Promotional Items

When considering promotional items, I considered carefully what it was that I wanted to say and to whom. Most of my cohort have produced beautiful paper based products suitable for mailing to art directors or design studios, with a view to securing internships.  I have explained my reasons in previous blog posts on why this is not for me at the moment, however, I do want to get my name 'out there', my work to be seen and to be remembered, so with this in mind I decided to create some bespoke, small run items that might be more likely to be kept by the carefully chosen recipient.

I am lucky to have a heat press and I decided to use this to apply my own design to promotional items.  I chose a black, adult sized t-shirt, a white, child sized t-shirt and a tote bag so that I could test out the design application to different mediums. The design was printed on specialist paper using sublimation inks. The design can then be applied using heat direct to material. On a white shirt this can mean that the design can be pressed straight onto the shirt front.  For a black shirt this is not possible, and so the design has to be heat applied to a special flock. The flock has a removable back and once the design is set, the back is removed and the flock then applied to the garment by heat. The same method was used for the tote bag and this method produced a sharp, high quality image. The white t-shirt direct to material method was less successful as the print was not as sharp, but there were also differences in material quality so this was a useful experiment.

I also used the same method, but a different piece of heat equipment to apply the design to a mug. This worked well and the outcome was pleasing. The bespoke, short run nature of this production method allows for easy change in designs so I changed the colour way for this experiment, but it means that the item can be easily adapted to the audience, for example if pitching to a publisher I might send a printed book bag with a children's or adult's illustration depending on the nature of the work I hope to secure.

Trade fairs and specialist events, book fairs, publisher festivals etc are all useful venues for self promotion.  There is the Spring Fair at the NEC, the Hay Festival plus numerous book fairs around the world where you might decide to pay for a pitch depending on cost, footfall and audience, or you may attend as 'public' armed with packs of promotional material to pass to relevant stands.  

In my face painting role, I have used Solopress to make rolling banners - these stand at over six feet tall and are high quality, high resolution and at £60-90 represent a reasonable level of investment.  Some artists choose to use these at trade fairs but if purchasing, it is essential to ensure that the information on it is full and current, i.e. contact details, website, Facebook and Twitter names and if possible a QI code as I have often seen interested members of the public photograph these banners rather than approach the practitioner for a business card.

The eye catching postcard.

Moo are wonderful for high quality business cards and will send out a sample pack for free, showing the different finishes, including matt, spot gloss etc.  Although they are more expensive than many suppliers, they are good quality and often have discount promotions, and also offer 20% discount to students.  They have a great website which makes it very easy to upload your own designs and create bespoke cards online.

Moo website business card design.

I had already created postcards, which I discuss in an earlier blog and was pleased to receive some feedback from Leo that one of the cards I sent to him was eye catching and would be likely to be kept. These were also printed by Moo, as their upload and design service is easy to use and allowed me to experiment with several different images in one small print run.  However, a learning point, once the postcard had been through the Royal Mail and handled by several pairs of hands, the surface smudged a little and the print wasn't as sharp as I would have liked.

Local events and galleries are also great ways of getting your name out there.  Open Studios are run regionally, where many artists get together to create a 'trail' along which artists work and open their studios to the public. I had considered this for this year but decided not to do this yet, as I don't have a body of items 'for sale'.  Although the 'sale' bit isn't the main point, giving people visibility of your work is, the University projects I have been working on are not right for that audience and so this is something I may do next year.

Social media can play an important part in self promotion.  I have had a Facebook page for some time now and have gathered a small following.  Many of the page followers are not friends and family, which indicates that they are people who have come across my work and liked it enough to 'like' the page. Facebook has the advantage of being free to use, with the option of being able to pay a small sum to promote individual posts, or to pay more to actively promote the page and the business if required. Of course the disadvantage is that the work is in the public domain and can be easily copied or stolen and credit claimed by a third party, so it is essential to use low resolution images and to not post images of any work 'in progress' if there is likely to be third party or competitive interest.

Instagram has also been successful, bringing in followers and interaction.  Unlike Facebook the majority of people 'liking' my images tend to be industry professionals, illustrators or creative industry students.  I have a Twitter account but seldom use it as I have found it of limited use.  I have also used Linkedin, in my capacity as a Project Manager and found it to be successful, but at the moment I won't use this for illustration as it is important for me to keep these personas separate.

Many professionals use behance.net, but I don't feel yet that my work is of a sufficient standard to post in this professional marketplace, ditto the AOI who will showcase an illustrator's work. A quick glance at each site though shows that my competition would be serious established professionals and so my work has to be the very best before I open these kind of accounts.

In summary, my conclusions when considering promotional materials are:-

• Consider the audience - who are you sending the items to and why? what are you hoping to get in return? a job? a network connection?
• Be mindful of cost - my promotional items cost me approximately £3 each which is a higher cost than a business card, but might be more effective depending on audience.
• When producing materials, check information content and then check it again and again. Are your contact details correct? Have you included all ways in which you wish the audience to contact you?
• Keep professional and personal personas separate when using social media. If you have a 'pay the rent' job as well as a creative career, keep those professional personas separate as well.
• Quality is everything. Check paper and print results carefully before committing to a large cost outlay.

So if you see me out in my T-Shirt, carrying my tote bag, please say 'hello'.

H. x