There are plenty of good print companies to use when you need a large order of business cards/postcards and things, but it’s really tough to find a great deal when you only need a small print job done. As illustrators starting out, our mailing lists rarely reach the thousands, and all those extra postcards just seem like a waste. Even if your list is bigger, maybe you’d like postcards in a few different designs to target them to specific companies.

I’ve been using Overnightprints.com for ages now as my go-to site for small orders of just about everything. Besides being really nice quality, they always have a TON of coupons to use. If anyone is thinking about using them, I thought I’d give a quick review and some of my favorite codes.

Quality

The cardstock with matte coating ONP uses is the nicest I have seen from anywhere I have ordered. The standard cardstock is thicker than I’ve used elsewhere without paying any extra for it, and the matte coating is really silky and great to touch. You have to be careful with the colors and the darkness– they do not color match or use Pantone colors so you have to work on the files yourself to make sure they will look nice in CMYK. This is true for any of the budget printers. I recommend making your files a bit lighter than you want them, as they can come out dark in print. They offer both value (digital) and premium (offset) cards. For the value cards, I noticed that small text gets a little grainy, but it’s been just fine for small orders. Larger orders automatically use the Premium printing.

Below is a scan of a card I ordered during a 500 free business card deal for a craft fair:UPDATE: I recently received an order that was completely inaccurate, color-wise. I was quickly offered a reprint/refund of my order, but this is still something to consider if you are on a tight deadline. When using a budget printer, orders are gang printed with other products on the same sheet which can cause shifts in color and inaccuracies. This is just how it is when choosing any of the ultra low-cost printing solutions– and it’s something to always keep in mind when thinking about your project’s requirements!

Options

Overnight Prints offers the standard options: gloss, matte, rounded corners, etc., and they are affordable even in small quantities. You can add on rounded corners for $2.00 per 100 cards. I am bummed they don’t offer custom sizes, or at least more size options, but since they focus on being affordable this is pretty standard. For shipping, you can choose from a wide variety of print/ship times. I’ve found that the budget shipping has so far always arrived before the estimate.

My favorite thing about Overnight Prints is that you can order as few as 25 business cards or postcards! I’ve used this to mix and match a variety of works of art on my business cards, and to order postcards as note cards and packaging in a ton of designs. The pricing is great. Without ANY coupons, you can get:

• 25 Single-sided business cards: $1.95
• 25 Single-sides postcards: $5.95

…but the best part is that there are ALWAYS coupons. Read on…

Coupons!

This is why I always go to Overnight Prints for my small orders. There are always AWESOME coupons. Once you get into the higher quantities, OP becomes less of a deal, but nobody can beat them for orders of 100 or less! Here are a few of my current favorites, and nice ways to use them.

• BC100 – This coupon is ALWAYS available. It gives $10 off ANYTHING (not including shipping). For example, you can order 50 postcards or 4 sets of 25 single-sided business cards with different art on each one, for exactly $0 plus shipping. (Shipping is around $5.) Neat!
• POSTCARDSALE – I’ve never seen this one expire, either. If you just need postcards, perhaps for your next illustration mailer, this one is great. Discounts ALL postcards varying amounts. 100 double-sided postcards for $12, or 25 for $5. Send a variety of designs, or use them as note cards, packaging, whatever you want! Bookmarks count as postcards, too, which are great as freebies.
• AZBCDEALCS – This one gives you 250 free single-sided business cards. I just saw this one pop up, so I’m not yet sure if it will be an ongoing deal! (Works as of July 1, 2010)

There are plenty more coupon codes if you search for them on Google, but I use these three all the time. When you have a small order, you can usually get it cheap or free!

If you decide to try them out, feel free to use my link (I’ll get credit) when you order: Check out Overnight Prints here! If you hate using referral links, just type in Overnightprints.com (I only suggest companies I really use and love.)

Now go get started!

