Happy New Year!

Almost a month late, I know... but I thought better late than never :)

I made this image as a promo card to send to clients for the new year. 
I've printed it on a A5 400 g/m silk finish paper. Beauty! 

For printing postcards, I like to use these guys now. Not the cheapest, but I find the quality of their stuff to be incredibly good. I definitely recommend them if you live in UK. 

Anyway, hopefully clients liked it :) 

Getting ready for Bologna Book Fair 2015

It's that time of the year again, when illustrators from all over the world are getting excited about the upcoming Bologna Children's Book Fair. 

This year is going to be the second time I'm attending the event.  

Hopefully it's gonna be a bit easier than last year, since this time I should know what to expect.

For example, this year I didn't bother at all to book appointments with the publishers before the fair. 

Last year I sent at least 50 emails trying to book appointments. Out of those, I managed to schedule only 3, and 2 of them completely forgot about the meeting. 

You can imagine how frustrated I was with that. 

Unfortunately, this time I'll be able to attend only for a couple of days. 

It might be a bit risky, since last year I didn't get much done on the first day due to the fact every single publisher was too busy to pay attention to me. But hopefully I'm going to have enough time anyway to meet them and give away my samples. Basically, I will have to be fearless and incredibly determined. Fingers crossed! 

Here below are some photos of the promotional material I'm going to bring along with me this year. 

I have to say last year I did a good job planning my promo material, so this year I'll basically stick to the same plan. 

Same as last time, I've got a neat portfolio printed with Blurb. 

I like Blurb products because they're extremely customisable and always beautiful.

My portfolio this year is 25 x 20 cm, 24 pages, with a hardcover ImageWrap (last year I went for the dust jacket and I didn't like the easy tendency for the paper jacket to tear in my bag) and ProLine Pearl Photo Glossy (a bit more fancy looking than the uncoated one I had last year, but still with a lovely matte finish).

As always, I'm very happy with Blurb products.

Also, I've printed about 35 mini portfolio that I will leave behind to as many publishers and editors I can. 

I'm convinced that leaving behind a small portfolio packed with all your best work is much better that just leave a single card. 

Same as last year, I printed these with Pixartprinting. I must say, even if I tried to follow instructions for image preparation accurately, the colour reproduction is not the best, but in the whole I reckon it's a fairly good product for the price you pay. Hopefully publishers will be too smitten from my illustrations to pay attention to colours ;)

Lastly, I also made a little cardboard box that I'm planning to fill in with postcards and attach to the Illustrator Wall. 

I didn't get much at all for my Illustrator Wall last year and I'm quite positive I won't get much from it this year either... 

But since it's such an institution and awesome idea, well, why not...!

For more tips on how to prepare for the fair, my follow up impressions please have a look at my last year posts. 

PS= Sorry for the bad quality photos, but my camera is broken and my phone's camera is not very good, so working on that...

Getting ready for Bologna - Promotional material

Bologna Book Fair is just around the corner... I'm excited and terrified at the same time!!:) 

Before taking off, I wanted to show some promotional material I made for the event. 

First of all, my mini portfolios. I printed 45 of them and I'm going to leave those at editors and publishers during meetings and portfolio interviews. 

I figured I wanted to give people something more that just a postcard, especially to publishers I see a good fit with. 

Hopefully they're going to appreciate the extra effort and like the range of pictures!

On the first page, I wrote a brief introduction about myself and my work (previous clients, where I live, etc) together with a small photo of myself (they might remember my face in case we meet at the fair!).

On the last page I put some testimonials from previous clients. I figured is always good for publishers to know that, despite rumours, illustrators are actually reliable people!!

Also, I printed 200 hundreds postcards with two different designs, to leave behind when I will run out of mini portfolios. 
And I'm going to use these also for the Illustrator wall, which will have a A3 poster with my bicycle bear logo and a cardboard pocket where I'll be able to put some postcards. 
I'll publish a photo of this when it'll be all set up at the fair!

I printed everything with a European website called Pixartprinting. They were very fast and everything turned out really nicely, especially colours. 
I'm definitely going to use these guys again!

Everything it's finally ready for the big event... if you want to follow my Bologna adventures I would suggest you to follow me on instagram, I predict I'll be publishing tons of pictures!! :D :D

I hope to see you there!!!

Custom portraits

Lately I spent some time working on a small new project I've just launch on my Etsy shop. 
It's about offering affordable custom portraits featuring families, couples, pets, or anyone you like!

