Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Bridges.com Interview
This is very flattering but now I feel old because www.bridges.com has an interview of me posted online for high school kids interested in graphic design and greeting card design ;)
Greeting Card Designer Interview
Kimberly Schwede does almost all her work on the computer. "Occasionally I will hand draw an image, scan it, open it in Photoshop and place it as a bitmap image in Illustrator where I apply color to it. I really like the hand-drawn, rough-sketch look," says Schwede. "Sometimes people tell me what they want to see while others give me creative freedom."
Schwede is an illustrator and graphic designer based in California. She has a bachelor's degree in communication arts. After graduation, she worked for a design firm. Then she did marketing materials for a real estate office. She began to do freelance work and realized she could work for herself. Now she's her own boss and she loves it.
Greeting card design is a small percentage of her freelance income. "People can make a living from it, but it's competitive. I think something to consider is the cost of living where you live. I'm sure it's easier to live off it in a small town versus a big city," she says. She also illustrates children's books, textile graphics, magazine illustrations and logos.
https://access.bridges.com/cx/careers/Interview.do?referer=null&occupationId=1551
Books Coming Soon to Amazon.com!!
ROI Direct Marketing, LLC is a publisher of personalized children's books. The first two books, "Fatty Catty" and "I Don't Want to Move", will soon be available to purchase through Amazon.com.
http://www.burnmytoast.com/books.html
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
DGSF Holiday Bazaar Opening Night Party
My design for my communal office space's (www.designguildsf.com) holiday party and bazaar!
Design Guild SF Holiday Bazaar Opening Night Party
From December 5th through the 20th, we will be transforming our gallery into a Holiday Bazaar of objects and art designed by our members and other local artists. Stop by to find unique, locally made, furniture, art and accessories.
Regular Hours: Wed - Sat 12-6pm
Come by for our opening party for some holiday cheer!
December 4th, 2008, 6pm - 10pm
Location: Design Guild SF Gallery
Address: 427 Bryant St. San Francisco CA 94107
Friday, November 7, 2008
Personalized Unicorn Book
I'm so excited to see my first fully illustrated children's book. If you're looking for the perfect gift for the little girl in your life be sure to order my Unicorn book here: http://www.frecklebox.com/viewsample_unicorn.htm
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Baby! Baby!
It is another Minted Greeting card challenge so I entered two sweet designs. Please vote for me at: www.minted.com!
Ciao Belly Testimonial
Kimberly Schwede designed my logo, business card and gift certificate for my maternity and children's clothing & gift store I opened in Hoboken NJ (all the way across the country!!) We didn't have a problem at all! Everything was done via email and phone and Kimberly was able to pick up on my style and knew exactly what I wanted. Her work ethic is amazing and she stuck with it through rounds of revisions until we got it just right. I can't even tell you how many compliments I get on my logo, everyone really loves it. Whenever I am at tradeshows and hand my business card out I almost always get a compliment.
Thank you for all your help Kimberly and I hope we can work together again!
Laura
Ciao Belly
Hoboken NJ
www.ciaobelly.com
The City of South San Francisco Identity
New identity I created for the The City of South San Francisco. SSF is in the process of updating their website and making it more appealing to today's audience. (http://www.ssf.net) They want to move away from being known as an industrial city to being known as a sophisticated city where many bio tech companies are located. Growth, Diversity, Fresh, Community Oriented, Sexy, Successful, Peaceful and Sophisticated were words chosen to describe the city. The blue and brown curves represent the bay and mountains which are located in SSF.
Transforming the Bay Area and Beyond... TALC will be officially launching their new name!
I'm excited and honored to see the unveiling of my logo design for TALC this evening! It was a pleasure to work with Marta Lindsey who is the Membership & Development Director.
