Kristen Hodges « oh my! handmade goodness

Kristen Hodges

May 2012 Wallpaper Suite: Wildflower Week

Friday, May 4, 2012

With May comes sunny weather, warm hues, and wildflower blooms covering the ground. And I don’t know about you, but I love Summer colors and flowers. When I found out that the second week of May is National Wildflower Week, I knew I had to design something to help celebrate.

I grew up in North Alabama and remember how the Governor’s wife pushed heavily for wildflowers to be planted. As a result, I have fond memories of going on trips and being in the backseat, watching all the various colors go by from flowers planted in the median of the interstate. Then, my time in Tennessee was full of yellow-beaming buttercups and the promise of warm-weather. Lately, I’ve been able to enjoy the San Diego region, full of tropical plant life and made it a must to live in an apartment home that came with a view of their best landscaping.

My mom’s side of the family is full of greenthumbs. Though, the gene skipped over me, it doesn’t stop me from enjoying my favorite subject to paint on canvas, cover fabric-bound books with, and use as inspiration for all my bold colors in logo designs.

Designing these monthly wallpapers gives me something to enjoy while stuck indoors working at the desk and offers a quick pick-me-up on rainy days.

What’s been your fondest memory of growing up with wildflowers?

Download your wallpaper suite:

2560×1440, 1600×1200, 1280×1024, 1024×780, iPad Lock/Home, iPhone Lock/Home

Free Photo Editing Apps to Replace Picnik.com

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The day Picnik announced it was closing as a stand-alone site and would be integrated into Google+ as their photo editing tool was disheartening for some. Bloggers not already utilizing this new social media juggernaut had the same knee-jerk reaction: “What free photo editing app am I going to use now?!?”

Some are turning to Photoshop Elements but the $99 price tag for a full version is a big leap from the free resource that Picnik offered. Keeping overhead low is important to bloggers who write full-time so I’ve curated a list of sites—some even comparable to Photoshop—that you’ll want to definitely check out!

Downloadable Software

Online Apps

Do you have a favorite free/cheap photo editing software? What do you currently use to edit images? Let us know in the comments!

Copyright Transfers: Do You Really Own The Rights To Your Logo Design?

Thursday, March 22, 2012

How do you know if you really own the copyright to your logo design?

Since attending Alt Summit back in January and speaking with an IP lawyer during the roundtable sessions, I learned valuable advice to an issue that, up until that point, I had not even seen as an issue. I also recently joined the San Diego AIGA and have been focused on aligning my business with their professional standards and Design Business Ethics.

In light of these events, I wanted to share my personal story in hopes that it will help you know if your designer’s copyrighted work was transferred to you or not. Be sure to read all the way down, as I list resources for you to use!

Note: It is the designer’s choice to determine if they’d like to give their clients either full rights, partial rights, or no rights to their work’s copyright depending on what is being designed, although it’s strongly encouraged for identity design to be fully transferred to the client.

My Current System

Up until now, I had always written in my Terms of Design that clients receive full rights to the design work they receive. Even when they fill out my Logo Design Brief or Web Design Brief, they have to mark a check box for agreeing with these terms. In my Terms, I also make sure to state that I will not use their designs on a someone else’s design project, another benefit to having rights to your designs.

And to me, I thought this was legally good enough: letting them know and not pursuing claims against them in this light. Giving full rights to my clients, while holding on to my rights to use any work I create for portfolio and promotional use only, is just a personal preference of mine. I haven’t had any problems or reasons to change this business policy and it seemed natural to do so mostly because I deal in brand design. All was well in Designer Land…

My Legal Advice

…that is, until I learned from my talk with the IP lawyer at Alt Summit that this was not good enough! I still owned all rights to my work and not my clients.

