Choosing a way to go

Greetings. It has been so long from my last post. I had vacation, then family, then some advertising to set up along with recreating my site due to my html editor crashing. Thank you for being patient with me and know that I am back now for more regularly scheduled postings.

Here is an article that I am working on.

Choosing a Designer for your Invitations-Custom Design or from Templates

With any special event or celebration, after making the decision to have it, comes letting everyone know about it.
The most common and effective way to achieve a large response is by sending out your invitations.
Where to begin can be very taxing along with many other decisions to make in order for the event go your way and be perfect.
Choices for creative and attractive invitations are in abundance and can be quite overwhelming. There are the quick "do-it-yourself" programs and websites. They are very useful and as they say, easy and quick.
There are the Card companies that provide templates for you to choose from.
Then there are your select companies that will design the invitations to your liking.

Let's look closer at your choices.
When you want to use the computer home programs available, you should be sure of the templates that are provided in this program. You may be a bit limited by what editing can be done. There again is the frustration involved in trying to achieve this task on your own. If you choose this way of designing your own invitations, use every help method available to speed up the process and make your time more efficient. If you enjoy the thought of designing it all yourself, this is a great way to do it.

One deciding factor as to what approach to take for your invitations is if you want a more traditional style. This style can be provided by most card vendors and it is easy to process. These usually are your text with the ceremony information with a mention of a reception to follow. This style has been the tried and true for many weddings and other formal events. If this is your choice of style, then get with your local card company or a website that will have this selection available.

When you are at a point to where you have decided to use a graphic designer to design your invitations, the possibilities can range from simple, elegant, fun, expressive, retro, and other themes and styles that may not be available through the before mentioned approaches. Your designer will use whatever information you provide, to design a very personalized and custom-made invitation that suits your every wish. Having it done this way allows for you to talk with the designer about your ideas, what you do or don’t want the invitation to look like and more specifics on colors, styles, and size. When choosing a designer, you will also have to consider the printing of the cards. Some have a printing company they use on a regular basis, some will refer you to a printing house and some will do all of the leg work for you including stuffing and mailing.

All of these factors will be best decided upon while in a very relaxed and non rushed state of being. Take your time and either do your own homework or allow a family, friend or event planner to take on this task to alleviate some of your worries. When the day comes for your celebration, the preparation process would have been a nice memory but nothing in comparison to the beauty of the event.


Thanks for any advice or suggestions you may have on this article or any other ideas for me to post about.

There requires alot of research on my part to keep up with the current styles or design, different approaches, new color schemes and so on. I come across numerous web sites and businesses in the local area that choose to stay very plain with logo designs or the layout of a site. I appreciate a creative "plain" but some are just painfully plain and nondescriptive in their design.
Something so simple as using all lower cases or periods to separate words and other remedies http://www.listrak.com/clickzwebsitewhitepaper that can easily and inexpensively set them apart from the mundane of the typical Arial typeset can bring more attention to their business.
Understandably, some customers want the no fuss no muss but at that point why not design it themselves and save money in doing so. That is what everything in life tends to come down to is the money involved. I find myself majorly undercutting the going rate for design work to get more word of mouth going and making more contacts. This is not always the case but it does help sometimes when wanting to keep a good client.
This time of year there are weddings, graduations, vacations and so much to do outside that I am excited for the beautiful and long days here. My daugter likes her "pool" so we are outside alot of the day while she plays and I read. I will not leave her unattended at all so I look forward in the evening to getting back to work and checking in with everyone.
For any regular readers, thank you for being so and sorry that it has been so long since my last post. lisa

What else?

I say bring it on. I have gotten pretty busy these past few weeks with work and personal life. My 4 year old decided that it was time to get her ears pierced. I was a basket of nerves until she actually went through with it. My stomach is sick from so much mother pride right now. They grow so quickly.
Next year she will officially be a member of society with beginning her first year of structured schooling. We haven't decided on public or private schools yet. I like private for the uniforms and smaller classes but that is all that I know about them. How do I compare curriculums with being ignorant to either? With private there is tuition and taxes and with public just the taxes. School supplies are quite scary. I know folks that end up paying around $200 just at http://www.walmart.com/ for supplies then there are book fees, etc. Good gracious alive. I know when I was in school, supplies were a few folders, a pack of pencils and pens, erasers and notebook paper. The rich kids had the big http://www.officeworld.com/ Mead folders and such. Backpacks? My stuff was carried in these massive arms of mine and I was lucky to have a pencil holder. If not, my ear was always available. Anyway, we are very excited for her and it is so cute to see her little ears with those pretty little flower starter earrings.
As for work, all has been awesome as usual. Networking and doing cold calls still seem to be the way for me to make contacts and possible clients. I have completed my yearly volunteer campaign with http://blondechampagne.blogspot.com/ It has been an awesome proces and all go to buy something at the Cafe Press http://www.cafepress.com/blondechampagne

I have received good responses from some cold calls that I did. Thanks again Joan for contacting me at Ithaca Press http://www.ithacapress.com/ and a few other inquiries. Keep 'em coming.

