Kate Harper's Blog, page 6

Greeting Card Class Milestone

Milestone today: 100th student registered for
my online greeting card class! Thank you everyone. I think this is my
new life purpose. It's so much fun to share ideas and give feedback.



Here's a sample of some student work in our card
gallery!










 







For more information on this class:




When: Anytime. Class is self-paced with student/teacher feedback on your final project in the skillshare gallery.



How to Register: Register here. 



Cost: 
$20



Topics Covered:

The fundamentals of professional card design.
Transforming art into a greeting card.
Writing sentiments.
Making designs "market-ready" according
to industry standards.
Top selling occasions.
How to turn one card into a larger
"collection".
How to make a card out of any image.
Handmade cards.
Where and how to sell cards (including online).
Licensing art on cards.
Manufacturing and distributing nationally.




The class includes:




8 Units
14 videos
39 steps
Final project
Feedback








 
→ New! Online Class: Getting into the Greeting Card Business
Includes 8 Units, 14 videos, 39 steps, final project, and feedback: $20 at Skillshare.com

Good News for Indie Card Artists: New Sales Trends

If you publish your own cards, or design handmade cards, there are some positive trends leaning your way.



Since most sales statistics for the card industry are based on figures from large or publicly traded corporations, it is hard to know what is going on with the independent card market.



To find out what is happening in the alternative card industry, I interviewed six independently owned gift and card stores in Berkeley.  I talked to ten different people and asked them what trends they are seeing in card sales. Some of the best news was that there is an increase in sales of handmade and hand-embellished cards.



Here are the notes from my interviews:





SALES TRENDS 



Here are what the stores reported on sales trends:






All stores reported an increase in greeting card sales over the last two years.  When I asked them to respond to negative news articles I'd read on the greeting card industry, they felt those statistics did not apply to their store.  


The gift oriented stores reported that cards are a popular item in their store and customers often look at the racks.


Most stores are selling more artistic, handmade and local artist's cards.


One store manager who had a significant increase in card sales this year attributed it to
"people want to touch paper again." 


One
stationery store reported that it was common for a customer to come
to the register with $35-$40 worth of greeting cards. He said that customers will buy a lot of cards because they like a particular art style or theme (and not necessarily because they need greeting cards).


One upscale greeting card store is expanding to two local branches. 


All the stores said they felt they served a completely
different market than chain stores that carry greeting cards.  One store reported "People who buy cards in our store take time to evaluate them.  People who are just running errands or need to buy a card out of an obligation tend to buy cards in drugstore chains."









CUSTOMER TRENDS



Here are what the stores reported on customer trends:






Buyers are now willing to spend $5 per card.


Younger "hipster" buyers are coming into the market.


Two stores reported that customers will buy cards to keep and frame for inspiration. 


One store reported that their customers often ask for help when selecting a card.


Some stores reported that customers ask about "the story" behind the card publisher or the artist. 


One store clerk said she received special training on learning about the artists, and the different paper qualities of cards.







CARD DESIGN TRENDS



Here are what the stores reported on card design trends: 




More cards are now being packaged and protected in individual cellophane bags because they are handmade or have embellishments added.




Almost every store strongly emphasized that their customers buy cards for the interesting imagery, and not for text. Text is not as important as it might have been in the past.  


One store said trends are moving towards "thought-provoking" imagery.  These are images that make the customer ask "what is this about?"  


Here are some examples of images the stores pointed out as being good sellers:

A moose riding a bicycle.
Mute-colored, over-sized serious clown with a tiny head.
A loosely drawn ballerina with glitter sprinkled on it.
A geometric-shaped man that only covered a small edge of the card.
Green letter press card with a man's exterior head and internal ribs.

*Note: None of these cards had words on them.

Two stores reported that they make a point of encouraging customers to
come up with their own text for the inside.  One store specifically
advises customers to search on google if they get stuck.  These stores seem
to prefer blank cards. 







ADVICE FOR ARTISTS



I asked stores what they suggest artists do if they want to succeed in the card business today.  Here are their responses:




Pay special attention to your image. It is more important today than it used to be.


Witty text isn't as necessary as it used to be. For example, leaving it blank or just saying "happy birthday" can be good enough.


Designers should create more cards that can be bought any day of the year (and not limit them to an occasion). 


Artists should try to make cards that are curious and unpredictable. 


If an artist is just starting out, they should focus on creating Birthday, Thank You, Valentine's day and blank cards (no words).  


One store said that artists should be very careful about over-investing financially.  She said some of her favorite designers did not display at a recent gift show* and she later found out they had quite the business because they couldn't afford it.