After recovering from a mild heart attack that I cooly kept from showing though my ghost white face probably gave it away, I asked him how should I proceed and he said I needed a more formal document drawn up that both parties would need to sign and date to make this legal. Having a check box one document and the terms on another was not good enough in the court system, it needed to be condensed into a single release form. The good news was it was easily correctable.

My clients had nothing to fear with this small hiccup, because as previously stated, I only have interest in being able to use my designs for portfolio and promotional use but I’m still correcting the issue because it’s “better late than never”. Registering their logo to be trademarked or having it copyrighted, would require them having full rights to their designs. Having the paperwork to back up their statements, makes both parties able to sleep well at night.

Note: Any work that was meant for on-going, exclusive marketing purposes should have full rights transferred to the client with the exception of portfolio and promotional use on behalf of the designer.

My Next Steps

As soon as I had saved up enough money over the next several weeks, I contacted my lawyer to draw up the necessary paperwork for me. I’m in the business of working with businesses so I didn’t want to risk doing this myself. Copyrights, Trademarks, and Intellectual Property are all things I have to be aware of on a daily basis because of the nature of my job. I also made sure to have my lawyer give a good polishing to my Terms of Design so it would correlate with the new Copyright Release Form.

Additional Resources

If you’re not a fan of mini heart attacks either and want to be “Copyright Happy”, check out these links below for more information on copyright transfers and the tools to get the job done!

AIGA professional association for design
United States Copyright Office for learning about and registering copyrights
Adobe EchoSign lets you sign documents anywhere for free and is as easy as email
Legal Services by Kara Jensen Zitnick from LaunchHER
Logo Design Copyright Transfer Form for Download by Graham Smith from I’m Just Creative
Copyright Laws & Trademarks in Logo Design by Jacob Cass from Just Creative Design

Business Card Designs That Will Rock Your Conference

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

There are such a large variety of business cards that you can choose from to represent your brand at an event or conference. I thought the best way to feature them all was to group them by kind: recycled cards, glossy cards, satin matte cards, letterpress cards, rounded corner cards, die-cut cards, enveloped cards, and business cards with free swag. I’ll talk about what makes each kind of card unique, its design qualities, and the benefits of using them at a conference.

Recycled Content + Matte Business Cards

I wouldn’t throw out the idea of a matte card just yet… a matte card can create that earthy, home-grown look for your brand or it can give you a chance to showcase your typography skills using a super minimal layout to match the no-fuss look of the paper stock. It can great for brands that focus on vintage, journalism, and organic. It also looks great with a spot varnish. One nice touch for matte cards is that it lets you easily write on the backside to leave a note to the person you’re giving the card to. It’s also very easy on the budget.

Glossy Business Cards

This was a large group for sure and glossy is what most think of when you say “professional business card”. I will say that their biggest down-fall is being super slick, literally slick. I’d suggest having only one side be glossy and the other side matte to avoid they flipping out into the air like a new deck of cards. And rubber-banding them together isn’t too attractive either.

Now if color matters the most to your design, then glossy will give you the truest color to what you see on screen. Rich hues, great contrast, and very vibrant. Notice most of my examples here have black as the main color or one of the prominent hues.

Satin Matte Business Cards

This is without a doubt the most popular paper stock for business cards this year. And I can see why! The ultra-smooth and suede-like feel of these cards are addictive to touch and the soft gloss effect seems oh so luxe.

However, they do have a hard time giving a true color match so if you’re brand colors are vibrant or graphic-heavy, a gloss would be better suited for you. Photograph cards, on the other hand, can really “glow” on a satin matte.

Letterpress Business Cards

What’s more fancy than a die-cut card? Try hand-printed goodness on thick 4-ply papers that sport a organic texture. I don’t often see this kind of card floating around—probably due to their cost and limitations to using just text and graphics. If you love the textured touch but don’t want the letterpress cost, you can still have your card digitally printed onto thick cotton paper.

