We want to extend a big thank you to Rex Davis, Elaine Dai, and Sarah Schwartz for participating in our panel discussion about how to get a creative business started. We learned a lot and appreciate you sharing your time and expertise with us at our meeting last Thursday.
SPDG MEMBERS: meeting notes are now available for you in our Google archive. | |
DON'T FORGET: MEETING TOMORROW!Please join us tomorrow night for a follow up to the webinar at our May meeting. Here are the details.
Panel Discussion:
How to Start Your Own Creative BusinessThursday, May 16, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM At The Berkeley Finnish Hall, (Lower level), Berkeley, CA Featuring:
Accountant – Rex Davis
Attorney – Elaine Dai
Entrepreneur – Sarah Schwartz
We hope to see you there! | | Thanks to all those who joined us for Michelle Fifis's webinar Launching Your Surface Pattern Design Business yesterday! It was an informative hour and the perfect introduction to tomorrow night's meeting topic How to Start Your Own Creative Business.
For those who could not attend the webinar, we will be posting the recording soon. You will be sent a link via Google Groups, so stay tuned!
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A big thank you is owed to the Guild's very own Jill Turney and Sarah Schwartz for the informative Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials that they presented at last week's meeting. Those of us who were in attendance were impressed by your knowledge and grateful that you took the time to prepare and share that valuable information with us!If you were unable to make it to the meeting or you just want to see the presentations again, the videos for the tutorials are now available for member access. You can find a list of links and passwords to access the videos in our Google Groups. In addition, Jill prepared handouts for her tutorials and they are available for you in our archives.Thank you again Jill and Sarah! We look forward to more tutorials in the future.
| Want to learn some techniques that help make repeats faster and easier? Does color matching on your printer plague you? Or, are you still stumped on how to make seamless overlapping motifs on the computer?
Join us for our next meeting on Thursday, April 18 from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm to learn some Photoshop and Illustrator tips and tricks!
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| Want to learn some techniques that help make repeats faster and easier? Does color matching on your printer plague you? Or, are you still stumped on how to make seamless overlapping motifs on the computer?
At our next meeting, SPDG members Sarah Schwartz and Jill Turney will take you through several techniques in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator that will boost your digital surface pattern design skills.
Sarah will be demonstrating a way to help make creating repeats faster, easier, and more accurately. She will also be showing us a technique to achieve a quick, accurate color match on printers.
Jill will be giving a demo on how to use the masking tools in PhotoShop to create seamless overlapping motifs. This is a great trick to use with loose designs and watercolors. And, as an added bonus, she'll share some cool effects that she's been able to apply to her motifs using the "puppet" tool.
You should never stop learning, so be sure to join us next Thursday for some continuing education!
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Our meeting on March 21st is going to be both fun and challenging! We want to know who you want to design for. Think about your ideal customer and create a mood board around her/him that you can share with the group.
Here's the idea: Create a large collage (poster size or the largest paper size your printer will print on) with found images that you think represent the end-use customer you would most like to design for. Think about who that person is: what does she do for a living, what are her hobbies, what is her home like, what are her favorite colors, what does she value (material or non-material), and so on. Let those questions guide you in your image search. Once you've assembled a good collection of visuals, write a brief description of this person. Nothing fancy or verbose is required. Create a bullet point list if that's easier for you. Just write something that will help you describe your ideal customer when you share your board at our meeting. The sample board to the right was created by SPDG'er Wendy Lin for the e-course The Sellable Sketch. Click on it to see a larger version for more inspiration.
But wait, you say, why a mood board for the end-use customer? Why not for my actual client — the company or employer where I want to get work? Well, every company exists to serve or sell to people. The needs, desires, and interests of those people (i.e. customers) drive the decisions that go into developing the products that the company makes—products that could have your art on them. Given that customers have so much influence on a company, it's critical that you get to know who they are, what they're into, their lifestyles, etc. Ultimately, it's the company's customer that you are designing for, which is why we want to focus on her/him for our March meeting.
We can't wait to see what you come up with! Keep reading, there's more... |  Ideal customer mood board created by Wendy Lin for "The Sellable Sketch" e-course. | | | Now, about that AWESOME APRIL EVENT. Once you've defined who your ideal customer is, you won't want to miss the How to Find Work As a Surface Pattern Designer webinar that Michelle Fifis of Pattern Observer will be holding exclusively for SPDG members on April 9th at 12 PM – 1 PM PT. As a seasoned designer and industry guru, Michelle understands the value of defining the customer we want to design for. She will speak to how doing so sets you up for success in finding work and she will be answering any burning questions you've had about getting a job or finding clients in the surface pattern design industry. Michelle has also generously offered to extend a discount to all SPDG members for her course the Sellable Sketch as a follow up to this webinar. More details will be coming later this month.
The How to Find Work as a Surface Pattern Designer webinar is a free event that we've arranged just for SPDG members, so be sure to take advantage of this special opportunity! |
 Nature's Glory by Peg Conley | Last Thursday's meeting was full of hard-earned wisdom, encouraging anecdotes, and useful tips about selling and licensing art. We want to extend a big thank you to our informative (and very entertaining) speaker Peg Conley. She was fantastic!
Notes for long distance members and those who could not attend the meeting can now be found in our members-only Google archives, under "Meeting Notes and Handouts – 2013." | |
February SPDG Meeting:
Thursday, the 28th, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
at the Berkeley Finnish HallJoin us at our February meeting for a discussion about something that doesn't come easily to every artist: selling oneself. Guest speaker Peg Conley will distill 25 years of corporate sales experience as well as lay out concrete steps you can take to master the traits needed to become successful at selling yourself and your art.
For 25 years, Peg was a “Corporate Sales Queen” before transitioning to entrepreneur and artist with her own line of greeting cards, Words and Watercolors. Peg has licensed her art with Brush Dance for use on products such as calendars and she has also worked with licensing agents, Creative Connection. This fall Peg will be introducing her first line of quilting fabric.
We can't wait to get some sage advice from this accomplished artist and sales pro! | |
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