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!

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!

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!

I was pleased to see my card design on the Marks and Spencer Personalised Cards homepage as the family birthday category picture. M&S have the card personalised for a Grandaughter, but the great thing is that you can change it to say Daughter, Sister, Niece or put a name in that space instead!
...and the inside can be customised too.

New Baby Cards

Here are some more of my designs on the Marks and Spencer Personalised Cards website. The lovely thing about Print on Demand is the pretty full colour inside spread, which makes them really fun to design.

Personalised cards are so well received, especially new baby ones which become true keepsakes.

And because they are customisable, the customer is in control, so the cards can be used as greetings, invitations or thank yous.

Loved Up

I'm entering the Tigerprint competition today, the theme is Love Typography. I try to enter when I can, it depends on whether I am working at home or not as to whether I have the time. On this occasion I used my mother's day pass to work on my ideas yesterday evening while my husband fed and entertained our two children! (I did spend quality time with them during the day!)

I have had some success with the competitions in the past, but even when (more often than not!) I am unsuccessful I still have a few new designs to add to my own collection!

One of the criteria of the brief is to make the design editable to suit Marks and Spencer Personalised online cards (where you will currently find some of my designs).