due to the remaining time that was left before the event I resorted to using cartridge paper that is decent enough for the printing of the images in the studio.  

Portfolio Selection - Preparation for the London Book Fair

Selecting images for my physical portfolio is critical as I want to show artworks that will showcase my abilities in digital painting and the type of content I produce. In preparation for the London Book Fair, I carefully selected several images that are aimed towards the market of book covers and children book/fiction book illustrations. The target audience at this London Book Fair are art directors, publishers and authors so I think it is best to select some of the narrative based illustrations I have done outside of university work. Characters can be included though I think they will need to be put into context (narrative illustrations or storyboards) so the viewers can visually relate it to the theme of storytelling and see the potential end product that they might have in mind when seeing them.

Looking into my collection of narrative based illustrations I have created, there isn’t really enough content for my portfolio as most of these were produced outside of university hours in my spare time. There are a few works which I had retouched upon so they can be added to the portfolio (e.g. children’s book illustration) though due to the time I have left before the London Book Fair I do not think I am able to produce enough content to get to the bare minimum amount of images.

Here are some of the illustrations I have selected to be put into my physical portfolio for the London Book Fair. 

For the physical portfolio I have bought an A4 Prat Paris folder with built in crystal clear sleeves, sadly I had missed out on a discount which I could of got the portfolio folder at around half of its original price tag so I ended up purchasing it at its full original price. This is something I wouldn’t mind, though optimally I would have preferred to get it at a discount though I am expected to invest some amount of money for really good quality products to display my artwork so, to me paying at around £40 for the portfolio is ok as this is an item I will be keeping throughout my future art career. 

Dummy prints in my portfolio folder to work out where the images goes in terms of order as well as transitions from one artwork to the next to ensure that the sequence of viewing each image one after the after runs smoothly when viewing.

The only thing I need to do for the physical portfolio is to add/produce more illustrations as much as possible before the London Book Fair and I would need to spend some time printing my artworks on good quality matte paper using an inkjet printer. 

In addition, I have added text to one or two illustrations to put them into context, for example, one of the images I have retouched on is from a children’s book module, and decided to see what it would like with and without the text. After doing so and printed them to see the physical outcome, I had chosen the one with the text as it fits with the purpose of the portfolio, to showcase some artworks in the context of storyboards and narratives in which art directors and publishers would want to see. 

Original illustration for Children's book module from last year (2016)

Retouch of the Children's book illustration (2017)

Retouch illustration with the text for narrative/storyboard context.

Another illustration (children's book) that has been retouched in preparation for the London Book Fair.

The print quality for my images needs to be high quality in order to show my illustrations at the highest quality possible and had chosen a matte quality finish paper for the best results. Glossy paper feels unsuitable as the reflective coating on the paper can cause glares when people view them. Beforehand I have 100gsm matte paper to print, however the paper feels a bit thin and the quality is noticeable in terms of colour, so I made a last minute decision to get matte paper in order to increase the colour quality to a higher standard. Using the 100 gsm matte paper on the inkjet printer to print made the colour quality terrible and looks to appear as if it’s been faded, however, using a laser print shows a much better result (in terms of colour and detail) so I think it is more suitable to use the laser print for that kind of paper, but I personally feel that the inkjet printer is more preferred option for printing images at a professional standard. In the end I had used a 170 gsm Canon Matte Photo Paper to print in my Inkjet printer and the quality result is at a much higher standard than the previous with the Ryman’s Multi-purpose Matte Paper. 

Using the Ryman 100gsm High-White Multi-Purpose Matte paper to print using my Inkjet Paper. The faded colours were very noticeable and looks unsuitable for my liking for a printed image for my portfolio. 

Using the same paper but printed using a laser print paper. The noticeable differences between the colours are very high and it seems that using thin paper to print via an Inkjet Printer makes the image quality terrible, so a laser print printer is best for thin paper while Inkjet is better for thick/heavy weight paper. 

For the order of images in my portfolio there are a mix of portrait and landscape images so the most optimal way of presenting them was to assort all landscape images at the front and then all the portrait images. Tutors suggested the idea so the portfolio doesn’t look “cluttered” in a way that you would have to keep rotating the portfolio around every so often which I do agree with as it will be a little annoying having to keep rotating 1 page or so to view the images. In terms of image placement (the order of images) I have carefully placed them in specific order, in such a way that the transition between each images runs smoothly. 

Online Presence - Building my Website and Social Media

After looking into various online platforms and looking back at the workshop where we had compared and looked into portfolio websites, it is a little hard to choose the one I feel suitable and comfortable with, though in the end I had personally gone for Foliorop, a portfolio website that looks professional and clean. I had looked into the features that it offers in the free version, the pro version and the agency pro version and it appears the free version offers everything I need to the very least, from custom templates, custom logos to unlimited features. More importantly it allows for a custom domain name which I would want.

Other websites I had looked into such as Wix and Carbonmade, were other potential online platforms I was considering using for my online portfolio, however the aesthetic and presentation on those websites is not exactly my type, as I want a very clean, well presented platform to show my work professionally. Wix comes very close for my choosing, though in the end I decided to go foliodrop.