If you’re going to a conference full of paper and design geeks, then going letterpress is how you’ll be sure to get their attention. And you’ll never feel like your cards weren’t good enough with letterpress, there’s just isn’t a paper stock or printing method that can beat the tradition and quality of this age-old technique.

Rounded Corner Business Cards

It seems like those who love sharp corners, hate rounded corners and those who love rounded corners, hate the sharp corners. But personal preferences aside, think about if a soft touch is needed to really represent your brand. Children’s stores, whimsical brands, and those who have circles as part of their brand design can really use rounded corners to their advantage.

Die-Cut Business Cards

The real question with these is: do you care that your card will fit the standard sizes or does being super unique mean more to your brand, despite those who will toss it simply because it won’t fit a standard card holder. (Believe me, I’ve had people tell me this to my face when I used Moo.com’s cards, which are in European sizes.)

If going bold and unique is still more important then use pictorial elements from your brand to create the card shape or a decorative outline. Squares and long, skinny cards are just the beginning to the creativity you can unfold with die-cutting. Don’t worry about too small, the examples I have here prove that you can still get a lot of info on a tiny space.

And let’s not forget the little QR Code there… this is a perfect moment to make a landing page just for Alt attendees to visit that’s hidden from the public so you can give them a more personalized experience on your site.

Enveloped Business Cards

Seriously, what can make you swoon more over a card than when you package it up like a card? I love the idea of using mini No.1 Baby Envelope or using your own hand-cut creations using an envelope template. Stickers, embellishments, and fun color arrangements is the name of the game with card jackets and packaging cards. I really liked how one brand took advantage of this to be sure that both owners were getting their info out there by placing both inside.

Business Cards with Swag

Okay, you probably thought that last section was cool enough but this next one will really blow your brain: using our cards to either package swag or include it with free gifts. It’s not only great psychological marketing (you feel obligated to do something back or buy something from those who give you something for free) but it’s a great way to get on the “Most Memorable List”. And I love how it’s more than just contact info: it’s a real treat! Using a fold over card as a bag topper is a great idea.

What is your favorite style of business cards? Feel free to leave a link to your own cards in the comments!

Finding Your Perfect Online Print Shop

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Screen printed poster by whatkatiedoes

A new year for small businesses means new marketing projects—and most often these fresh ideas require printing. I’m often asked by my clients where should they go for online printing services? Here’s a quick guide to finding your perfect online print shop:

A Match Made in Heaven

They will have free sample kits.

I love it when printing sites offer free sample kits. It’s “proof in the pudding” as they say. They are so confident in their work, they’re willing to bare it all before you buy. I prefer sample kits so I can have something tangible in my hand for comparing to other sample kits, confirm a crisp print in varying finishes, and to get a good idea for how large an item is.

(read more…)

Miniature Lotus Books as Holiday Ornaments

Monday, December 12, 2011

I love the holidays, it means I get to create a new set of handmade book ornaments to don my Christmas tree. These are perfect for gift giving, too—my Mom hits me up every year for ones with shimmer papers and music sheets—and they are very easy to make. How easy? This was the first kind of book that I learned while studying Book Arts.

This binding technique has many names: Chinese Star, Lotus, Origami, and so on but I always took a liking to “Lotus Book” because when you adhere the folded pages together, all facing the same way, it will open up like a Lotus flower.

MATERIALS

I know most won’t have a bookbinding supply store near them so I made this tutorial using materials almost everyone will have in their home:

decorative, cover-weight papers for the covers
solid colored, text-weight papers for the inside pages
1/8″ thick bookboard
a roll of 1/16″ ribbon
permanent double-sided tape
bone folder
3″ wide clear acrylic ruler
exacto knife

CUTTING

To prepare your materials, the formula for figuring how large to cut your papers is simple. For the cover papers: the width you want the final book to be + 1″. For the inside pages: the width of the final book x 2. The bookboard should be cut to the exact size of the final book. The 2 ribbon ties should be cut to 8″ each. When you get started, you’ll see how much easier the 3″ clear acrylic ruler will make things for you and why I don’t bookbind without it.