*Kate's note: Some gift show fees can range from $5,000-$8000.





CONCLUSION



While my informal survey was limited to the city of Berkeley, the responses are also consistent with the IBIS World 2013 Procurement Report on the state of the greeting card industry.  This report stated that overall corporate card sales were down, but that "Areas of growth are likely small
geographic areas and niches in the market." 



If you are an independent designer or handmade artist, what is your experience?






→ New! Online Class: Getting into the Greeting Card Business
: Includes 8 Units, 14 videos, 39 steps, final project, and feedback: $20 at Skillshare.com

Getting into the Greeting Card Business: New Online Class

I have collaborated with skillshare.com to create an online course on Getting into the Greeting Card Business.   The content is based
on my experience of working in the industry for over 20 years, and from publishing
over 1,000 cards.





When:  

Anytime. Class is self-paced with student/teacher feedback on your final project in the skillshare gallery.





How to Register: 

Register here. 



*First 3 people who read this on my blog can register here for Free!










In this class you will learn:

The fundamentals of professional card design.
Transforming art into a greeting card.
Writing sentiments.
Making designs "market-ready" according
to industry standards.
Top selling occasions.
How to turn one card into a larger
"collection".
How to make a card out of any image.
Handmade cards.
Where and how to sell cards (including online).
Licensing art on cards.
Manufacturing and distributing nationally.






The class includes:





















8 Units
14 videos
39 steps
Final project
Feedback


Register here. 



Cost: $20



Free class offers will be available this week on my twitter feed, facebook, linkedin and google+ pages.







 









→ New! Online Class: Getting into the Greeting Card Business
: Includes 8 Units, 14 videos, 39 steps, final project, and feedback: $20 at Skillshare.com

How to Make a Series of Cards from one Image

I had a fun greeting card Video Meeting yesterday with a blog reader Susan Gutnik and one of the many things we discussed was one of her new card concepts.  I thought it might be interesting to readers to see how an artist can make a variety of cards from one image.



In the example below, I started with Susan's card image of a red pepper, and then used photoshop to experiment with different styles.  These simple mockups only took me about 15 minutes and they are a good example of how an artist might explore different ways to work with imagery.



The learn more about Susan's work, go to her website www.GR8-PL8S-4U.com  She also has some fun license plate cards with creative messages on them.



To learn more about greeting card Video Meetings get info on this page.







  → New! Online Class: Getting into the Greeting Card Business
• Sign up for Greeting Card Design newsletter.

Venues for Selling Greeting Cards Online

As the greeting card industry changes, I've noticed a dramatic shift of greeting cards are being sold online in a variety of ways.



Here are some of the ways cards are being sold online. Many provide a veneu for card designers or they seek out submissions from designers.






App Makers
These companies usually sell cards through apps on mobile devices. Designs are usually curated and selected by the app makers. Many companies allow the customer to write card text and pay to have it mailed, stamped and sent to the recipient. Many of the app makers also have a companion website for ordering.











Felt

http://www.feltapp.com/

Send an email to design@feltapp.com

Your email should include:

1) Up to 6 card designs showing samples of your work you think would be
suited to Felt.

2) The design must have been originated from you.

3) A short statement,
200 words or less, about why your creative genius and the Felt app are a
good fit. Brag, flatter, charm or cajole, but be sure to explain who
you are, why you love cards and want to design for Felt.



Some Cards

http://www.someecards.com/

submit: http://www.someecards.com/usercards/create



Thankster

http://www.thankster.com/

submit: http://www.thankster.com/contents/view/submit_yours



Just Wink

https://www.justwink.com/app

Submit to American Greetings http://corporate.americangreetings.com/contact.html



Sincerely

http://sincerely.com/contact

May accept submissions in the future, but not currently.



Red Stamp

https://www.redstamp.com/

May accept submissions in the future, but not currently.



Artogram

http://www.artogramapp.com/

Submission guidelines not available at this time. 



Ecard Express

http://www.ecardexpress.ca/

Submission guidelines not available at this time.



Bucketlabs.

http://www.bucketlabs.net/

Submission guidelines not available at this time.



Cartolina

http://www.cartolinaapps.com/



fStop

http://www.fstopimages.com/fcardsinfo/

Submission guidelines not available at this time.
















Crowdsourcing



These companies usually curate what designs they promote.  They often have design challenges for artists and will feature, print and sell a design based on what their website fans vote for.



