I guess we could tack this on to Woogie Wednesday for the day. We just finished up making some magnets. I've never made these before and I know people have been doing them for a while, but man are they easy! Above are the ones I made. Can you tell which catalog they came from??

Here's what the Woog made.

Labels: thetypejunkie, woogie-wednesday

Well, here it is Wednesday again and I think out project for Woogie Wednesday will turn into a Woogie week and weekend for a few reasons. Number one, we aren't home today so I'm working remotely and I can very well bring all my junk with me to create and two, the canvases I want to do these on should be arriving from Dick Blick today so the Woog can't start painting yet.

I decided this morning that our project would be a gift for a little boy and a little girl. You may not be able to tell anything from this messy sketch, but at least "I" know exactly what I'm doing :)



Oh, and last week's start of a giraffe never happened and may have to turn into something else another day. There has been zero interest from the Woog.

Labels: junk-a-doodles, woogie-wednesday

I thought I'd show my process for my painterly style using my latest postcard promo.

Since this was a personal assignment I do a very loose sketch:


I then bring that into Illustrator and draw out all my flat color:


Then I have all my flat color and layers divided and start playing with the type:


I then bring it into Painter and start painting by shading, highlighting and texturing. I use the sponge for my texturing and I love the effect.


I finished up to painted and move it over to Photoshop where I do a few last details. Here's the final:

Labels: promotion

I thought I'd lay my promotion process out to help answer the numerous emails I receive a week asking about it. This post took me several days to write since I only had time to work on it in between saves on projects I'm working on. It's gonna be a long one, but a good one!

Postcards:
I do postcard promotions every 3 months, and yes, they do work. My latest one hit at the end of July and has yielded 3 jobs so far and lots of looks on my website:

And here's my postcard for my Junk A Doodle work. This is the first separate postcard I've sent out for that style:

My best response postcard to date was this one. I got tons of work from it.

Client List:
Research, research, research!! Know who you are sending to and make sure you want to spend your money promoting to them. Spend days if not weeks doing it. I recently went through my mailing list (over 300 names) and researched every company making sure I had the correct address, seeing if they had new submission guidelines on their site and double checking their style to see if mine would fit with their's. I cleaned out about 20-30 names, so I saved myself a good about of money right there.

I also have 2 list going. One for my overall styles and a separate one for my Junk A Doodles style (since it's not specifically related to the children's market).

Who I use and why I use them:
I get my postcards printed and mailed through USPS/Premium postcards. I will never go back to getting postcards printed 500 at a time. I do this for a few reasons.
The biggest ones being, I don't have to see 500 postcards laying around and then start nit-picking the images used and then hate the postcard thus never sending
it out (this happened to my very first batch). I also don't like to go through and print labels, buy stamps, and sit there and stick them on one at a time. My time could be much better spent.

There has been a lot of talk about USPS postcards and the saturation levels they print out. I sometimes have issues with them and sometimes don't. You need to send a sample to yourself first to see what your potential clients will get. I usually send 4-5 postcards to myself at one time. All with different color adjustments so I can then see which level is the best. That way I can send them right out instead of trying several times to get the color right. This could delay your mailing for weeks depending on how many times you go back and forth. I say test it in one swoop.

Email list:

I try and send out an email monthly. It's usually short and sweet and I send it to people who have signed up on my website or to people I have worked with directly or have shown interest in my work (I have 150 people on my list that grows monthly). I don't spam any one and have a explanation at the bottom of my email that says why I'm sending them the email and how they can be removed from the list. Since I've been sending one out, no one's removed themselves from the list.

I used to send out plain text emails with an image attached but this year have switch over to Your Mailing List Provider That way I can send out an HTML email with no images attached.

Website:
I try to redesign or do a major portfolio update when I send out a new mailer. I try to do it more often but I sometimes get too busy or don't have any new pieces to show yet since they haven't been published. I have 2 websites for my illustration work:

holliconger.com
junkadoodles.com

A lot of people ask me if I design it or if I have someone do it. I design and code it myself. I mostly code by hand since it's easier and quicker for me, but I do use Adobe GoLive for my image maps and anything tricky I might run into.

Website Stats:
I am a stats junkie. I look at my stats probably 20 times a day. I track 8 websites. I see who's visiting, who's linking to me, etc. I make notes and analyze them. Some people choose to track all the pages on their site. I only track the homepage. The stat program I use is Stat Counter.

Domains:
Now I showed my geekiness a while back when I mentioned the number of domains I have. Nearly all of them have to do with my business in one way or another or I'm saving them for a idea I want to execute in the future. Here are a few that are forwarded to my main sites:

hollyconger.com
hollieconger.com
holieconger.com
picturebookartist.com
foundobjectillustration.com
dimensionalillustrator.com
nashvilleillustrator.com

Portfolio Sites:
Yes, spend the money. Even if you can only afford to advertise on one site. Do it to test it.

I have a paid listing on the following sites:

childrenillustrators.com
theispot.com
folioplanet.com

These sites have done really well and have paid for themselves every year I've been listed. I did have a paid portfolio with portfolios.com and although it did pay for itself that year, I didn't get any new job from it about 5 months after being listed (7 months with no activity).

Back Up Plans:
Now a lot of people starting out can't do this, and I understand, but it is something you should think about and budget for. Have more than one workstations. At the moment I have 2 main ones. I have a desktop and a laptop. I have a large wacom tablet and scanner for my desktop and a smaller tablet and scanner for my laptop that are dsmall enough for my laptop bag. I keep all my work on a portable harddrive and switch between the two. I used to use my ipod but I switched over to a smartdisk firelite.

Now, why should you have more than one workstation? Deadlines!! I have had deadlines due and my computer have problems. Software, hardware, harddrive, you name it. If I have a problem on one, I switch to the other workstation, make my deadline and then figure out the problem with the other one when I have time.

Time:
The all important question I get asked is how do you find the time to do all this?

I plan my week out on Sunday night. I write a list of all the deadlines I have, what promotion stuff I need to do and other business things I want to accomplish that week. I plan my day out mentally the night before. I keep a calendar by my desk and with every new assignment I write down when sketches are due and when finals are due. I also have a wonderful daughter who allows me to work. Some days she doesn't and I just know I have to work late that night or get up early in the morning, but most of the time she does. She loves to spend hours digging though all my junk I collect for my junk a doodle pieces while I get some computer work done.

Know your time limits and restrictions and know when to say no to work. I've recently turned down some projects from pretty big clients (one was the Department of Defense if you can believe that?!). I know what I do and don't have the time for and what I can and can't draw well and what jobs in general will stress me out. I'm the only one that controls my business so I want it stress-free as much as possible. I want it to continue to be fun for me:)

Well, that's it but I'm sure not everything to answer the questions out there. Hopefully you've gotten some ideas though.

Labels: junk-a-doodles, promotion

It's Wednesday so that means it's time for Woogie Wednesday and we just can't seem to get back in the groove. I picked everything out and the Woog was a little (well, a lot) indecisive in what she wanted to make but decided on a giraffe. We did some painting and then the whole project stopped. She got fussy and then hungry and then she needed a bath and before we knew it it was bed time. So, I guess we'll try and revisit it tomorrow. Here's what we started with..




to be continued...

Labels: junk-a-doodles, woogie-wednesday

Well, it's going to happen. Everything's in place to build my new studio and I am so happy. I can't wait to have a huge, organized, toy free space to work in. Ground should be broken tomorrow or Friday (depending on when the utilities finish up marking the lines) and it will be off and going. It's being built directly behind the garage with access through the kitchen. The dimensions are 12' x 27' with french doors and 2 skylights. I'll be documenting the process here. Can't wait!

Labels: studio

Obviously Woogie Wednesday didn't happen this past week due to deadline and not being home on Wednesday so we did something this weekend instead. The Woog wanted to make a silly face for her project and she was more interested in playing with the pieces rather than painting them so we ran with it. She made 2 faces she really liked. A happy one and a said one that HAD to have a different nose and HAD to have eyebrows. I then attempted to make a face with her objects but "had it all wrong" and it was swept away before by a little hand before I could get a shot of it.



Work has slowed a little for me a now so I can get back to all my blogging. My blogs have been so neglected :(

Labels: junk-a-doodles, woogie-wednesday

This is one of the last standing (but sadly not for too much longer) barns at my grandparent's farm here in TN. The farm's been in the family since 1918 and I think it's where everyone in my family would rather be when they're not at home.

Another quick pop-in to share Woogie Wednesday. Not extremely creative but creative none the less. The Woog woke up this morning wanting to make a chocolate chip cookie. She did everything herself on his one. She even placed it on a flower folder I had. If the flower was yellow, it could of doubled for a sunflower too!



I'll be back to blogging soon. I just have had and continue to have deadline after deadline. I have a big post I've been wanting to write for a couple of week about my promotion process. I'll get to it soon. Promise!

Labels: junk-a-doodles, woogie-wednesday

Just doing a quick pop-in to share Woogie Wednesday. I've been working non-stop since the week after my surgery and I've got so much more to go. This particular Woogie Wednesday has been a work in progress since last Wednesday. The Woog has painted here and there all week as I met deadline after deadline. We finally finished it up today. Her contribution to it today was trying out her new pair of siccors and cutting every piece of scrap paper in my studio, which is now all over the floor now.

The pieced we worked on was the ornament for Robert's Snow. They were nice enough to let me turn it in a little late due to my surgery. I think it turned out pretty cute! Wish I could keep it :)

Labels: junk-a-doodles, woogie-wednesday