UPDATE: We have a winner! Congratultions to @awildtonic! You have 24 hours to respond before choosing another winner. Thanks everyone who entered– it was an awesome success!

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“A Giveaway?! I may poop myself!” is a totally understandable reaction to the first ever Jadefrolics Twitter Giveaway. Especially when the prize involves poop. To celebrate the launch of shop jadefrolics, someone’s going to win something awesome!

From now until Saturday, May 15th as 11:59 PM EST, you can enter to win this signed, matted Giclee print of my illustration “Abstinence is Key.” In this deliciously disturbing piece, Momma cat is having fun poopin’ out the babies. Little does she know that the vet is on the way with a scalpel…

Here’s how to enter:

1. Follow me on Twitter (jadefrolics).
2. Post this message:

Win a weird and wonderful signed cat print illustrated by @jadefrolics! Follow and RT to enter! Info: http://bit.ly/bEoQbw

This 8×10 piece is printed on 260gsm 100% cotton watercolor paper, signed, stamped, and matted to 11×14. As an added bonus, I’ve included some hand-drawn kitty sketches around the borders, bringing the value up from $40.00 to priceless! (or about $60.00)

Boring rules:

Only one Retweet will be counted per person. I don’t want to turn Twitter into a spam-fest, and this keeps things fair. Please don’t create new accounts to enter!

And finally: The winner has 24 hours to respond. After that, I’ll pick someone else!

OK. Start poopin’!

Hey, Etsy sellers! Did you know that the 2.9% + $.30 fee on Paypal is not the only fee structure you can use for your Etsy shop? A few years back, Paypal quietly released their Micropayments plan to offer a way for sellers of low-priced items (under $12) to save on fees. I recently discovered this while trying to find a way to profitably sell individual pinback buttons and magnets for a low price. Take a look at Paypal’s chart for such an item:

To learn about Micropayments, take a look at Paypal’s Micropayment link.

The Problems, and How to Get Around Them

While offering a convenient, automated Micropayment option to sellers would be the best thing since sliced bread, the Micropayment plan we were given is neither convenient nor automated. There are several annoying caveats:

1. Your Paypal account can use either Standard or Micropayment rates, but not both. This is important because for purchases ABOVE $12, the Micropayment rate is more expensive than the Standard. If you want to take advantage of both Standard and Micropayment rates, you need two accounts. Which leads to number two…
2. Your bank account can only be attached to a single Paypal account. Since most people have one business account, they would not be able to directly transfer funds from both Paypal accounts.
3. Etsy doesn’t allow the use of two Paypal accounts on one store.

Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about number three. As an Etsy seller, you’ll have to choose the plan you want based on the sort of sales you normally receive. We can, however, do more to connect the two accounts, so that you have the option to use both accounts with the same bank. This can be great if you have two shops (one of which sells higher-priced items) or if you also sell in other avenues. I’ll explain how to set up and link your accounts below. (more…)

Woohoo! I have *finally* completed the total overhaul of Jadefrolics.com, including the design of this blog and a brand-spanking new shop! I wasn’t happy with the old layout (as usually happens every 6 months or so…) and felt that something more colorful would better reflect my illustrations. I have also been getting everything geared up for a true business, and decided to focus energy on getting all of that ready/branding/creating new products before focusing on further promotion. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

I’ve had to purchase some equipment which was been super helpful in getting things moving. As I mentioned a few ages ago, I bought an Epson R2880, which has continued to live up to its amazingness in every way. I highly recommend this printer for any artists wanting to create super professional prints. I also acquired a refurbished Epson Expression 10000XL, which is the main scanner at SCAD and definitely worth the ridiculous price (refurbed, anyway!). No more scanning artwork in three pieces! More than that, though, the colors on the Expression are incredibly accurate and rich– a must when selling prints.