Foliodrop

Carbonmade

Wix

I had started with the free version first to see everything goes well after a while and then I will consider upgrading to the Pro version to extend on the customisation of my website’s aesthetic to my liking.

The free version only offers the basic black or white template which is ok for me as it does makes things look professionally presented with the colours of white and/or black.

At the moment there is still some work to do in terms of sorting out text, headers, fonts and the limited images I have currently uploaded to the website. It feels empty at the moment due to the lack of original work I have done so far to showcase my skills in digital painting and the type of content I create, though that will take time to produce more work.

Managing the customisation of fonts and galleries were a little confusing at first, though after looking online for video tutorials on how to set things up had made things easier for me to navigate around.

As of 12/03/2017 I decided I want a domain name and have bought my own: “www.tobyleeillustration.com” from the website known as “Godaddy” which I can use, however, I am experiencing problems in connecting my domain name to foliodrop. It was so confusing in managing and connecting it to the website and it felt frustrating. I had pursued online tutorials to try and get it fixed, however I cannot see the outcome whether it works and connects to foliodrop or not as apparently it will take roughly up to 24 hours, which will seriously hinder me from giving my domain name/website to potential clients or viewers, especially for the London Book Fair. As of now it is uncertain whether it works or not and I do not think I will get it sorted in time, as this is my first time handling the online connectivity between my domain name and foliodrop. This is the last step to ensure before my website can go live, though at the moment I would need to wait to see if it successfully connects or not. 

After having doubts about the website whether if it is functioning properly or not with the domain name I decided to speak with Emma, the course technician, to see if she knew anything about connecting domain names to the website. After discussing with her with what I went through, from purchasing a domain name and managing the connectivity between the domain and the portfolio website, she told me that everything is fine and it is just a matter of time for the search engines such as Google to track down my website. We had gone through various steps again to ensure everything is properly done as she has done something similar, and with her experience and knowledge of managing domains and connecting them has me assured that what I had done to get this far is all good. From this point she told me that in order to be more visible on search engines I need to have more people clicking on my website in order to increase its exposure.

Knowing now that everything is done correctly, I will go back to my website from time to time to update it with recent works and information for viewer’s interest, as well as upgrading to the Pro version on foliodrop to gain access to more customisations and options.

In conjunction with my website to post my original/personal works, I already have an account on Instagram and Tumblr/deviantart for various other works (sketches, fanarts and work in progress). All social media accounts are all networked and linked to one another and at the moment most works that are posted are similar (final artworks and fanarts) the only difference there is between them (in terms of posted content), Instagram acts more of a visual diary, where I post on a regular basis (every other 2-3 days) of my works, current illustrations I have been working on (WIP) and fanarts, whereas Tumblr (and deviantart) is more focused on posting final artworks/fanarts. My original website will focus purely on my original works, whereas other social media will contain a mixture and variety between original and fanart content. 

My current Instagram account.

My current Tumblr account.

Connecting each social media account and my website with each other will allow people to navigate between each one, as well as building up followers from each platform if people only have an account on one social media or another. In order to maintain interest for the people who are following me on each social media, I would have to post regularly, which I am currently doing so on my Instagram account. Also, the type of content will need to be consistent as there is a reason why people are following, is because they are interested in the type of work you produce. I am sort of split in between, as I do original works and fanarts (though recently there has been more fanart content than original content as I do these to practice my digital painting) though I am leaning towards producing more original work so I am slowly transitioning from fanarts to original content (in terms of quantity). 

Workshop - Website comparison - T-shirts websites

Another exercise where we look into various websites to compare the layout, price range of the products and the pros and cons that each site holds. In pairs we each explore two websites that are fairly similar to each other and to make notes on their differences to see which one, by comparing their prices and overall aesthetic, is better. As a pair we were given two websites, both selling shirts and customisable tops.

Teespring

Spreadshirt

Shirts and Products

Teespring

Shirts + Mugs

Spreadshirt

More variety – price range is a bit more expensive. More Products such as bags, phone cases, mugs, etc.

Price Range

Teespring

$12-$43. Most expensive product are hoodies which sits at the $43 range.

Spreadshirt

$12-$40. Hoodies are the expensive product.

Customisation of colours for products

Teespring

More colour options to choose from.

Spreadshirt

Not as much and is very limited compared to what Teespring has to offer.

Website layout/Home page

Teespring

A lot of space on the front page, feels a bit empty. Simple and clean design.

Spreadshirt

A lot more interactive than Teespring. More engaging and allowing you to zoom in on products for hi-resolution view. The aesthetic is more organised with the amount of products being advertised.

Customisation of shirts

Teespring

Variety of fonts and stock images to use on shirt. Can upload your own images or illustrations on shirt for preview.

Spreadshirt

Similarly to Teespring though there is more options to play around with customisation such as choosing colour (only applies to stock images and preset fonts).