FOLDING

To create your origami-like inside pages, take your bonefolder and crease a fold down the middle of the paper, both vertically and horizontally, so that the creases make what looks like a cross or plus sign. Then flip the paper over to crease opposing corners so you have a single diagonal crease. Fold 5 of these inside pages for each book you want to make. Your book won’t open up with less than 5 but I wouldn’t recommend making more than 7 pages for each book.

ADHERING THE PAGES

Take your folded pages and on the outer, smooth sides place 3 strips of double-sided tape that go as far to the edge as possible. My books are to be 2″ square so 3 strips of tape almost cover the whole surface. Then close the page to line up the following page to be on top of it. Soon you will have a set of pages that already want to lay open in a position like a lotus flower.

ADHERING THE COVERS + RIBBON TIES

Take your boards and place in the center of your cover papers. Add 3 strips to the board and flip over the board over onto the wrong side of the cover paper so it’s snug in place. You don’t want the covers to have bubbles so I adhere them before moving on to adhering the flaps of the cover paper. Once finished, add 3 more strips of double-sided tape to the other side of the bookboard, the side that is the “inside” of the covers, soon to be adhered to the pages. This is to get you ready for the next step of folding over the corners and side flaps of the paper so make sure that you are placing the tape close to the edges.

Now that your boards are in place, I like to use what we call “library corners” to wrap the flaps of the cover papers up and over the edges of my bookboard. Library corners are the most sturdy and will never show the board beneath, so they naturally became my favorite method. To start, take the corners of the cover papers, one at a time, and fold over the point of the corner. You’ll make a 45 degree motion when you do, allowing all the points of the paper to be pointing towards the center area of the board. Next, wrap up and over the side flaps.

Take the end of your ribbon tie and place it down on a corner. Adhere the ribbon in place with tape, making sure that 1″ of the ribbon is at least being anchored down so it won’t come back out. Repeat for the other cover. If you place the ribbon in the middle of a side edge, you will not be able to open and tie back your book properly, it must be on a corner.

CASING YOUR PAGES INTO THE COVERS

Take your set of inside pages and place 3 more strips on either end for casing into the covers. I keep one cover on its back while I stack the pages on top so I can be sure to line it all up nicely. Then I will open it up so I can smooth out the side that was just adhered to the cover, getting rid of any bubbles and making sure it’s firmly adhered. Then with the other cover on its back, I take my stack and place down on top of it again, making sure I’m lining it all up evenly.

USING YOUR ORNAMENT

Once it’s all together, I open the book up all the way until the two covers are back-to-back with each other and the pages open up like a 5-pointed start. Next, I make a simple knot over the two corners to keep the book open then I will make a know near the two ends of the ribbon so a loop is formed for hanging on the tree. When you’re done using your book ornament, simply untie the loop and close the book so the pages won’t be crushed or crinkled for next year.

How to Design a Look Book

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

During the holidays, designing a Look Book can be so beneficial to a business in many ways: it’s great for marketing materials, it’s handy for passing out at craft shows, it’s perfect for announcing new collections for the new year, and it acts a method of following up with your customers by reminding them to visit your shop. While figuring out how to use a Look Book may seem easy, designing one can be a whole other story. In this post, I share some tips on page layout, design software, and distrubuting your new look book online. What is a Look Book? It’s like a mix between a store catalog and an e-zine. You want it to sell something as well as be informative about your brand.

Wildfox Kids amazing Fall look book-click picture for more inspiration

Start with a Plan

As a business owner, you know that every successful decision you make for your business comes from having a good plan. Think of 3 reasons why you need a Look Book, 3 ways you will use/distribute your Look Book, and 3 ways it can increase your ROI or Return On Investment (because this will be a time-consuming project that will cost money if printed and distributed in person). An example might look like this:

I need a Look Book to feature my new products as well as show-off my whole offering, explain my custom services, and give customers an inside to look as to why my products are great by explaining a little bit about how I make them.