Minted

http://www.minted.com/

Submissions: http://www.minted.com/contest

Cash award plus 6% royalty.










Print on Demand (POD)
These companies allow artists to post card designs on their website.  When a customer orders, the POD company makes and ships the cards.



Greeting Card Universe

http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/

Submit: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/about/questions.asp

Artist is paid percentage of units sold.



Cafe Press

http://www.cafepress.com/

Submit: http://www.cafepress.com/uploaddesign

Artist receives profit after manufacturing cost.  Some fees apply for premium memberships.



Zazzle

http://www.zazzle.com/ 

Submit: http://www.zazzle.com/sell

Artist receives royalty from sales.














Direct to Customers
These companies usually allow an artist to post their cards on their site and then when a customer orders, the artist makes and ships the cards.



Etsy

http://www.etsy.com/

Artist sets price and ships product. Artist pays fees for website usage and sales commission.






Do you know of other online greeting card venues?  Send it to GCDblog@gmail.com









~
Kate Harper Designs www.kateharperdesigns.com

Handmade and Upscale Cards may be Profitable Niche in the Card Business

 Interesting article I ran across.  Read the entire piece here.  When I had a handmade greeting card business for 15 years, I also sold Kate's Paperie in New York.



Even As American Greetings Struggles, Small Card Companies Find A New Way To Thrive







Think no one but your grandmother sends cards anymore? Turns out greeting cards are still popular -- but maybe not in the way you think.



Angelica Berrie, the owner of Kate's Paperie, an upscale card and paper store in New York City, says her greeting card sales -- which make up 30 percent of her revenue -- have increased every year for the past five years as shoppers are buying more luxurious cards.



The cards at her store cost between $6 and $8 per card. In contrast, a mass-produced card you can pick up at a local drugstore costs anywhere from $1 to $5 per card.



"With my handmade cards, [they] are becoming the gift itself," Berrie said. "The old-fashioned way of mailing can only be done as a luxury."



American Greetings -- the largest publicly traded maker of greeting cards in the country -- announced this week that it was pulling out of the stock market to return to life as a private company. The Cleveland-based card company closed many of its retail store locations over the last few years and is worth almost 65 percent less today than it was at its peak in 1998, the Wall Street Journal reported.



The latest news prompted some to declare that the old-fashioned mass-market greeting card industry was dead. But that's only part of the story. Over the past decade, small, high-end boutique card-makers, custom-design printers and online card companies have grown in the shadow of the giant paper card industry, including the massive -- but struggling -- Hallmark Card company.



Even as American Greetings recedes from public view, different companies are having a coming-out party as the new face of an old industry.



Digital card producers and social media companies like Facebook have been angling to get bigger slices of the greeting card pie in recent years. Facebook recently revamped its birthday alert tool and gifts program -- even analyzing words in status updates to prompt gift-giving -- to help the social media company make money.



Duncan Mitchell, founder of digital card website someecards.com, said his website has seen more than 3.2 million registered visitors since 2008 and has been profitable for the last three years as a private company. To make money, his cards are often part of content partnerships with established brands looking to advertise.



Traditional drugstore cards "are saccharine and overly sincere, and that's not the tone that people are that excited about now," Mitchell said. Instead of the slapstick humor that characterizes many of the cards sold in the supermarket aisle, his cards -- which can be sent for free -- strike an edgier tone, with birthday greetings like “May you live twice as long as Michael Jackson and be half as creepy.”



Meanwhile, the popularity of high-end cards, like the ones sold at Kate's Paperie, has not been lost on American Greetings either; it purchased the Papyrus chain, which sells pricey cards, in 2009. Papyrus, which had $1.6 billion in revenue last year according to the company website, also owns greeting card producers Carlton Cards, Gibson, and Recycled Paper Greetings.



continued...Read the entire piece here.Kate Harper Designs www.kateharperdesigns.com

Are Greeting Card Apps the Future?

Check out this article on Techcrunch  I've been seeing a lot of companies buying and selling greeting card app software rights in the news lately.  In fact I even license cards to an app maker.  


What do you think the future is?







Mobile Greeting Cards App Red Stamp Acquired By The Occasions Group



Minneapolis-based Red Stamp, a social commerce company best known for its mobile greeting cards app which competes with the likes of Apple’s Cards app, Sincerely, and Shutterfly’s Treat, among others, has been acquired by Taylor Corporation affiliate The Occasions Group.  The Occasions Group President Mike Provenzano explains in a release that Red Stamp “brings a top-notch mobile experience that will blend well with our long-standing experience and offerings in the printed social stationery and communications arena.”