Since shop jadefrolics is going to feature a lot more than prints, I needed some equipment to begin making products on demand. This included a 1.5″ Tecre button machine, a 2.25″ Tecre button machine, and a professional laminator for the shape magnets and bookmarks. I freakin’ love the button machines! They can create buttons, keychains, magnets, mirrors, jewelry, and more all with the same machine. A button machine is a good investment even for an illustrator who just wants to promote themselves. Passing out free buttons when discussing your work with random guys at the grocery store will probably make you appear much cooler than giving out a plain ol’ business card.

Here’s a small sampling of the sort of things these babies have been pooping out….

The most painstakingly consuming challenge has been developing shop jadefrolics, though. Learning an entirely new coding system to work with the shopping cart I finally chose was tough, but I am hoping to reach a wider audience than with Etsy alone. It will require a ton of promotion (including some neat-o giveaways and *official* launching fun soon… stay tuned!) and I will provide many updates on the progress for anyone else looking to complement their Etsy shop.

Phew! I think that is enough for one night. I’ll probably post some more in-depth reviews of the equipment in the coming weeks, if anyone isn’t asleep yet!

(This is a loooong post. Good to read if you’re looking for a fine art printer or masochistic!)

As I said in my earlier post– I ordered an Epson R2880 to start making prints of my own. I’m definitely still going to order from iprintfromhome as well (they use the same inkset and paper as I am) but I wanted to be able to make archival, museum-quality prints on demand. The printer arrived earlier this month and I’ve had some time to test it out.  I must say: IT’S AMAAAAAZING!

I ordered it refurbished because it was a LOT less expensive, Epson guarantees their quality, and will replace it if something doesn’t work. It arrived with absolutely no scratches or blemishes to show that it’s a refurb, and was just like new.

It was easy to set up and I was ready to work on making a print about an hour after opening the box. This printer made stunning prints straight out of the box, but I did end up purchasing a monitor calibrator since my screen was way off for printing. I won’t go into what calibrator you should buy (I’m not an expert), but I will say that this is a vital part of professional printing to get your monitor colors accurate.

I bought the Spyder3 Express Calibrator which worked great after some trial and error, and for paper I purchased Epson Watercolor Radiant White paper for test prints (it’s thinner at 190 gsm and is wood pulp, not cotton) and the more expensive Epson Velvet Fine Art paper for final prints (thick at 260 gsm, 100% cotton and totally archival) which produces the most beautiful textured and rich prints I’ve seen so far.

I wish I could accurately show how nice the prints look, but all I have are bad photographs. In any case, you can see the depth of color and the great texture of these prints– in person you really can’t tell that they are not my originals without a magnifying glass!

I am no kind of expert when it comes to printing, so I can’t write up an educated review… But I have been doing a ton of research about what people look for in prints and I can describe my experience for anyone else thinking about purchasing a printer for artwork.

Choosing a Printer

Basically, my needs for a printer were this:

• It needed to use pigment inks, which are much more stable than dye ink
• It needed to print 13×19″
• It needed to handle thick matte fine art paper
• The color print quality needed to be freaking awesome and professional (which means it would probably use at least 8 inks to capture all those colors)
• It needed to not be absolutely enormous

I did some research within the Canon, HP, and Epson brands. My initial list that seemed to have many of these features looked like this:

• HP Photosmart Pro B9180
• Canon Pixma Pro9500
• Epson R1900
• Epson R2880
• Epson R3800

Some quick research showed me that the Epson R1900 was not what I wanted– it is an excellent printer, but aimed toward glossy printing and unable to handle heavy fine art paper well. Good. One down!

Next, I ruled out the Epson R3800 (kind of a larger 2880) because it’s crazy big and prints up to 17″.  It was also too expesnsive. I hesitated a bit, because the R3800 has ink cartridges so large that it ships with over $500 worth of ink, but space is an issue and I did not want to go crazy. I can always order 17″ prints online if I need.