I will use it at craft shows, at conferences, and will keep in my car for potential customers I meet in passing.

I believe my Look Book will increase ROI by reminding them they can shop any time online from home, gives customers who didn’t have funds on their person or ideas on what to gift to purchase at a later time, and gives my family/friends something to pass out to help explain what I do when I’m not there to “sell it”.

Lee Matthews look book designed by Jacqui Lewis

Selecting Your Design Software

If you don’t have a full-version of Photoshop on your computer or you’re not able to hire a professional designer who has Adobe suites then fret not. There are lots of free shareware and online apps that can help you design your look book. Shareware like GIMP.org, Inkscape.org, and Photoshop.com can help you get the job done for free. These sites come with either a User Manual for Support Forums for you to learn how to use them. Being familiar with the full-version of Photoshop would help you find the lay of the land more quickly. When setting up your files, be sure to have it set to CMYK at 300dpi in PDF format saved as Press Quality for printing or have it set to RGB at 72dpi in PDF format for publishing online.

Sketching Your Page Layouts

Yep, you read that correctly: sketching your page layout ideas. It’s true: anyone can sketch thumbnails much more quickly than doing simple mock-ups on the computer. Get a basic idea of how you want your page layouts through pencil and paper then take it to the screen, you will be amazed at how much time this will save you. The content is not necessary at this point, just know where you want your page title, paragraphs and images placed is key in this step. This is the step where you create the look and feel for your catalog with any article spreads, the shopping section, and the covers. It’s also when you decide on the size of your Look Book: if you want 8.5″ x 11″ or 5.5″ x 8.5″.

Draw In Light look book designed by We Are Useful via the dieline-click for more pictures

Producing Your Look Book

Now it’s time to start producing your catalog content. Some tips to get you started: gather product information, write your product copy that’s fresh for your Look Book (copy is the text), setup and shoot your product photography if needed (but be sure to include some fresh photos that aren’t shown on your site already). Remember: your product descriptions should be 30-60 words long, show all options for each product if any but don’t let their size overrun the main product photo, make your product copy marketable but also something that can allow your buyers to make an informed buyin decision, highlight key points on your cover, and be sure to always include your contact infomation that can be relevant for in-person and online shoppers.

ban.do look book designed by Bri Emery of Designlovefest

Rules of Good Look Book Design

Appeal to lifestyle desires by knowing what makes a person buy
Use quality imagery and graphical elements
Limit your use of fonts and keep it simple and cohesive
Design for your target market, not your personal preferences
Keep the style consistent from issue to issue to help build and support your brand design
Make the product the main focus
Important items should go on the outside of pages
Remember to Up-sell or Cross-sell your products and services
Give products room to breathe by taking advantage of the white space
Look Books that are 4 pages are pefect for starting out shops while 8 or 16 page are ideal for larger shops with bigger budgets
Analyze your resuts for making improvements and tracking your ROI

Distributing Online and Publishing in Print

For sharing online, I’d highly suggest ISSUU. It not only lets you publish and host your Look Book online but lets you easily turn it into a presentation, share via email, or embed it into your site using HTML coding with nifty auto-turning pages that makes your online Look Book seem real and definitely cool. Another option would be HP MagCoud, who has online pubishing for iPad and printing options. For printing your Look Book, check various vendors to see which one best fits your budget. JakPrints.com and GotPrint.com have catalog printing options as well.

Enjoy!

I hope this helps to give you a great head start on creating your own Look Book and to give you some insight into the process. If you’re a freelancer like myself, you might find Look Books to be more of a chance to show off your portfolio rather than sell specific items. I have plans for creating my first Look Book for the new year, what about you?

