Oh My! Indeed! I’m so happy to be here, just in time to celebrate Jessika’s second year of editing Oh My! Handmade Goodness! Congratulations, dear Jess! Thank-you for continuing to create such a perfect space for people to gather, share, support and celebrate. Speaking of celebrating… this month’s theme is celebrating your OMHG awesome. So how about it? How will you be celebrating YOUR awesome? Maybe your shop needs a fresh new banner, or your blog could use a little lovin’? Maybe you’re putting the finishing touches on a new line and all that’s left to take care of are some fabulous promotional graphics? And maybe, just maybe – those tasks are creating more stress than they should?
It’s easy to get stuck on this aspect of your promotional process: you just want to whip up some visuals, fix some images or prep some photos but don’t know where to start. Just like any other aspect of your business, the visual aspect is incredibly important not to overlook. Sometimes all you need are some guidelines and simple steps to get started, so I’m here to help you tame those tasks with a spoonful of sugar.
Let’s kick off this month of celebrating awesomeness by getting all your pixels in a row. Drop a line in the comments about what you’d like to learn or improve, and next month I’ll be back with the first of many tutorials to help you get where you want to go! In the meantime, pop open some bubbly and get your creative thinking (party!) caps on. This is going to be fun.
Hugs and kisses, the Graphics Governess.
I loooove this column idea! Also, the header graphic for the column, which brings me to my question: Where do you source (ethically, of course) graphics for use in layouts and designs? I have a few places I check out (http://www.cgtextures.com/ being one), but am always interested in hearing of other places to find cool stuff that I can use to create fun graphics.
Ooh good questions Zoe! I personally use a number of resources-the vintage collage flickr pool is awesome: http://www.flickr.com/groups/collageimages/
Also Lost & Taken is one of my favourite for textures: http://lostandtaken.com/
And MorgueFile if I am looking for images to alter: http://www.morguefile.com/ (although there are a lot of bad images to wade through!)
Great suggestion Zoe!! I love that – mixing graphics with good ethics, amazing! I have a few ideas and tricks I could share with you, that’s an excellent post subject. Thank-you for your feedback, appreciate it!! 🙂
oooh great column idea! I’m looking forward to it!Would love to see some tips for enhancing a newsletter sign-up box and making it pretty!
Super, thank-you Alison! Great suggestion – I will definitely work on a post for that! You mean a sign-up box that would go on your blog or website, right? Thank-you 🙂
Love this idea oh Graphics Governess! I would like to learn how to make a photo collage with a one or two word description on each photo. For example a jpg file that shows 12 different photos, each a different color and the description of the name of the color shown in each photo.
Looking forward to the tutorials!
so excited for these columns! I would be interested in learning how to successfully create a working “download here” graphic/link that would allow the user to download printable art (like the great pieces Jessika creates).
Thank-you Nicole and Andrea! Nicole – I may need a few more details – do you mean a list of images, one underneath the other? When you say each a different colour, do you mean that each image is a colour swatch with a text description on top? Feel free to add another comment with your notes. Andrea, that’s an excellent suggestion and I will keep that in mind 🙂 Thank-you!
Excited to see The Graphics Governess here! Genius. You’re both amazing. 🙂
Hi Anile!
I make custom handbags. In this instance, for the wedding clutch purses I make, I would like to learn how to make a photo that shows multiple images of fabric swatches. So like you wrote, each image is a color swatch with a text description. When a customer is viewing a style of bag in my Etsy shop they can see what colors are available for that particular style.
Thank you very much for your reply 🙂
all great suggestions here – cant wait to see these ideas come to life!
Oh this is perfect Nicole! I have a post coming up this month about why to have graphics like that for your customers from Allisa based on this post here: http://quiltish.blogspot.ca/2012/07/making-it-good-easy.html Anile it could be awesome to follow up with a tutorial on how to layout multiple swatches?
Great thanks Jess! That sounds like what you are describing, right Nicole? I’d be happy to put a post together for that 🙂 I could give an example of layout, colour boxes as well as fabric boxes. p.s. I love your clutches!
Hi Anile
yes, the link that Jess posted is pretty awesome – would really like to do that. Thanks soooooo much!! Glad you like my clutches too 🙂