Event Details: Great conversation, drinks, appetizers, live music, and art will be plentiful on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 from 5:00-8:00 p.m. at the pavilion and public space at 101 2nd Street in San Francisco. TALC will be officially launching their new name plus an ambitious plan for how they'll be working collaboratively over the next several years to achieve world-class public transportation and walkable communities in the Bay Area and beyond. Tickets will be available at the door for $20 each.
www.transformca.org
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Licensing Artwork
I took an interesting workshop Saturday on Licensing your artwork by Cheryl Phelps in San Francisco.
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Art-Licensing-Limited-Editions-Royalty-Agreement.html
Art Licensing Basics. . .
Art Licensing is an exciting area in the licensing market and can possibly supplement and artist's income and increase exposure. Licensing is defined as leasing the right to use a legally protected name, graphic, painting, logo, saying or likeness in conjunction with a product, promotion, or services. It is usually accomplished by a formal agreement between the owner or agent of the mark (the Licensor) and the prospective Licensee who is either a manufacturer, supplier of services, reproduction source, or an agent on behalf of them.
Licensing is an industry that now produces over $15 million worth of retail sales every hour, 12 hours a day 365 days a year. Little more than a decade ago, the licensing industry generated $4.9 billion worth of goods and services at retail. In 1982, the figure grew to $13.6 billion. This volume doubled only two years later to $26.7 billion and again by 1985, almost doubled to $50 billion! The 2003 LIMA Licensing Industry Survey estimates retain sales of licensed merchandise to be a $110 billion (based on royalty revenues of $5.831 billion) for North America alone. It is difficult to find another industry generating this rate of growth and sustaining it year after year.
When people think of licensing, usually sports or entertainment licensing is the first thing that comes to mind, but there is far more to the licensing business than that. Licensing is no longer simply the domain of a few specialized people. Nowadays all major companies and the media consider licensing a significant marking tool. One could even say that it has become one of the most powerful contemporary forms of marketing and brand extension and that it is being used in ever increasingly sophisticated ways. Before clarifying what the business of licensing is all about, there is a clear need for some primary information. Therefore some definitions and basic terms will be given and explained.
Licensing is the process of leasing a legally protected (that is, trademarked or copyrighted) entity known as property which could be a name, likeness, logo, graphic, painting, saying, signature, character or a combination of several of these elements, in conjunction with a product or a product line. Artists often license their work for greeting cards, posters, book covers, internet graphics, clothing, or fabrics, and of course limited editions of the original work of art.
Licensing is usually based on a contractual agreement between two business entities: the owner or agent of the property, also known as the licensor and the renter of the rights, and the prospective licensee, in this case, the artist. The formal permission to use the owner's property is subject to certain terms and conditions, such as a specific purpose, a defined geographic area, and a finite time period. In exchange for granting the rights for a certain property to the licensee, the licensor obtains a financial remuneration. The basic component of this payment is the royalty, which is a percentage of the product sales involving your image. A less attractive offer is the outright purchase of the image. In addition to a royalty agreement, a guaranteed minimum royalty, the guarantee, is usually required. The licensee has to pay this guarantee even in the face of total failure of the property. A percentage of this guarantee is normally paid as an advance.
Today there are overwhelming licensing opportunities that did not exist a little more than a decade ago. The availability of licensed merchandise has proliferated over the last decade, and corporate America has finally recognized the value of its brand names and unique products developed over decades. Now these invaluable, easily identified markets are licensed as a cost-effective means of brand extension and additional consumer awareness for the primary brand. It is the popularity and familiarity of these marks that help otherwise undistinguished products to stand out from the crowd.
The artist will need to be comfortable with his or her image being used in this manner before entering into any such agreement. Art licensing can offer opportunities and benefits to both the artists as well as the manufacturers of the licensed goods.
The rationale for the artist to license a product is linked to increasing market exposure and image or name recognition at a consumer level without having to develop, produce, or market a new project. Furthermore, the artist as licensor receives legal protection, since licensing a "brand" or image for use in certain product categories prevents potential competitors from legally using that image to enter those categories. In most cases the artist may retain the original work of art, transferring only the right of reproduction.