My thoughts lately about design have been about using typography as the main focus for the design. I really enjoy working with logos and other designs with the challenge of typography as the only element to work with. I have noticed with some projects that being able to add a simple straight line can TOTALLY change the dimensions, look and specs of it. The process may seem very simple but the things that have to be considered is mind blowing at times. Consider http://desktoppub.about.com/od/logos/ss/logobasics.htm this article about shapes and such.

"Be aware of what the shape of lines can convey. Sharp edges could indicate tension, crispness, hardness, formality, or high tech. Soft edges and curves may be softer, flowing, more casual, or more personal.Even small changes in line thickness, endings, or shape changes can alter the look and feel of a design. "

Like I said there are many things to consider about the simplicity of a logo. With just the typography and one line to work with, the possibilities are numerous.

Thanks again for reading and please send your comments anytime.

Mother's Day

So many things are out there about Mother's Day. I have my own mothers so I of course make them their own card according to their personalities. I love doing this and it brings them so much joy also to see the time and thought taken to make them. Remember when you were a kid and made mom the cards in school? I poured my heart into those things as I still do but hopefully now they look ALOT BETTER.

The Unit

I got to see the show called "The Unit" tonight. From what I understand, one of the advisors for the show wrote a book or two about The Delta Force. Serious stuff.
Today is my anniversary. I am married to an amazing and supportive man. I can stay home with our little girl and do work that I so much love to do.
I have gotten some good reviews on my blog from family and friends. http://chumneyvisualdesigns.blogspot.com/ If you feel the same, even if not, go ahead and leave me a comment and pass on my blog to folks that you know.
Business is a bit slow right now but no matter how much work there is to do, I just love whatever challenges are given to me.
There are many aspects to designing. An interior designer has to consider so many things that a graphic designer, engineer, or commerical designer may not have to. A graphic designer has much more computer concerns to deal with whereas the interior designer has to consider more 3 dimension elements and how the items come together and http://www.waverly.com/ what spaces are left to fill. The graphic designer client can be more elusive as to what they are considering as a final product. The interior design client can help in that they can say where they want something placed in a space, or whether this item or that will be part of the room. I also feel that our challenges do parallel in some ways. We consider colors, shapes, item placement, relativity to other elements involved, and the final outcome of course. All in all, the client has the final work on the product and it is our duty, since they did hire us, to give them exactly what they want. I have learned that it isn't wise to try and sway the clients ideas. It is wiser to listen carefully and make a professional assesment of what the client is trying to convey.
It is a great reward for me to have a client say that they received exactly what they wanted in the design. It is also wise to realize that after a few consults and edits, if it is not coming toghether the way the client wants, I advise them that it may help to describe it a different way or allow me to put toghether 3 or 4 mockups and see if any of these resemble their idea. The goal is to have a happy person on the receiving end of giving http://1stholistic.com/Prayer/A2004/hol_giving-and-receiving.htm .
Take care and I do hope that you won't be shy in giving me a comment on my blog site or this specific blog.

Mine, all mine

I just came across a blog of a lovely young lady and her beautifully large family. She has 8 children all from the same man that she is still married to. How great is that. Not knocking other people that don't fit this scenerio but it great to see that some traditions still exist in the US.
This is the latest design that I have been working on for http://blondechampagne.blogspot.com/ The writer of the blog is a great girl. Her writing is fun and full of witty sarcasm. Check her out.
My days have been full lately with hotel cost comparison for my overseas business trip, gym visits, entertaining my daughter and other research attempts on various issues including freelance jobs.
With being a freelancer for hire, it can be very difficult to find business that will trust work that comes from a small design company. We are certainly as capable as any employee with any large design house we just avoid the hassels of commuting, daycare, getting to daycare on time! and other hassels of working away from the house. We are just, if not MORE committed to our work since it is MINE, not someone elses, business. It makes every customer that much more valuable and precious to us. Keeping it short tonight. More to do before the weary can sleep.

