Gang,

Despite the Fecebook, LinkedIn, Internet and all that, business cards are still alive and kicking. VHS (here is the link to VHS for younger generations) did not kill the Cinema, neither did DVD. 5.1 surround systems did not kill live concerts either. Even the theater is still alive :)))

We are still 5 senses human beings after all, what can I say :)

Whenever possible, we just like to see each other, meet, hang out even for business purposes and, of course, exchange business cards. The worst thing that can happen to you while talking to a perspective business partner is: “Oh, wait a minute! I’m afraid I ran out of business cards…” and the person you talk too gives you their card saying “Don’t worry, here are my details so you can contact me anytime.”

This happened to me not once and I tell you – did not like it. OK. It is not the end of the world either, but, it would be much, well, nicer if I had that business card with me.

However, just having a business card is not enough , everything evolves, every day. And so does design. And when it comes to business cards, really, creative approach and uniqueness are more important then ever. So, you will probably want to think about business card size, paper type (you might want to opt for recycled paper), paper thickness, coating … you may even go for magnetic cards which will stick to your (or your business partners) fridge. You will then think about the shape (you don’t want to get too creative here, make sure that it will still stick together with other business cards of your business partner, sticking out might be a bad thing sometimes :)

And finally, you will be deciding about fonts, background and graphics for your business card. (Unless this is already predefined by your company’s visual guidelines policy).

You might take the minimalistic approach and just put your name, email and web address in black text on white paper, or, you could opt for “groovie” approach. In my mind, both are cool.

However, if these thoughts on business cards were a “heads up” for you, you will probably want to check on some online business card printing companies. PrintRunner.Com offers different types of paper (including recycled paper), different shapes, sizes … so you will probably want to check their site for your business cards supply.

So, if you just realized you’re running out of business cards, the time has probably come to renew your supplies :)

Here are some samples of business cards I did, maybe you can use them for your inspiration.

I hope you liked the cards and the post!

Have a great day everyone!

Love,
Silvia

Gang,

A Facebook friend (Yep. we’ve got friends, these days, and we have Facebook friends, surely you’ve got a few Facebook friends yourself) of mine just told me yesterday she is getting married by the end of the year. It is a long tradition, the marriage thing, people have been doing it for, well, quite a long time, and the way things are, it seems like this tradition will stick around. And it should, of course. As long as we don’t forget the first and most important prerequisite for marriage and that is – love.

So, she told me she is getting married. And, of course, preparation for this day start at least 6 months ahead, sometimes even more. Couples, for a reason, what this day to be special not just for them, but also for their friends and family and everyone they invite. I guess wedding invitations are probably as old as the wedding itself. OK. People got married even before they were literate, so I guess, there were no wedding invitations in the way we know them now, but now, since everyone is more or less literate, wedding invitations are pretty common way to invite someone to come to a wedding.

And, of course, wedding invitations are one of the most important thing when it comes to wedding planing. Because, these should express the creativity and the personality of the couple if possible. If not, they will just show the personality of the bride. Heheheh!

Anyways, I already made a couple of posts about wedding invitations and those were always very popular.

• How to make a wedding invitation in Photoshop
• Photoshop Wedding Brushes in Action: Wedding Invitations
• Wedding Invitation Tutorial – Photoshop Brushes in Action

So, since my FB friend (Facebook friend, this is abbreviation) mentioned she is getting married, I figured I’d make yet another wedding invitation. This is already done on a template from PrintRunner.Com - online printing services company, so it’s ready for upload. If you like the invitation, just open it in Photoshop, change the wordings and submit them for printing on PrintRunner.Com.

OK. Gang. Congratulations to Katarina (my FB friend who is getting married), if you are not married don’t worry, your turn will come, if you are married already, well … ;))

Have a great day everyone! I hope you will like today’s free download!

Yours,

Silvia

A while ago (on June 3th 2008 to be more precise) I wrote an article about Happiness and this is where we discussed “cat person” vs. “dog person” topics. (That was back in the old days when there was no Facebook and people were actually commenting on blogs :))

I am “cat person”, I mean - I like dogs, of course and all animals and all living creatures, but cats are where it’s at (as it was nicely put in one of the comments on that prehistoric blogs). I have three cats, Queen Poofah, Mr. Alphons and Meeratz the Space Cat. There is also Crummy and Mr. Eight, two stray cats that I take care of.

So, back to the animal shelter. Last few Saturdays I’ve spent in the local dog shelter taking some photos and walking the dogs together with other volunteers. These dogs are locked in their cages most of the week and it’s only us, volunteers, who come once a week to take them out so that they can walk, run and play as dogs are supposed to.

So, apart from photographing dogs in the dog shelter, walking them on Saturdays, I also prepare graphic and promotion materials for the dog shelter which they then send out asking for help, support, donations in food, blankets, building materials (to build bigger and better homes for dogs), money … but above all, they are looking for people who would adopt these abandoned dogs.

There are many ways to distribute materials and raise awareness for shelter animals like this one and probably, the most used one is emailing. But, we all know how emails get easily deleted. We don’t even have to delete them. We receive so many emails a day that the one we get in the morning is all the way down on the bottom in the afternoon.