Brand Design: The First Steps to a Better brand for Your Business

Monday, September 19, 2011

When you first start to get those fleeting thoughts of starting your own brand or business, anxiety hits you like a ton of bricks and worrisome questions begin to fill your head. How do I make a logo design that gets noticed? How do I keep from making something so cheesy that it’ll make people click-off my site instead of encouraging them to click around. What if people think that my lack of design skills is a reflection of my customer service? What if my logo becomes outdated by this time next year?

These are all good questions that need answers. As an art educator, I strongly believe that anyone can learn the basics of good design and how to operate design-editing software. I want you to enjoy being in creative control of your business from start to finish so I’ve put together a summary of beginning steps in branding your business which are crucial to know prior to designing for your brand.

First Impression Last

You want to make sure that you are never confused for someone else and that your work is always exceptional! So why not show it? We live in a visual age and whether we agree with it or not, people do make judgment calls about brands based on how well their brand is designed. It determines whether visitors spend very little or a whole lot of time on your site.

A Better Design, A Higher Standard

This isn’t a hobby, it isn’t a yard sale, and it most certainly isn’t “let’s play pretend shop.” This is your business, making you a professional. People will measure your level of professionalism and steadfastness in your job by your brand design. It lets them know how serious you take your job and that you have a standard to uphold.

Marketing to Your Buyer’s Subconscious

Anyone who’s worked in sales for at least a few years knows that visuals can help with any sales pitch. Children are drawn to primary colors, teens the bright colors, young adults the jewel tones, and mature adults the earth tones, and the elderly the pastels. Typefaces are even styled to attract certain buyer demographics. Every visual decision is communicating a message to your buyers and their eyes and brains are listening, even on a subconscious level.

Someone Your Buyers Trust and Recognize

Do you see Tide or GEICO changing up their logo and branding every 6 months? No way! They do their best the first time to create a look that passes the test of time so their buyers can gain a trust in the brand design they’re used to seeing and have always loved. Don’t believe me? Remember when Tropicana recently changed their look and the sales plummeted? When you change your look constantly, people really begin to doubt your brand and wonder about your longevity. Your branding message should be ever-changing, but not your brand design.

Good Design Sets Your Apart

Looking like someone else or having a designer copy a look for you is actually very harmful to the success of your business! Not only is it confusing to buyers but also you could be losing sales to those who think they are shopping with you when really it’s the other guy. When a buyer is comparison-shopping, what will separate you from “them”? You got to be confident enough in your own brand’s story. Anyone who runs into you or your site will leave feeling like they just had a breath of fresh air.

Quality Design Creates Value

Nothing can hurt your product value like using a bad font, the wrong color choices, or bad typography. You got to make your product scream more “Fortune 500″ than “Lemonade Stand.” You may have a whimsically fun brand like a lemonade stand, but you’re not going to run it like it’s worth only 5 cents. You got to evoke that feeling of value because no one wants to pay a decent price for low-quality goods or have a gift fall apart.

What Makes Up My Brand?

Your brand is made up of many things: your company’s design, mantra, product line, services, personality, tone of voice, style, target market, marketing efforts, and even how you make your buyers feel. In this section, we will examine the inner workings of a brand. Knowing how the big picture looks will help you design your brand more effectively and efficiently when you know its role within branding.

How Do You Appear?

Visual Identity—my absolute favorite part of branding and I think it’s more than just my biased opinion. Art is so enjoyable and many people love to plan out their logo like getting dressed for a special occasion. Brand design is made up of your identity (the logo), color scheme (main and secondary colors), font families (the typefaces chosen to work together for headers, body text, and fine print), and the graphical elements used when bringing all these things together (backgrounds, frames, illustrations, etc.). The designs you might create for your company can range very widely, but here’s what you’ll be designing for: logo, business stationery, product packaging, social media sites, online shop, website, promotional items, marketing campaigns, and events.

What Do You Offer?

