Self Promo Progress

Our completed self promo pieces have to be posted to Pete by the 28th of Feb. The self promo should be designed so that its easily reproduced and therefore relatively cheap to reproduce. Most importantly, it should be a piece to impress the receivers to encourage their interest in the sender.


At the last years illustration degree show, I collected a few of the students self promo pieces which were mainly customised postcards and business cards. I like the idea of these as they can;

•  look professional / neat 
• can contain all important details efficiently,
•  they are small thus easy to keep in a wallet or do not take up too much room so that the owner feels its time to chuck it away. 
• They keep to the brief of being easy to reproduce as companies can send a chosen amount of card in the post for a price that you deem suitable. 
• They are easy to update as more recent images, produced specifically for the cards, or a different, already existing image can be uploaded ready to print.
• I believe that they will be a nice product to collect or keep as I did exactly this, collected and kept last years 3rd years cards.

In terms of sending my cards and making them individual I have considered;

• turning my card/image into the shape of a clothes tag. This is to relate to the fashion element that my images have. These can be ready to hang. They could possibly include a small clothes hanger that the tags could hang on. The sending of the included hanger may become a problem however.
• I could make my image into a bookmark, as some lecturers have said that they can imagine some of my images as book covers. The bookmark would relate to this. It would also act as a reminder of my work if placed within the recipients own books.
• Sending my cards as a small pack consisting of different images, so more of my work is available to them from the very beginning. This will be useful because if I only send one image, a recipient may not like this image. If I send more of a selection, they might change their opinion based on other images. This will also create a nice collectable pack/ series. These cards can be kept together using a belly band that I will customise, or placed into I clear plastic bag with a customised card label. Or, the idea I favour the most, placed into an envelope. The envelope will be machine stitched around the edge of the envelope to resemble a decorative photo frame. It will also have a large, clear, plastic window. This is so that you can see the cards inside the frame-styled envelope. This then turns the envelope into a keep-able piece to so that the whole product, including the sending method, becomes my self promo. This may be more difficult to produce than I expect if I can not find envelopes at the right size or with a large enough envelope to frame my picture cards efficiently.

On Monday, I found a company on line, http://uk.moo.com/products/business-cards.html . The company allows you to upload up images and create a sample pack of 10 card for free. This will allow me to test the quality of the cards and to make sure that the images work well. However I have just noticed that the estimated arrival is thurs 24th! This doesnt allow me much time to decide if the cards are effective, to order/ pay for a complete pact and to have the cards delivered in time. So I may have to order my cards before I view them :( oh well. in the mean time I will have to make test samples for the envelopes.

(Last years degree show self prom cards).