Precious Moments

Ok, I have to be sappy for a little while and I will add in my designer mind when applicable. Today was my daughter's birthday. My one and only precious little person. We had a wonderful day, it beginning with her waking me in the morning and asking "Mommy is it my birthday now" and I replied yes. She wanted homemade pancakes for breakfast, some cartoons and for lunch she chose http://www.chick-fil-a.com/Home.asp sandwiches. The best sweet tea and chicken sandwiches.
From there we picked out what style of cake she wanted to celebrate with and she chose cupcakes. One for me and one for her. She wanted the one with the pink frosting and I got the yellow frosted one. When we got home, I put the number 4 candle on hers and sang Happy Birthday to her. We then endulged in our cupcake eating celebration of her being born 4 years ago. It was priceless I tell ya. She has been attempting all day long to prove to me (or maybe herself) that she is a big girl now. No more baby stuff. Too many examples to explain but it was great. She is trying to do alot on her own and be a "know it all" in a good way. Then we went on our nightly walk where I usually put her into the jogging stroller and we take one of the dogs with us. Tonight she decided that she wanted just the two of us to go and that she didn't want to be in the stroller, that she wanted to ride her little 3 wheeler. She did it, the entire 1.6 mile walk that we do. I was totally amazed.
After dinner and her bath, she was playing pretend tea time. She has always liked to play like she is serving me some tea or food of some sort. So I asked her if she wanted a tea time for real http://www.tea.co.uk since she likes to imagine using my own tea sets. She was very excited to be having a real tea party with mommies tea set. That is where we are now in our day.
As for designing, my thoughts wondered as I was making the tea, about how beautiful the artistry is with a good tea set. My British friend gave me a real tea pot from England the last time that I visited and it is a treasure to me. It is so beautifully hand painted. http://www.rushgideon.com/index.cfm
While out shopping for the cupcakes I was noticing how unfriendly the packaging for the cupcake is. The girl put them in the plastic store bags to carry out and the minute I picked it up, everything tilted and messed up some of the cupcakes frosting. I had bought a larger package for her birthday party. Small things like that I notice. I am very detailed oriented and notice alot of things that other people don't necessarily. Still at the store, I wanted her to have a balloon so she picked out a beautiful one shaped like a butterfly. http://www.balloons.com/ There were other shapes of a dragonfly, hearts, Care Bears and so on. How do they make the shapes for balloons? I have wondered about that before.
Who came up with the idea of giving out gift bags at birthday parties? When I used to go to parties, any gifts that were given were to any kid that won a game that had a prize with it. Oh well, my pet peeve I guess.
There were so many precious moments to today. Me and my girl had a great day together and I pray for her to have many more.
I encourage anyone's feedback on my blog as well as any insight to my web site at www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com I appreciate you taking the time to read my thoughts and for giving me any advice on the blog or my site. Thank you.

A Gunimon

That is what I am hearing on the television as my 4 year old watches some cartoons before bed. It is a little thing that we do to allow her to settle down some before breaking the bad news that it is bedtime. It is amazing enjoying and watching the process of a little baby coming into the world and then nurturing them, them depending totally on us for their every need and then slowly they grow, learn, explore, express and turn into such a neat little person.
My daughter turns four tomorrow April 20 and I am being a bit emotional. We are having her birthday party with a friend bringing over a pony for rides for an hour. It will be so much fun. I am traditional in that I will make cupcakes, not a cake. Cakes are too messy for 4 and 5 year olds and I have those ice cream cups like you get in school. No muss, no fuss, I hope.
Anyway, about business. I haven't progressed very far with the gift tags. I have alot on my plate and that is just another little thing that I offer. www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com If you are thinking of using my services, I am a graphic designer specializing in personalized greeting cards but I still have the knowledge for anything pertaining to design so give it a try.
My next step with the business is to beef up my exposure. One way I am going to try is to use www.prweb.com I read an article at workZ.com that talked about things to do that will bring more visitors to the site. Really and truly I don't expect the site to be a main portal for clients (because it certainly has not been) but I want it there as a "store" for shoppers. Window shoppers certainly welcome to check out our products.
Most of my work is word of mouth and cold calls around where I live.
I am seeking anyones input that wants to give it. If you are visiting the blog here, go to my site real quick at www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com and please feel free to let me know the feeling you get when visiting. Warm fuzzies, cold pricklies, the willy nillies, anything at all, just be honest. I will take whatever advice, feedback, criticism that you have to give. Thanks.
One note of interest, that Pickler girl should've been voted off of American Idol tonight. Vote!!! My favorite is Taylor Hicks, I like his style and real passion for music. The other ones I like are Paris and the other guy Elliot.
Anway check it out at http://www.virtualvermont.com/americanidol.html They had some honest write ups of the singers and there chances of winning and such.
Well take care and thanks for visiting. Time for my midnight bowl of cereal.

Son of a Biscuit

I had this really nice blog and lost it. I was really getting into it and clicked something wrong and lost it. Now it is too late for me to recreate it. The short version is that I am doing some work for http://blondechampagne.blogspot.com/
Every year I do some volunteer work for those requesting it. This is something that I do every year to give back in my way. If God gave me the talents that I have, then it is only fair for me to share them. My goal in just about everything that I do, is to provide some happiness somewhere somehow and that is where my idea for the personalized greeting cards came up www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com

It is something that I am very passionate about. Many trips to the card stand always left me unsatisfied in my findings. I want to be there for people who think, darn I wish there was a way to have a card say exactly what I feel and look how I want it to. That has been my thoughts about cards and that is why I incorporated this as a part of my services as a designer. Boy the first blog that I lost sounded so much better but I hope that you enjoy this anyway.
Take care and let me know what you think of my blog site so far.

Kicked to the curb

I don't get the chance to watch much television at night but tonight I caught "The Apprentice" http://www.nbc.com/The_Apprentice_5/ . I like the show because it gives some insight to the more successful business owners and seeing them handle different scenerios with business. The trials and obstacles that they encounter are very challenging at times. The one I saw tonight, I have to say wasn't very original though. One was where they came up with ideas for the Boys and Girls Clubhttp://www.bgca.org/ theme. One deal a multipurpose room whereas the other team focused on just one concept of music. The second show had the teams doing product placement and promotional sales of a "pizza/sandwich" at the 7-Eleven http://www.7-eleven.com/ stores. Both shows were no-brainers. Sometimes there are some pretty tough stuff. It usually deals with having to stay within a budget. I also like the ones where they win or lose with a commercial.
Right now with the personalized greeting cards, I am at a crossing. I am wanting to stay with a mostly digital approach. To design the card and print it. Another part of me wants to experience with a scrapbooking approach http://www.creativememories.com/ to cards but I don't want to limit the product. There is just sooooooooo much of the scrapbooking style of things out there, and that is why I had the idea for a more of a digital scrapbook scheme. Where things can have that layered look yet not taking the chance of having embellishments fall off or not line up just right. The digital scrapbooking itself is a concept that allows for clean editing and image placement. I do the work and the client gets the product. Pure and simple.

Man Oh Man

Life does slow down alot when you and your family are ill. This virus has really knocked us all down for over a week now. I hear that many other people that I know around the country are suffering also.
On to business.
I have talked about color and paper with design. How about getting customers? Naw, that would sound like a sales pitch. But hey, I will take any of you that want to be one.
Let's talk about typography. This is a style of design that is very interesting to me.
http://abc.planet-typography.com/ Typography speaks alot about a design. The fancier cursive, Edwardian and
such fonts, exhibit a more elegant, formal design. http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments
Whereas the Teen or a Comic Sans, is more relaxed and fun. The story goes on forever about designing with typography. There are some fonts that could ruin a design. You have the Home Sweet Home that you certainly wouldn't want to use on a business publication unless of course it had to do with cross sticking or crafts. You all I am sure, get the point. What it is, is that, we as designers, must take into consideration many elements of a design. From how it is going to be used, who is going to see it, the dimensions, colors and so on.
This is a better discussion than mine. I stay pretty layman about things but this is a good indepth example of typography. http://www.wpdfd.com/wpdtypo.htm Being ill this week has hampered my creative bug so all is slow.
I have a chance a few times a week to visit other blogs that I have discovered and some are way too far out there for me. Some even make me embarrassed but then there are some that touch me or have a valuable message. Here is one inparticular for you to visit. http://rwlrealities.blogspot.com/ Enjoy.

