p&p: MY PROMO/PRODUCTS

INITIAL IDEA FOR BUSINESS CARDS:

When I found out that Moo.com was able to cut their business card corners to make them rounded, I knew I wanted to make a playing card as my business card. I had been drawing a lot of children at the time and decided I would make them the subject matter. I collected a lot of references, mostly from Pinterest and came up with some suitable characters. I knew I couldn't do a full pack so I was going to have a go at the Royals.

This first row of pictures is from before I chose Boo Dillon as my Illustration name (which is why it says Josephine Dillon!). This set is also before I could even open Photoshop, let alone play around with it - so it was all done in a very rudimentary way...

This second row is a bit more advanced, by this time Photoshop had become a little more manageable but I was still just testing the waters...

The idea was to have a sash running between the girl and boy saying Boo Dillon Illustration - time sadly ran away with me and I never finished it - I'm going to though. I want to do one for each suit.

FACEBOOK CARDS:

Moo.com were having a promotion - for just the cost of postage I was able to print 50 cards using images from my professional Facebook page - no mention of Moo whatsoever... At this time I was really struggling with the general 'identity' of my name as a Business and the fact that you couldn't put a logo or alter the font in any way meant these were a great way to start off.

I've left these in a couple of the more 'artist-friendly' cafe's in Cheltenham, Henley-On-Thames and Falmouth and gave a few of the last remaining cards out at the London Book Fair. I don't know which of the areas were the most successful but I did get a markedly increased amount of followers as a result - not bad for an almost freebie.

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By the time the Facebook cards had arrived, I had managed to finalise my design for the look of my Business name - in the end simplicity won out:

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So, it was back to Moo where I ordered 200 of the round cornered cards with 4 of the images taken from my Menagerie Series.

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The day the Moo.com package arrived was pretty exciting until, after opening it, I found that the cards has all been printed off centre - disappointing to say the least.

Thankfully Moo were incredibly kind about it and made sure I got a replacement set as the fault had been theirs, but because it had to be a rush order, the cards couldn't be round cornered. Disappointing again! Happily it did mean that I could add a few more designs, which were now ready, and also the other orders I had placed with Moo were fine - more than fine, I loved them. I ordered a set of stickers that are the size and shape of the round cornered business cards and these came with my Website name as well as my name on the front.

These went down very well at the London Book Fair - out of the 200 I had made, I now only have 10 and that's only because I kept 10 at home! Hopefully they will be stuck around the offices of publishing companies far and wide - a business card gets hidden away in a wallet or a drawer, a sticker gets seen... (and possibly on a daily basis).

I also had some smaller stickers made, but once I got them I realised that, as they're so small, really they're best for packaging and mail-outs etc. Not to be sniffed at of course, it's all promotion.

Finally, from Moo, came my postcards. I used the same images as those I'd used for my business cards and larger stickers but had finished another design by the time I ordered them, so I added that to the mix:

Unfortunately, because they're gloss the colours have not come out well at all in the photo above, they're far less dull in real life! I wanted the back to follow the feel of the front and so redesigned the typical postcard layout slightly, using the Boo Dillon blue and rounding the edges etc.

Finally, I had to be able to display my new products - no point having them made if their presentation doesn't reflect their importance:

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TEMPORARY TATTOOS:

This was a grand scheme which was going to be ready in time for the London Book Fair - very sadly, the Sunday I was printing them all out I realised my supplier had forgotten to include a pretty important element in the package of transfer paper and I couldn't make them. I still will but this one is a prototype - I think I need to muck around with the cardboard topper though. The glossy card doesn't take the ink very well - I tried a non-gloss card but it made the finished item look a lot more amateur. In the meantime, this is the prototype: