Seasonal Cards available in my shop

I have put some seasonal greetings card designs on my Zazzle store... and there's 10% discount this week only!

For Christmas I have elegant cards and fun cards:

Personalise the front from the whole family, individuals or even add your company's name:

And for Chanukah too, ready to personalise on the front and inside:

You can buy your 'Rosalind Wilson' seasonal cards and personalise them here use discount code 10PERCENTOFF but be quick as the offer ends this Friday!

Christmas at M&S

Last month I mentioned that I had spotted my designs for Marks and Spencer in store, which you can see here. Here are a couple more that have been added since, available online and instore:

Christmas Crackers with my snowflake design in silver and white:

And my traditional foliage Christmas Card design:

I'm working on designs for Christmas 2011 right now. It really gets me in the mood for the christmas hols, I do like this time of year!

Zak and Zara at London Zoo

The London Zoo characters I designed for party organisers Les Enfants have had their first outing! Extra large and in a great setting, I think they look fab and am really pleased.

(photos by Les Enfants)

On the London Zoo web site you can see the party packages that they offer, including my Zak and Zara characters on party bags, as 'princess or pirate in the jungle' themes, and on invitations.

(photo from London Zoo website)

Here are Zak and Zara as princess and pirate in the jungle...

Christmas Cards with a personal touch

Following on from my post about my Christmas cards in M&S, I must also mention that my Christmas designs for Ballistic Blue are also now available. These designs are available to personalise and also add an optional photograph so really are a lovely personal Xmas greeting, especially to distant family and friends.

It's really easy to navigate their site and upload a photo and add names and a message.

They would also work well as corporate cards with a staff or product photo.

You may recognise some designs from here. I spent some time reformatting them for personalising front and inside; I think they'll work really well.

And for New Year parties!

Xmas (in September!?)

Under usual circumstances I would be dismayed to see Christmas products in store mid September... I thought it was the done thing to wait until after Halloween? I guess the summer has well and truly gone!

Anyway, I will make an exception this year because I've just spotted some of my designs in Marks and Spencer (in store and online) and that put a smile on my face!

Contemporary Trees and Traditional Scene multipacks:

Holographic and metallic wrap and matching tags:

You may be able to spot my snowflake design on the silver bags in the "shopfront" picture on M&S's website:

 

A hubby Christmas card, with embellished detail:

And to be REALLY organised, a sparkly Happy New Year card with glitter!

That's it for now, more to come later.

I hope you like my designs - and forgive me for talking about Christmas in September!

Blueberry Park Packaging

I've just completed some new packaging design for fab friend and fellow designer Karen at Blueberry Park.

It's lovely to work on projects together with Karen and this was no exception. I've designed her logo and labels previously, and this next step was to make her products stand out with her brand identity.

It's sometimes strange to hand over a finished project to a client; when the execution is out of my hands it can lead to mixed feelings when I see it. Karen, however, is always meticulous and makes things look fab so after handing over the disk of completed artwork ready for print, to see the boxes fully dressed and stacked made me really happy.

Good luck at the London Gift Fair this weekend Karen!

Back into the swing of things!

I'm back from my summer hols now, although that's not really an excuse for more than a month's absence from blogging! Before I went away I had so much to fit in coupled with the school hols... something had to give and I'm afraid blogging and tweeting went by the way side. I'm back into the swing of things now though!

One of the projects I was working on this summer was some character design for party and event organisers Les Enfants' new children's parties at London Zoo.

Meet Zak and Zara Zoo Keeper!

There were quite strict guidelines to adhere to regarding London Zoo's uniform and colour palette, but I'm glad we could pass the pink wellies through!

I wish Les Enfants all the best with their new collaboration, I'm sure it'll be a great success.

I've also spent much of my summer making paper-plate owls and packing-peanut owls (easier to make than to say!) at Breeze on Tour for The Leeds Owl Trail. It was so lovely to be outside, being creative with hundreds of Leeds' young people... we made almost 2000 owls over ten individual days!

I'll fill you in with more news soon!

My New Shop!

Visit my shop here: Rosalind Wilson

When I design greetings cards and invitations there are a few avenues I currently follow, for example designing for a publisher or company e.g. Marks and Spencer, Ballistic Blue where they produce, sell and deliver my (and others') designs. I also create and produce designs for greetings cards and invitations directly to my own customers.

The latter is where I have been struggling with my (not very good) business head. The time I put into meetings and consultations, production, storage, delivery on top of the design doesn't seem practical. I felt I needed to either invest in production on a bigger scale or concentrate purely on designing for publishers.

The latter made more sense. However, I love the diversity of my individual customers' briefs and the personal contact I have with the 'end user', I think it keeps me on my toes and generates fresh ideas.

I've discovered a way I can have an online shop where I can format my designs to be personalised and purchased by the customer, then produced and delivered by the company that run the site: Zazzle.

My Shop allows me to put my designs on Cards, invitations, thank yous (and even bags, mugs and t-shirts) which can be customised and purchased. Zazzle offer delivery options, money back guarantee and lots of help to the artist and customer.

I can still have that personal relationship with the customer, receive feedback and take invividual requests.

Even though I've only recently set the shop up and am still filling its virtual shelves, I've already made quite a few sales and been lucky enough to win two "today's best" awards!

I hope you like it, and I'd love to hear your feedback and ideas!

Poppy for Poppy

Here's a little design to celebrate a first birthday party: a special pink poppy design for a little girl called Poppy!