Viewing design on shirt

Teespring

Uploaded images fits on the shirt. The blending of the shadows on the shirt allows for more accurate presentation of what the image may look like in person.

Spreadshirt

Images look flat on the shirt on the preview. No sense of depth compared to the preview on Teespring.

Both websites are fairly similar to one another and are balanced in terms of the overall aesthetic, though in the end I think Spreadshirt has more to offer as it has more products, as well as images of popular culture that would attract particular consumers of similar interests to buy the shirts, bags, etc. The interface of the website looks a lot livelier, while Teespring seems to focus more on the simple aspect of clean look and presentation. 

Promotional Product and Application of Work to Products or Context - 12/01/2016

This small exercise is to explore the various applications that I could use my artworks on certain products. Taking into account that my works and methods of producing illustrations is through digital painting, I will need to consider the type of products that will be relevant to the images I create. From the list to choose from for me to experiment and to apply my images on chosen products, I will be choosing Print as my primary application as this will be the most relevant to me as a digital artist. This will also allow me to explore other possible promotional materials I can produce as part of the module.

I will look into various online stores to get an insight of products that digital artists or illustrators sell with their artworks printed on.

Potential products for me to experiment with my artworks are of the following:

Postcards

Screen saver/Desktop background

CD cover

Cups

Posters

Looking into the price range of particular sizes, etc. will give me an insight as to how I could price my promotional items, based on what I will discover.

Society6 Product Prices

A mixture of traditional and digital artworks of various landscape imagery, subject matters and visual narrative.

Art Prints: $15-$20 on average……………………………....(£12-£15)

Framed Art Prints: $30-$40 on average……………….........(£23-£31)

Coffee Mugs: $15……………………………………………...(£12)

Stationary Cards: $12………………………………………....(£9.50)

Canvas Prints: $85-$95 on average…………………….......(£67-£75)

Exchange rate on the currency were checked on 26/01/2016, the estimated prices may differ as time passes afterwards.

Papio Press Product Prices

Mostly focuses on traditional prints in terms of visual imagery. Feels traditional-based. Personally I don’t think my digital artwork would be suitable as an illustration to be sold on this website as it would feel out of place. It seems to be aimed towards customers who have interests in these particular type of illustrations. Most illustrations all have a theme related to nature or animals.

A4 Prints: £17

A3 Prints: £25

A2 Prints: £50

Postcards set: £6

I will choose one artwork from the past year or two and see its visual outcome on various products by editing the illustration on to the items for visual mock-ups. I will also choose other artworks to see the comparison and to find out which ones are more suitable and appealing than the other on the products. 

CD cover mock-up

I had chosen one of my final artworks from the self-publishing module for a CD cover mock-up. Out of other artworks from my personal works and past projects, I feel this type of visual imagery can be applied to many products and digital uses for visual appeal, simply because it feels more applicable than other illustrations I have created that would involve heavy usage of characters, or focuses on a particular theme that would otherwise feel narrow and only fits into certain type of products (imagery that are created and designed to fit into particular products such as book marks, mugs, etc.) 

Testing the artwork as a desktop background on my computer to see the results.

Screensaver/Desktop Background

The artwork being displayed as a desktop background for a mock-up looks really suitable, although there would probably be a few adjustments needed on the measurements just so it will fit in nicely as whole within the frame, as the original size of the image could potentially stretch/squeeze itself if it were to try and fit to scale. 

Phone covers (IPhone case)

Phone cases are probably the easiest product to apply artworks and illustration on to. Not a lot of difficulty to arrange the image in place.

Coffee Mug

Was really difficult to implement some of my artworks onto the mug mock-up as the illustration would have to go all around the product, as I was having a bit of trouble editing it. I personally feel that small illustrations would look more appealing than full artwork around the mug.

Postcards

Artworks are most applicable on postcards. 

Wall Poster/Canvas

Similar to postcards, artworks are a lot more suitable as framed prints. 

Other personal artworks being applied to the same products to see their visual outcome. This will allow me to compare which artworks looks more suitable on each one. 

After various mock-ups, the product(s) that I think will look suitable with some of my artworks are the CD/Album Cover, Wall Poster/Canvas and Desktop background/screen saver. From what I know, the desktop background/screen saver will be a digital downloadable content, as you cannot obtain this as a physical thing. Though the downside, if this were to be a digital download for a desktop background, people can just save the image by searching it on the internet and freely use it, unless I state that this wallpaper is a free content then yes, otherwise if it is something that customers will have to pay for this digital content, they would potentially find other ways in obtaining it for free. 

I can see CD/Album covers could be something I can be commissioned for, as it is one of the things I wouldn’t mind doing. Phone cases is debateable, as some artwork does work as a cover, while some doesn’t, and personally I don’t have the feeling that phone cases could work for me, maybe because there could of have been a better illustration for it, or an illustration that is designed specifically around the phone case.

Canvas or posters are without a doubt a product I can see my artworks being displayed as, since all of my illustrations are fitted towards prints. Postcards or any other print-related products are also something I can sell, however, there wouldn’t be much of a variety.