The greatest economic advantage for the artist-licensor lies with the profits from royalty payments. Spoken in financial terms, an artist receives from the licensee and average royalty payment of about 5 percent of the wholesale price of each sold product. Due to the fact that there are no manufacturing or marking costs, these revenues translate directly to profits.
Our best advice to you is to thoroughly look over the details of the contract before you sign it. We have seen contracts which request the transfer of a copyright, or exclusive use of your image in perpetuity. We have also seen contracts lead to positive returns and mass exposure.
*This article was abstracted from LIMA with authors' permission, www.licensing.org (http://www.licensing.org/) We thought it might be useful to artists who are considering licensing their work for print or fashion. We also have a sample licensing agreement (http://www.artadvice.com/advice/licensing.pdf) you may wish to study in advance.
Reprinted from The Art Advice Newsletter at : http://www.artadvice.com/
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Art-Licensing-Limited-Editions-Royalty-Agreement.html
Art Licensing Basics. . .
Art Licensing is an exciting area in the licensing market and can possibly supplement and artist's income and increase exposure. Licensing is defined as leasing the right to use a legally protected name, graphic, painting, logo, saying or likeness in conjunction with a product, promotion, or services. It is usually accomplished by a formal agreement between the owner or agent of the mark (the Licensor) and the prospective Licensee who is either a manufacturer, supplier of services, reproduction source, or an agent on behalf of them.
Licensing is an industry that now produces over $15 million worth of retail sales every hour, 12 hours a day 365 days a year. Little more than a decade ago, the licensing industry generated $4.9 billion worth of goods and services at retail. In 1982, the figure grew to $13.6 billion. This volume doubled only two years later to $26.7 billion and again by 1985, almost doubled to $50 billion! The 2003 LIMA Licensing Industry Survey estimates retain sales of licensed merchandise to be a $110 billion (based on royalty revenues of $5.831 billion) for North America alone. It is difficult to find another industry generating this rate of growth and sustaining it year after year.
When people think of licensing, usually sports or entertainment licensing is the first thing that comes to mind, but there is far more to the licensing business than that. Licensing is no longer simply the domain of a few specialized people. Nowadays all major companies and the media consider licensing a significant marking tool. One could even say that it has become one of the most powerful contemporary forms of marketing and brand extension and that it is being used in ever increasingly sophisticated ways. Before clarifying what the business of licensing is all about, there is a clear need for some primary information. Therefore some definitions and basic terms will be given and explained.
Licensing is the process of leasing a legally protected (that is, trademarked or copyrighted) entity known as property which could be a name, likeness, logo, graphic, painting, saying, signature, character or a combination of several of these elements, in conjunction with a product or a product line. Artists often license their work for greeting cards, posters, book covers, internet graphics, clothing, or fabrics, and of course limited editions of the original work of art.
Licensing is usually based on a contractual agreement between two business entities: the owner or agent of the property, also known as the licensor and the renter of the rights, and the prospective licensee, in this case, the artist. The formal permission to use the owner's property is subject to certain terms and conditions, such as a specific purpose, a defined geographic area, and a finite time period. In exchange for granting the rights for a certain property to the licensee, the licensor obtains a financial remuneration. The basic component of this payment is the royalty, which is a percentage of the product sales involving your image. A less attractive offer is the outright purchase of the image. In addition to a royalty agreement, a guaranteed minimum royalty, the guarantee, is usually required. The licensee has to pay this guarantee even in the face of total failure of the property. A percentage of this guarantee is normally paid as an advance.
Today there are overwhelming licensing opportunities that did not exist a little more than a decade ago. The availability of licensed merchandise has proliferated over the last decade, and corporate America has finally recognized the value of its brand names and unique products developed over decades. Now these invaluable, easily identified markets are licensed as a cost-effective means of brand extension and additional consumer awareness for the primary brand. It is the popularity and familiarity of these marks that help otherwise undistinguished products to stand out from the crowd.
The artist will need to be comfortable with his or her image being used in this manner before entering into any such agreement. Art licensing can offer opportunities and benefits to both the artists as well as the manufacturers of the licensed goods.