Your product offering or services can also translate your brand to your buyers. I’m a graphic design brand who caters to businesses so you won’t find me offering baby shower invites or calendars. They don’t fit my brand even though they fall into the realm of graphic design. If I offer add-on services, I try to make sure to provide something that coordinates with and adds more value to my niche within graphic design.

What’s Your Style?

You can take your brand’s home decor shop and take it many different ways, just in style alone. Are you modern, classic, vintage, contemporary, urban, country, coastal, rustic, or eclectic? Knowing what style you want to have can really help in the design process, but it also helps you focus in on your target market. You can assume offering many styles will get you the best results because you offer more but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. There have been so many statistics about the most successful companies have brands that focus in on a specific, target market.

What’s Your Tone of Voice?

Just like your brand can have a particular style for their visuals, your brand can have a particular way of phrasing its words. Is it commanding, influencing, brash, quirky, editorial, fiction-based, educational, or humorous? Do you want to be known for long, thorough articles or quick tongue-in-cheek comments? Just like style, people like to listen to and read a certain kinds of books, advertisements, videos, blog posts, and magazines. Think of what is natural for you to say and type based on your personality and your company’s brand.

What’s Your Personality?

My brand’s personal style and tone are the fruits of my own personality. Personality can help you to relate and to connect to your audience and target market on a level that most other areas in your company can’t. Your brand can have the same personality as yourself or it can have it’s own personality. No matter what you chose, select one and stick to it to attract others with the same personality and character.

Your brand has unique needs and only you, the business owner, know what is needed because only you know your business the best. You know your vision, your product, and your brand’s style better than anyone. Below is a list of items that each of my design clients to help give them ideas for what they might need to design for their brand. Your own list of items to design is only limited by your own creativity, so plan according to how you make your goods, how you ship, how you network, your left-over materials in your inventory, and so on. There will always be things you won’t for see but getting a good grasp on the basics to get as much done as possible will definitely make a big difference later on.

Identity Design

Logo
Color Scheme
Font Families
Branding Guide

Website Graphics

Favicon
Background
Banner
Navigation Menu Buttons
Sidebar Titles
Buttons
Grab Badges
Social Media Icons
Slideshow Images for Home Page
Product Listing Images
Advertisements

Product Photography

Product Photos
Model Photos
Watermarks

Social Media Sites

Twitter Avatar
Twitter Background
Facebook Page’s Profile
Facebook Page’s Custom Splash Page
About.me Background
Blog Graphics

Business Stationery

Business Cards
Letterhead
Envelope
Postcards
Greeting Cards
Shipping Labels
Invoices

Product Packaging

Paper Sashes
Hangtags
Clothing Tags
Tissue Paper
Shopping Bags
Gift Boxes
Ribbon
Stickers
Backing Cards
CD/DVD Cases/Folios
Care Instructions
Special Discount Offers
Gift Certificates

Promotional Items

Car Vinyl Decals
Pens
Thermos
Car Door Magnets
Sticky Pads
Notepads
T-shirts
iPhone / iPad cases
Totes, screen printed, monogrammed, or made with custom branded fabric from Spoonflower
Calendars
Key Fobs, monogrammed or made with custom branded fabric from Spoonflower

Marketing Materials

Promotional Postcards
PR Kits
Samples
Campaign Brochures
Portfolio Presentations
VIP Client Offers
Campaign Posters
Shareable Campaign Graphics
Print Advertisements

Event Booths

Booth Banner
Booth Table Signage
Price Tags
Guest Book
Invoices
Shopping Bags
Gift Boxes
Tissue
Ribbon

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If you enjoyed this post, be sure to pre-order your copy HERE for the rest of the book, DIY Branding | Part 1: Brand Design, launching this November 2011. Sign up HERE for updates on the book launch via email and receive a free sneak peek!

Kristen manages Ahoy Graphics, an online design studio offering creative and fiercely fresh brand design for small businesses and indiepreneurs.