Paper and then more

As a small business, with many of my projects, I will do the printing. I like having control over the outcome of the product. Kinko's http://www.fedex.com/us/officeprint/main/ and such is a good backup but I just learned that they are outsourcing most of their design work to an Indian company. I have no problem with India but I thought that Paul Orfalea took pride in his American born company. I was going to apply for the $10 (what a joke) and hour position to have more experience, but they hired out with the other India design company. It is all fine with me but it puts a bad taste with wanting to do much business with Kinko's anymore.
On with the paper chat. Many people may not understand that there are sooooooo many paper choices. It can drive a person mad. I am partial to the regular ole HP photo stock. I will usually use the glossy for personal images since this allows for a much cleaner print of the photo and the matte for images that I design for not so personalized cards. For brochures, there is a great brochure paper also available; the same goes for newsletters. I like the 9mil, 52 lb bond for the gloss and matte pre-scored greeting cards. Through much trial and error over the years, I get the quality that I desire with these products used as my main supply.
It is also smart for me to use these since I can just buy at the store and not have to wait for shipments and such. I will use Office Max normally for my supplies of the paper and other office products since they have a really attractive incentive with their Max Perks cards http://www.officemaxperks.com/.
Boring as this all may sound, it is just one of so many challenges that are faced on any given day to a home based graphic design business. Thanks again for reading my posts.
www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com

Here to help and such

This blog was created not only for me to express my life as a graphic designer but to also be a forum for others to come in and participate with questions, suggestions, comments and so on. If you happen upon this blog, feel free to chime in your thoughts.
I start tonight's blog after having a night out with my little girl. We live close enough to an area that we can walk to and have dinner. I chose a Chinese buffet. I love sushi and she eats the eggdrop soup with lots of rice mixed in. We call it her "yellow soup and rice". Tomorrow morning I go to my weekly yoga session at the gym. That stuff is amazing to me as is pilates and any other workout I get in.
As for my design world I have been focusing on one of the websites that I design and manage at www.foreversilkcreations.com I am having problems with a ftp setup that yahoo's server will not recognize. I was using Dreamweaver to send the files but then it suddenly wouldn't except them based on how yahoo reads the Dreamweaver connection. This is all so much internal stuff that it is confusing to me. When there are no snafoos, I do good but the technical troubleshooting can make you go wacky. I am a designer, not a technician. I am trying to find that wonderfully perverbial line that exists between the two with this.
I have downloaded smartftp but that isn't working either. I will move on to another free one that has good reviews. I have heard of smartftp alot of the years and thought to give them a try but to no avail.
I also have my daughter's birthday in a few weeks and I of course did the invitations with a seperate direction print out. I am making the gift bags to suit the party theme instead of relying on the store to have what I want. She is having a pony ride, horseshoes and hopscotch for the party activities so the invitations and bags reflect this.

I am working on a larger selection of templates for customers to order if they don't want the all out personalized greeting card. The templates will be available soon and customers can pick any six for a set. The set can be mailed wherever the customer likes. The prices of the box sets differ from the personalized greeting cards so visit my site to see it in all its' glory www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com

The April calendar is just a little something else that I put on my site to give viewers some ideas of what the month has to offer. Take care and thank you for reading the posts. lisa

Incentives

Greetings.
Children are definitely give us the incentive to prosper in our careers. Owning my own design business, it is rewarding to be at home with my 3 year old and set the pace needed for her. At times, it can be frustrating trying to work and then having your child want to play, talk, make distracting noises and such. But all in all the children are our motivation and encourage us in their unique ways.
As of lately, I have been active in finding more free advertising such as free banners, backlinks, Google Adsense to name a few. Some are very basic with their free service but in the long run it will be worth it. I do get confused when signing up for these programs when they want you to pick your catagory of service. Graphic design falls into many realms of services. We can do design for anyone or any industry of any size. It get complicated when breaking down the catagories into SUB catagories. From there, I make a habit of reviewing my current submissions for the free services. With the old email correspondences, I click on them to see if anything has changed that would be of greater service to me. Some of the basic paying features are good but not to much more extent than the free one. Without anyone else to help out, the owner deals with everything and hopefully finds time to actually do some designing rather than financing, marketing, troubleshooting, technical issues and so on.