Here some examples of what they look like (thanks to my very beautiful models / guinea pigs!:) )

I reckon they would make a perfect surprise gift to someone special!

You can purchase the portraits both as prints or just digital files (cheaper!).
Here the links to the Etsy shop listings. 

Print
Digital

In order to inaugurate this new product (and also in the spirit of Christmas!) I've decided to offer a 15% percent discount on all my Etsy items. 

To redeem this offer just enter the coupon code 15XMAS when you make the purchase! 

This offer will be active for until the 23rd December. 

Happy shopping!

The way to a client's heart is through his stomach

In the last month, I've been planning to do a bit of promotion with the hope to gain some new clients.
That's because I would like to expand my work to products, packaging and advertising a bit more.

In order to make this happen I decided I needed to do something a bit different than the usual postcard. 
I squeezed my little brain trying come up with a new idea.
The plan was to invent something a bit more creative and try to impress the clients-to-be with my brilliance.

What I came up with is this: a little glass jar that has a label with my own illustration. A sort of a mock up of my little product and packaging. 
I'm not a designer so I've tried to stay away from fonts and actual design and focusing more on the illustration aspect. 
Here it is what the finished thing looks like. 

Inside the jar I added two very important things.

Firstly, some lollies that have two different purposes. Number 1, simply filling the jar. Number 2, getting the way to the client's heart through his stomach! And because of this I hope they will keep the jar on their desk for weeks!

Also, on top of the lollies I've added a little piece of nice thick paper. On it is printed a QR code that leads to a webpage that I've designed (unfortunately I couldn't escape the designing part here) where I introduce myself and explain why the heck I'm sending this thing to them. 

On top of the jar, I added a little sticker that says "Knock Knock. Who's there?". 
I hope my attempt to "enter" their world should be clear at this point. 

These are all the materials I used for the project:
-15 glass jars
-lollies
-round stickers
-label printed on sticker paper
-QR code printed on thick textured paper

I must point out the QR code is the only way they have to found out who is sending the package.

I figured keeping the sender mysterious would add a bit more interest to the whole experience. 
I know, this could be risky since the usual thing to do would be putting your name and web address on every single element of the promo. 
But since this is an unorthodox way of promotion, I decided to do things a bit unconventionally for once. 

The idea of doing this unusual promo comes from the fact more than once I've heard art directors say they want to receive something unique and clever and personalised and different when receiving stuff from illustrators. 

I hope this little promo experiment ticks all these boxes!

To start with, I'm going to send only 15 of them and see what's the response. So I made a very selective list of all the creative agencies here in Australia I really would like to work with. 

Also, I tried to pay attention to the ones that already use illustrations for their projects.

Now the only thing I have left to do is shipping them! 

This will be definitely the most pricy expense of the whole project.

That's why I will try to deliver some of them myself (without them getting to see me, of course;)). 

Fingers crossed they like it!

Prints and promotion

The time has come: my illustration school is almost over, today will be my very last day!
A bit sad I must say, but at the same time I'm very happy and excited to move on into my fulltime illustrator life!!

So, I think this's the perfect occasion to let you know that there's an offer on my Society6 shop!
If you click on this link below you'll get $5 off each product you buy! Promotion expires November 11, 2012 at Midnight Pacific Time. So hurry!

http://society6.com/LauraWood?promo=4e3c21

Moreover, I've decided to open a little space where I'll be selling some of my prints. 
If you're interested in buying one, please visit my brand new Bigcartel shop. 
More prints to come!!

New business cards!

Look what I've got in the mail today... my new set of business cards that came in a wonderful looking box!!

I think they look beautiful and the guys who printed did an awesome job! This time I went with Print Together, a printing company here in Melbourne. They use 100% post-consumer recycled paper and vegetable inks. So it's good for the environment and they're local!

I'm very happy with the colours and the paper (matte, recycle looking, gorgeous!) and the delivery was very fast. This place has just become new my favourite printing place!

Promotional cards!

I've decided to print some postcards to do some promotion to magazines and today I received these in the mail... how excited!!
The postcards turned out REALLY good, the quality is incredibly amazing.
I printed them with Moo and I definitely highly recommend them. For two reasons:
1) it's the only online printing business that I know that prints different images at ones (if you know others, especially Aussie ones, please shout!) So I've ordered 60 cards with 4 different designs. I think this is very valuable for promotion purposes, so that I can send the right image to the right magazine!
2) the quality is amazing. The colours are very very similar to the ones in the files that I've sent and the paper stock they use is amazingly thick.
The only problem is that Moo doesn't have an Australian store so every time I need to order from the US. Hopefully they will open one here soon as well!!