The company also referred to Red Stamp as a “top 1% Lifestyle App,” but even though it pushed up to spot #1 in June, and has sometimes been featured in the top 20, the app has usually been ranking in the top 100′s or 200′s in recent months. (Yesterday it was #229 in the U.S., e.g., per App Annie). The app offers over 1,000 greeting cards, invites, announcements, and more which you can edit and send from your phone, making it one of the most comprehensive mobile cards apps on the market. Cards are mailed for you for $0.49-$1.99, which also makes it something of a no-brainer for those of us whose penmanship has long since suffered from lack of regular handwriting in our day-to-day lives.





Red Stamp recently scored a deal with Starbucks, which let users pick from a specialized collection of cards in order to thank their Starbucks barista for doing a good job. Those cards would then be mailed the local Starbucks store.



Read the entire article here.Kate Harper Designs www.kateharperdesigns.com

Handmade Greeting Card Businesses

Here are some examples of artists who design and sell their handmade greeting cards.



The best thing about handmade cards is that they are a card-and-gift in one.  Even though they often cost more than a printed card, a handmade card is still an elegant and inexpensive gift.



There are a wider variety of different styles of handmade cards because you can add embellishments and textures, which is very difficult to do on a commercially printed card.



To learn more about the artist and their business, please click on their website link under the card.








Rhodyart http://www.etsy.com/shop/rhodyart Lin Collette







Specialty Cards 4U www.specialtycards4u.com Julie Strickland












Little Works Design Studio www.littleworks.co.za Michele Basset









Steel Petal Press http://steelpetalpress.com Shayna Norwood (Letterpress)









Pink Bathtub Designs http://pinkbathtub.com Noelle Griskey










Say it www.sayithandmade.co.uk Laura Pyke







February Stars http://www.februarystarsinc.com/index.html Marie Jensen










Moving Messages www.moving-messages.com Margy Bresslour







 Downward Dog Photography http://downwarddogphotography.zenfolio.com/photocards Terra Fondriest (hand-mounted)










 TaylorMade4u http://www.taylormade4u.ecrater.com/ Monica Taylor











Crafty Lil’ Lel www.craftylillel.blogspot.co.uk  Lesley Fox









Painted Cottage http://www.judithchengart.com/ Judith Cheng














Connecting Dotz ConnectingDotz.com Susan Fassberg (Letterpress embossed)










Stamp with Marilyn www.stampwithmarilyn.com Marilyn SanClemente








Ginny Brown's Handmade Japanese Cards email










Do you have a handmade card business?

To submit your business to this list, please see guidelines: http://kateharperblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/do-you-have-handmade-greeting-card.html
Kate Harper Designs www.kateharperdesigns.com

Video Meeting: How to Make a Series of Cards from one Image

I had a fun greeting card Video Meeting yesterday with a blog reader Susan Gutnik and one of the many things we discussed was one of her new card concepts.  I thought it might be interesting to readers to see how an artist can make a variety of cards from one image.



In the example below, I started with Susan's card image of a red pepper, and then used photoshop to experiment with different styles.  These simple mockups only took me about 15 minutes and they are a good example of how an artist might explore different ways to work with imagery.



The learn more about Susan's work, go to her website www.GR8-PL8S-4U.com  She also has some fun license plate cards with creative messages on them.



To learn more about greeting card Video Meetings get info on this page.







  Kate Harper Designs www.kateharperdesigns.com

Do you have a handmade Greeting Card Business? Want free publicity?

Handmade Card by Marie Jensen of February Stars



I am creating a Directory of Handmade Greeting Card Businesses on this blog. If you have a handmade card business and would like to be featured on this blog (over 30,000 hits a month), then send me:



1. Name of your business.



2. Primary Artist's name.



3. Website address.



4. Card image (prefer jpg 300 dpi, 5x7) -or-  if you prefer, I can select a card from your website and repost it. Let me know.



5. Describe the handmade elements of your cards. Possible
processes might include: gluing, silk screening, mounting, stamping,
coloring, painting, letterpress, etc.



6. Send above 5 items to gcdblog@gmail.com



Required:



• Cards must be handmade or have a handmade element beyond commercial or desktop printing. In other words, when a customer buys your card, they will receive a card with original artwork that has been mounted, glued, drawn or somehow physically applied.



• You must "sell" your cards and not just make them as a hobby.  If a retail store sees your post and wants to order cards, they should be able to purchase them in quantities.





Thanks!-Kate Kate Harper Designs www.kateharperdesigns.com