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Holiday invitation

I am conflicted, therefore I am

February 16, 2014 by Nancy Fields Leave a Comment

morning light coming through forest

Last week one of my BAD challenge colleagues wrote a blog post on distilling a marketing message into one word using this phrase, I _______, therefore I am. It seemed like a simple answer: I design, therefore I am…but that’s all about me. As a business owner, being “all about me” is a tough way to turn ones passion into profit because businesses succeed, or fail, based on how well they meet the needs of their customers.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I’ve been doing this business “thing” for the past 21 years. My business was launched when my my youngest son was still in diapers. A series of calligraphy classes inspired me to learn how to reproduce my artwork so that I could make greeting cards and stationery: Perhaps even sell my designs to a Hallmark or American Greetings as a stay-at-home mom. You want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Instead, an acquaintance needed some custom designed invitations to a large event, plus wanted the envelopes calligraphed. After fulfilling her request, and then a few more, I soon became her go-to person for all invitations, plus other graphic design services like brochures, interpretive panels, product catalogues, signage, advertisements, newsletters and all kinds of fundraising pieces where she worked as the Director of Alumni Relations for a prestigious boarding school. She also became my best salesperson. Soon other departments were requesting my services, as well as other private schools, colleges, and even museums and small local businesses. Within 5 years I had four employees and was working around the clock.

Having my own business was not foreign to me. I grew up in  family business, and married a man who inherited a family business. Although I worked for others as early as 13, (I was tall and desperately wanted a Singer sewing machine so lied about my age to work on a local tobacco farm), and worked during and immediately after college for others, it just didn’t seem right to be on staff when my children were little. As any mom knows, there is no such thing as sticking to your plans when your kids are small because someone inevitably throws up on your best shoes as you’re rushing out the door to a much anticipated event, or trip, or … you fill in the blank.

21 years later it’s just me, once again. Graphic design and computer classes at every high school and community college, plus computers on every business desk in the country, coupled with the stock market crash and Global Financial Crisis in 2008 nearly forced me to close my one thriving service business.

This time, however, it’s going to different. My customers are different, and so am I. I have a business coach and a former client who is teaching me project management. I have no intention of making the same mistakes, and running myself into the ground. Been there. Done that.

Thus, my excellent journey through the forest of entrepreneurship has begun…finally.

 

Filed Under: business, Design Tagged With: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Holiday invitation, logo design, pull marketing

HOW TO Create an Elegant, High Quality, Custom Invitation for Small Parties & Celebrations

November 27, 2013 by Nancy Fields Leave a Comment

 

custom holiday invitation

As a professional graphic designer since 1992, I’ve been hired to design everything from miniature books to oversize banners and museum panels, but designing invitations for special events is one of my favorite things to do.

If you need less than 25 custom invitations for a special event or party, here’s a way to have a high quality custom invitation that won’t break the bank.

The holiday party invitation you see here was created by using Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, BigStockphoto, my local photocopy store, A-7 sized envelopes, and silky ribbons. Don’t have professional grade graphic design programs. No need to worry. I’ve also included tips on how to get the same result using Microsoft’s Word. Here are the steps I took to create my invitation:

  1. The invitation was typeset in Adobe InDesign, and setup as a 5” x 7” document.
    TIP: If you’re using MS Word you’ll need to set the page size after opening a new document: Go to File > Go to Page Setup > Go to Paper Size > choose 5 x 7 >. Typeset your invitation using a fancy script like Edwardian Script, Ambassador Script, Apple Chancery, Zapfino, or Lucida Calligraphy
  2. Purchase an A-7 sized envelope with a holiday theme: mine were from envelopes.com
  3. My graphic was purchased from Bigstock and was selected because it was complimentary to the holiday theme envelope
  4. My BigStock graphic came as a bitmap, so it first needed to be converted to line art.
    TIP: If you begin your search for “vector christmas ornaments” you will not have to go through this process because vector images are already in line art format
  5. Save your document as a PDF.
    TIP: In MS Word: Go to File > Save As > in the Format field, chose PDF
  6. Email your PDF file to your photocopy center.
  7. Choose the heaviest paper they have. The photocopy center near me has lots of paper colors to choose from, but I chose white to match my envelope.
  8. Purchase a spool, or more if you’re doing more than 25, of crimson ribbon
    TIP: the ribbon you see here is silky, but next time I’ll choose grosgrain because it holds a bow better
  9. Ask your photocopy center to crop your invitations to 5” x 7”
  10. Using a standard hole punch, punch 2 holes into each invitation
  11. Cut your ribbon to 10” in length; thread through the holes and tie into a bow
  12. I’m also a calligrapher, so my invitees received hand calligraphed invitations
  13. My invitations were Hand Cancelled by the post office to avoid crushing the ribbon when passing through the first mail reader machine.

POSTAGE AND MAILING  TIP: Unfortunately all mail will go through at least one mailing machine if you don’t request Special Handling. If your invitation has lots of extra touches that might get squashed, crushed or torn in a mailing machine, you’ll need to pay for Special Handling to avoid all mailing machines: as per 2012 postage rates, the extra charge is $0.20 per envelope sent domestically.

Congratulations. You’ve now turned pro!

 

 

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Holiday invitation

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