The rationale for the artist to license a product is linked to increasing market exposure and image or name recognition at a consumer level without having to develop, produce, or market a new project. Furthermore, the artist as licensor receives legal protection, since licensing a "brand" or image for use in certain product categories prevents potential competitors from legally using that image to enter those categories. In most cases the artist may retain the original work of art, transferring only the right of reproduction.
The greatest economic advantage for the artist-licensor lies with the profits from royalty payments. Spoken in financial terms, an artist receives from the licensee and average royalty payment of about 5 percent of the wholesale price of each sold product. Due to the fact that there are no manufacturing or marking costs, these revenues translate directly to profits.
Our best advice to you is to thoroughly look over the details of the contract before you sign it. We have seen contracts which request the transfer of a copyright, or exclusive use of your image in perpetuity. We have also seen contracts lead to positive returns and mass exposure.
*This article was abstracted from LIMA with authors' permission, www.licensing.org (http://www.licensing.org/) We thought it might be useful to artists who are considering licensing their work for print or fashion. We also have a sample licensing agreement (http://www.artadvice.com/advice/licensing.pdf) you may wish to study in advance.
Reprinted from The Art Advice Newsletter at : http://www.artadvice.com/
Saturday, March 8, 2008
New Life Chapter
Wow! Yesterday was the most incredible day, 3.7.08. I finally had the courage to give notice to my employer after 4.5 years. It's exciting and scary to start my own graphic design and illustration business but I'm ready. I decided to rent an amazing space at www.designguildsf.com. As soon as I gave my two weeks notice to my employer four new project requests were emailed to me. OMG... talk about the wall being broken down and the universe working in my favor. I know its a sign I'm doing the right thing. I'm so exciting and invigorated to start this new chapter in my life. Freedom and Confidence will lead to success =D
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Cupid Party
Today is the Ladies Who Launch Naughty Cupid Party in San Francisco which should be fun! I plan on selling Valentines Day cards and helping my friend Pearl set up her skincare/facial booth. Yesterday I voted for Obama. Its honestly a toss up for me, I'd be happy with Hilary or Obama but Obama is fresh and young with new ideas which could be exciting for this country. On another note, I'm getting wonderful reviews from my clients on YELP! Adding two full days a week to do freelance is really helping my goal to become a independent designer.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Fro Yo
What a great start to my morning. I received two estimate requests for a frozen yogurt shop and a girls cosmetic brand :) Ohlala!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Welcome Blog
This is my first blog entry which happens to fall on Superbowl Sunday (yawn =P) I've been wanting to start a blog and thanks to Eslina Jupri, I've decided to create one. Eslina was sweet enough to give me the "You Make My Day Award" yesterday, how cool is that?
http://oceanandme.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-received-you-make-my-day-award.html
This was a good week. I went to the SF International Gift Show Tuesday and met some great people. Very inspirational visiting the stationery and child product booths. Someday I hope to have a booth at the Surtex show in NYC displaying my artwork for licensing.
Wow, then I saw the best movie, Into the Wild. Such a touching film about friendships, life and love. I highly recommend it!
Today I will begin sketches for two book covers with Sourcebooks. I'm excited but nervous because the rough drafts are due Thursday! So unfortunately I will not be watching the Superbowl. Instead I will be sketching Christmas graphics and a couple embracing by the sea under the moonlight ;)
http://oceanandme.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-received-you-make-my-day-award.html
This was a good week. I went to the SF International Gift Show Tuesday and met some great people. Very inspirational visiting the stationery and child product booths. Someday I hope to have a booth at the Surtex show in NYC displaying my artwork for licensing.
Wow, then I saw the best movie, Into the Wild. Such a touching film about friendships, life and love. I highly recommend it!
Today I will begin sketches for two book covers with Sourcebooks. I'm excited but nervous because the rough drafts are due Thursday! So unfortunately I will not be watching the Superbowl. Instead I will be sketching Christmas graphics and a couple embracing by the sea under the moonlight ;)
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