Deciding between the rest was more difficult. The Canon Pixma 9500, HP B9180 and Epson R2880 all seemed to be great printers, with fans of each. Each could print the same size with at least 8 archival pigment inks. Each had different pros and cons. I eventually decided on the Epson R2880 because it definitely had equal-to-better reviews in terms of print quality, it’s smaller and faster than the HP and Canon, the Ultrachrome K3 inks are drooled over, it can use one of highest reviewed fine art papers (Epson Velvet), and the main complaint for it–the fact that you have to waste ink swapping black cartridges for glossy vs. matte paper–wasn’t an issue since I will never use glossy paper anyway. It uses the same inkset/paper as they use at iPrintFromHome, so I already knew the prints would look awesome.

The Canon and HP did feature larger ink catridges (Epson’s are ridiculously small… another con) but since I am not yet a high-volume printer, I was not too worried about this. Basically, the Canon and HP didn’t have any outstanding positives to outweigh the Epson.

If you’re an artist like me looking for a high quality printer, all the ones I listed would be great. I chose the R2880 because it had the qualities I needed, but the others might be perfect for someone else! Just make sure the printer uses archival inks and can handle archival paper, so that your customers will have prints that last for decades.

I wrote a post a while ago about using Lulu to create a children’s book dummy. I was really pleased with the quality and affordability of my dummy book, so I’ve gone to Lulu for another project.

Chronicle Books is my favorite independent book publisher, and the third Monday of each month they are open for full portfolio reviews. I’ve been meaning to apply for months now, but I didn’t want to send in the usual Itoya black portfolio with letter-sized printouts. I love Itoya– just wanted a change, y’know? I decided to use Lulu.com again with the same options I chose for my dummy book. I set up this portfolio layout in InDesign, and ordered the book last week. It arrived pretty quickly!

I’m really happy with the quality of my new printed portfolio, and I’ll have no qualms about sending it in to Chronicle. I only wish I could swap out images when I have updates without ordering a whole new book!

If you’re interested in making your own portfolio book at Lulu, for reference I chose the paperback perfect-bound option in an 8.5″ square. I think the glue of perfect-binding looks a lot nicer than the stapled books. (And it costs the same.) You have to have at least 32 pages for perfect binding, but I found that using mostly one image per spread (16-20 illustrations) made the book flow nicely and not appear cluttered.

P.S. My printer arrived as scheduled and is AMAZING! I’ve been testing it out and will write more about it soon. Hooray!

Since moving to Florida, my whole workin’-on-stuff schedule has been totally out of whack– including my blog, of course! (Man, please don’t let this blog become one of those blogs whose only entries consist of “Sorry for not writing, teehee!!!”)

I (Actually, my dad) did succeed in solving a long-time frustration regarding the name “Jadefrolics,” though! Years back I was dumb enough to let jadefrolics.com expire, after which a domain hoarding company immediately snatched it up and started using it for random ad garbage. Rather than going into the whole boring story, the good news is that my dad signed up for an expired domain-grabbing company himself and got it back! Now  jadefrolics.com is mine again (it will have to be pried form my cold, dead appendages) so I’d like to ask anyone who is linking to the site from jadefrolics.net / blog.jadefrolics.net to update their links to jadefrolics.com / blog.jadefrolics.com! Woohoo!

I also tweaked my logo a bit, just to make it a bit more polished. I didn’t like the irises and position of the eyes in the old logo, and I thought the eyelashes were too garbled when shrunk. I’ve given it some slight changes and just general editing.

Old Logo (Above)

New Logo (Above)

I’ve also been delighted with the shiny-candy icons the Mac uses, so for fun I decided to make a shiny cat in Illustrator. While looking for inspiration on logos I found this awesome tutorial on how to recreate the Firefox logo, which is really fun to read about– though it uses Photoshop rather than Illustrator.

My last update for the site so far was to create a commission request form, so potential clients could give good, organized information and also to weed out serious requests from, er, not so serious ones . I used JotForm.com for this and integrated it into the site. It was really easy to do, if anyone else is looking for a form builder to stop spam and keep organized!