But, good old fashioned postcards are different. If you make a nicely designed postcard, with a nice image on it, well, then people will tend to put among other decorations on the wall and now we have a totally different situation. There are quite a few online printing companies which will, not just print postcards, but will also mail them for you.

So, if you ever thought about doing a good deed, here is an idea. If you love animals and would like to do something to help them out, you could, for instance, use your business contacts address book and send them out a postcard, maybe find an animal shelter in the area which you’d like to support.

And to help you out, I prepared a few postcard designs which include images of some of the dogs from the shelter I volunteer for, feel free to use it, add the name of the shelter and distribute them. You can upload these designs to PrintRunner.Com print postcards page and send out a mailing.

• postcard dimensions:  4″ x 6″
• design is applied to psd from PrintRunner.Com
• just change the text and it’s ready for upload to PrintRunner.Com
• download zipped PSD file here (40 MB!)

“Now, what do recycling, marketing and stickers have in common?” I hear you ask? A lot. Just bear with me, it will be revealed :)

Now, I do assume that you have several plastic garbage cans for your recycling purposes. Usually it’s one for paper, one for glass, one for plastic  one for the old hubby … sorry :)) naughty me.

Well, anyways, one for the rest of the stuff. So, I don’t know about you but, I keep my recycling bins in the backyard, and well, you guessed, none of them has a sticker on it. Because, I should know where to put what kind of waste. But, I am old (not really but I like to say that I am old cause I love to hear “No, you’re not!”  I  heard that more and more rarely as time passes :))) So, I tend to forget where is what  yada … yada … yada and there are three plastic cans outside with everything in them being mixed up. Plastic, metal cans, glass, hubby (Ops! I did it again ;)) … So, well, being a designer and all, I decided a while ago that I will design my own recycling bin stickers.

Now, opening Photoshop and designing a sticker is one thing, but printing it out is another. Using my ink-jet printer for these purposes was out of the question so I took a look at what’s offered on the net. There are quite a few sites out there offering online sticker printing and on PrintRunner.Com they had a coupon on their site.

But then, I realized that the minimum order to purchase is 250 stickers. Of each. Now, what do I do with 250 stickers? This is when a stroke of genius hit me! (And, if you did not know, The stroke of genius strikes later in life today, it’s scientifically proven)  I will market my site with it! And you can market your site, or your business, or idea, or your business idea, well, too! I will just give away the rest of the stickers as a part of my promotion material. No problem there. Many will use it. And if I just add “This sticker is sponsored by graphics-illustrations.com” – voila! There you have it! Permanent promotion. It could even be used for some good old-fashioned guerrilla marketing too ;))

And, well, this is how it goes, I downloaded the sticker .psd template from PrintRunner.Com, designed my stickers and, on the top of it, I share it here as a free download (6 zipped JPG files).

Now, when it comes to PrintRunners.Com once you order the stickers will be delivered withing three days. Well, if I waited for so long to make them, three more days will not make any difference.

Anyways, this is all about this topic. I hope you enjoyed the article and that you will enjoy your downloads. You can just remove the address of my blog  from the sticker, put yours and  - voila, there goes your attention grabber :)

Have fun guys! Talk soon!

Silvia

Gang,

Here is the latest of what’s going on these days.

We made it to another edition of our GBG eZine and it brings GBG members quite a few free downloads (again), such as Stitched Frames – Photo Masks and Stitched Frames and Text Blocks Photoshop brushes sets.

So, I did another Photoshop brushes set in “stitched” serial and here’s the Stitched Hearts Photoshop brushes set – and it’s FREE.

Set contains 14 Photoshop brushes in four sizes.

It’s divided in two parts: first seven heart elements are compatible, meaning can be combined with each other  and can be mixed together. Same goes for the second portion of 7 brushes.

Also,  the whole set can be mixed with two Photoshop brushes sets which are available for download in our latest edition of  GBG eZine. :) (Now, does this make any sense? I guess you will have to download everything and see for yourself.)

You can use them as photo masks, text blocks or just simple graphic elements. You can use them in your Mother’s Day cards, Thank You cards, Father’s Day cards, digital scrapbooking pages, wedding photo albums, Valentine’s Day cards, birthday cards… you name it.

[ Preview Stitched Hearts Photoshop brushes set here ]

[ Download Stitched Hearts Photoshop brushes set here ]

And now -> Sponsored sentence (which, by all means does not mean that you should not click on the link and actually take a look at the book)

And, while at it, you might also consider learning a few good photography tricks ->

End of sponsored sentence.

Another thing – I added new Photoshop brushes tutorials to my YouTube channel, check them out at: YouTube Video: Resizing Photoshop Brushes tips and tricks – Photoshop CS5 Tutorial

Here you can see how to manage brush if you want to, for example, resize it only horizontally. Of course, this will not work on all Photoshop brushes and in this tutorial I used Wedding Photo Frames (squares) Photoshop brushes set (25+25+25) + 25 PNGs

More Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, CorelDraw etc… tutorials ->

OK. I guess that’s it for today.

Love, hug, cherish each other.

Peace,

Silvia

P.S.

Did I tell you I was working on a brand new web site called Holidays in Croatia? Check it out! You might like it!