Dreams and Things

In an effort to show what a creative such as myself is like, we are just like the rest of you. I feel that everyone has a talent that is worthy of sharing with others and it is fair for them to do so. Whether it is as a physician, teacher, therapist, (you get my point), it is wonderful to be whatever we are. I am not sure why I have gotten on this tonight but I felt it needed to be said on my part.
Anyway, I was thinking about all of the wonderful things that I get to do as a designer. I am always thinking about design. It is just something that overtakes me in everyday activities. I spare my family from all of these thoughts since, not being a creative, it would turn them insane or away, lol.
My favorite part of design is getting to really use my imagination. With any project, I still have to learn to curb my enthusiasm in that it takes every effort for me to be able to settle in on one idea and not to go overboard with too many unnecessary elements. The "keep it simple" concept is always applicable with design. Too much can turn off the client. With the personalized greeting cards that I specialize in, customers lately have been wanting very simple lines and colors. To personalize the cards I get to use nearabout any element that the client wants. I lean toward more monochromatic color schemes which allows for continuity in the colors and the other elements can be more free willing. A card with mostly text can be very fun. I like to go black and white when doing that style. A very bold and large lettering can be dramatic yet understated. As for baby cards and such, the pastels are usually what clients want. The pale green is very popular as is yellow, tangerines, and such. http://www.pantone.com/products/products.asp?idArticle=513&idSubArea=0&idArea=1
Pantone puts out some great articles about design and how color affects the visual integrity of the product. http://www.pantone.com/products/products.asp?idArticle=400&idArea=1&idSubArea=0

I find a challenge in searching for color in shadows, clouds, food, and most challenging is water. As mentioned in the articles above, color has a very powerful impact on a design whether in print, fashion or interior design. It is the single most important decision in any project.
Hopefully somewhere in my words you are inspired, educated, more understanding or just plain don't care, but whatever the outcome, thank you very much for reading. Lisa

Loving Design

Greetings. Another day here in the design world. Not much other than the usual with business and such.
I was out shopping at Border's book store last week and came across a great deal on embellishments for the personalized greeting cards so I picked up alot. The girl at the desk asked me if I did scrapbooking and I told her that it was for our design company. She seemed a bit intrigued and I didn't have not one daggome business card with me to give her. I think that is the very first time ever that I have not had a card with me. This is how we learn though.
I came across www.CafePress.com a really great site. It seems alot like Ebay but from a more creative approach with things. They do print on demand so I am eager to hear back from them to see if they can do the personalized products of tissue paper, wrapping paper and bags that we are working on providing to customers. This is something that I have really been wanting to do for a very long time along with the personalized greeting cards. So it would be great to see it all come together under one place without having to bounce around to printers and such.

personalized greeting cards

Greetings everyone. Today was yet another good one for me. Outside of my design work, I am getting ready to do some planting for vegetables, trees, bushes and strawberries. I love this time of year when everything starts turning with bright new colors. Spring is almost here so there will get to be more fun outdoor activities. I have some painting to do along with the usual Spring cleaning responsibilities.
The weather here in Clarksville is getting more desirable since I don't do well with any cold weather. The warmer temperatures are definitely doing me good.
I came across an error with my Ebay listing http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6040822221&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:31 that I had to text message them about and they were very helpful. It was a very simple fix but Ebay is a bit confusing to me as far as selling. Buying is much less complicated.
Right now with work we are brainstorming on fresh, Spring like designs for clients wether it is a color issue or other elements. Stripes and dots are still really popular. It is such fun to work with fewer elements when designing. Some would think that it is much easier but there are so many possibities. For example with text alone just image all of the font choices, colors, sizes, mix and match them and so on. As for the web site www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com we will be adding newer examples and other features in the next few months. Stay tuned for that. We also offer a new concept to us which is digital scrapbooking for those who don't want all of the embellishments but like the look of scrapbooking. We can do it with all of the fuss on the clients end. Transmitting images through the email system has never failed so that is an easy approach for clients to handle. We are considering a more interactive site for transmitting files but until anyone complains, we will stay with our current style. Thats it for now. Peace, lisa
personalized greeting cards

Different aspects

This time of year tends to be a bit slow with design work. Staying busy with smaller projects including keeping web sites current and clients happy. Just finished up a monthly newsletter for a military unit here. Getting ready to design birthday cards for family and friends for April. Taxes are coming due so we have to organize bookkeeping and get off to the accountant. It is extremely important to stay on the good side of Uncle Sam. We are constantly looking for ways to advertise that won't break the bank. Word of mouth is good but a wider (worldwide) client base is important.

There are so many aspects to graphic design that it is challenging to stay within a specialized area. The training one gets in school is so wide range and the creative side of you is just wanting to burst out and go crazy with what goes through our heads sometimes. My focus right now is getting the word out about us specializing in Personalized Greeting Cards, a concept that came to me while in college. I appreciate want these cards do for the people that receive them. I want to start including a larger card format and perhaps even jumbo ones. To me it is such a fun and thoughtful concept.

Peace everyone, lisa