Promo mailer feedback

A while ago I sent out some promo mailers to possible clients. You can read the post where I spoke about this here.

Well, I'm happy to say that so far so good! I've received lots of my self-addressed cards back, sometimes with useful comments as well.
Definitely a success!

Promo mailers tutorial

A few days ago I did my first official promo mailer and I would like to share how I did it.

This is because I've researched a lot before doing it and even if lots of people were saying how important it is to do it, I struggled to find practical info of HOW to do it! So I would like to share exactly how I did it, and hopefully this would be useful for people who have never done it before.

First of all I designed my promo sheets. They need to include some of your best images and your contact info on every page. Mine was intent to be directed to publishing houses so I decided to include only illustration with kids, animals and a sense of narrativity.

I've decided to not include more than 3 pages, manly for costs reasons but also because I read that's what people usually do. I made it an horizontal design because my images are mostly horizontal and it was easier to fit them in the page. After struggling a bit (how can I fit vertical and horizontal formats in just one horizontal page??) this is what I've come out with.

The first page includes 2 images from Goldilocks story and 2 from Red Riding hood. Including more picture from the same story is important so that I can show I am able to give continuity and a sense of narrativity. (click on the image to make it bigger)

This page is focused on pictures that show backgrounds, animals and people, in particular kids!

The last one is a collection of picture that I reckon might be found interesting for a publisher. That includes a picture from Hansel and Gretel and come animal characters.

I stapled the 3 pages together and on top of that I put my cover letter separately.
I designed my cover letter with my own personal letterhead which includes my logo and my contact details. I quickly introduced myself and explained that I was sending an illustration submission. I kept the cover letter very short (one page only!) since I didn't really know if it is something publishers actually read. However, I think it's a matter of courtesy to explain why you're sending something to someone so I would recommend to write a brief introduction of your work.
I've put them in a big envelope because it's much more professional to send them flat and not folded. This is what the whole thing look like.

On top of that I added a SASE card. This is something optional but useful to get feedback from publishers so that I'll know if they like my work or not. I've addressed the card to myself, I've left some room in the top left corner to handwrite the name of who is sending the card back and some multiple choice answers. My answer options were:

I like your illustration samples!
Please send me a full portfolio
I'll keep your samples on file
Please send me new samples periodically
Unfortunately your samples are not appropriate for our current needs

I've left some space for some comments as well to invite publishers to write further feedback.
Basically they need to just cross the proper answer and put it directly in the mail. Easy!
Here a picture.

To print them, I've used the website Ready, steady, print which is Australian and quite fast. I used them before to print some business cards and the quality/prices were good. Actually, I made a mistake when I ordered these cause I stupidly choose a too thin paper (only 100gs, damn it!) so make sure to choose a paper that is thick as a postcard, or similar. I guess 230gsm would be enough.

Since it was the first time, I've decided to focus on Australian publishers only and I made just 22 of these promo mailers. Not many, I know, but I wanted to see how it would have been received before making dozens. Still, this is something that can be quite costly. Here it is what I've spent (prices are in Australian dollars):

25 Envelopes $4.95
22 SASE card stamps $13
22 parcels shipping costs $26.40
250 SASE cards $56
22 cover letters copies + 22 copies of each illustration page sample $17.60 (I managed to get them super cheap in the printing room of my school! Otherwise this would have been the most expensive thing in my list)

TOTAL= $ 117.95
I reckon it's ok for a promo. Also, I still have lots of SASE cards that I can still use in the future.

PS= I strongly suggest to use InDesign to design your sheets, instead of Photoshop or any other software.

SCBWI 2012 Illustrators Showcase

Recently I've been working on promoting myself a bit.
I've decided to take part in the SCBWI 2012 Illustrators Showcase that will be held next 29th June in Sydney, part of the 4th International SCBWI Australia & New Zealand Conference.
Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the conference but instead I'll have the opportunity to exhibit my portfolio. A private viewing day will be held where publishers, editors and art directors will be invited to vision illustrator's portfolios.
To me it seemed like a great opportunity to get the attention of several publishers in just one shot! Following the private viewing, the exhibition will be open to all conference attendees to join in and enjoy the artwork.
Here you can see the showcase's page with the profiles of all the illustrators who are going to be part in the event.
http://scbwiausnz.squarespace.com/
Wish me luck! Hopefully my portfolio will impress...!:)