I hope I don’t sound like a salesman now, but iPrintfromhome is starting up an ongoing promotion for new customers. Unfortunately I already have an account, so I can’t grab the $10, but their giclee prints are seriously pretty amazing so anyone who hasn’t tried them out will have no reason not to with this new promo!

They’re offering a $10 starting credit for any new customers who sign up and write “Tweet – Referrer’s_Name” in the “Referred by” box. Hopefully you’d be kind enough to put my name, if you’re checking out the promotion here! So, when you sign up, just write “Tweet- Jade Nellans” in the referral box and you should be all set with your $10. (I think they might manually add the $ to your account though, so give it some time!)

This is awesome, because $10 will pay for a 4×6 Giclee print AND shipping, so you can easily check out whether you love the quality without spending anything.

You can read my review of them here. If you want to try it out, feel free to sign up!

It’s been a few weeks now since sending out my most recent mailers, and since I have not received any bites yet I am getting increasingly antsy and wanting to expand into some other means of marketing. I know a few weeks isn’t a lot when it comes to getting responses from promo cards, but that– combined with the fact that I never received anything from my cards in December (and that the only response I ever got from my dummy book was one rejection)– is just a little disheartening. I don’t want to sit around sulking though, so I’m considering some other avenues for promotion.

My goal until now has been to spend as little as possible on marketing, simply because I don’t have a bunch of $ floating around, but I am finally understanding the whole “you have to spend money to make money” thing and I’d like to try it out with a paid portfolio site (not right now, but in the semi-near future when I feel my portfolio is as strong as it can be). The trouble is finding sites that are actually worth it. It seems better to spend more on a successful site, then spend less on a site nobody goes to, but I am having trouble finding out which ones those are. There are so many! I’m listing the ones I’ve seen… let me know if you’ve heard of any other promising ones!

The I Spot – I heard a lot about The I Spot during college, with professors (don’t remember which) saying that once you can afford it it’s important to get there because everyone goes there, and every big illustrator has a portfolio there. When I checked out the site, though, I found it to be extremely lacking in the navigation area. I wanted to test how easy it was to find images, so I decided to put some terms into the search box. When I searched “cat,” I got 0 results. Seriously. Whaaaaat? So I searched “animal” and again got 0 results. I honestly thought I must have been doing something wrong. Next I searched “woman” with 0 results, and I was further confused. When I started typing “people,” though, a little box came up under the search bar that offered to finish the word for me. With that search I got over 5000 results. After a while more of tinkering, I learned how the I Spot handled search, and that it was completely counter-intuitive. It appears that what they have is like 25 keywords which you can use to label your images. If someone happens to search for one of these 25 keywords, they get results. If you search for the other zillions of words in the english language, though, you get absolutely no results. How does this make any sense? If you only have an option of 25 or so keywords to look through, why is there is a search bar at all? Why not just categories you can click?

I can’t imagine how anyone would ever find my work over someone else’s, with such a horrible labeling and search system. I can’t picture myself spending $750 to be on such a poorly designed site, unless all the art directors already know something I don’t about searching The I Spot. If anyone reading this has a portfolio there, please, let me know if you get jobs from it! I’m really wary from what I’ve seen, even with the rave reviews of my professor.

The other sites I am looking at are ChildrensIllustrators.com, Picture-Book.com, Altpick.com, and FolioPlanet.com. But how on earth do you determine which one art directors go to most? The only thing they seem to have in common is being expensive.

I know this is something I want to do fairly soon, but with the cost and the risk it’s hard to make a choice. I know that just one good project would pay for the whole year of hosting at these sites, but which ones actually get you projects?

I’m thinking about waiting a bit to take the plunge on sites SO costly, and starting out with one of the less expensive, but still paid, sites. I’ve got a few nibbles from my free Creative Hotlist portfolio, and for $70 a year they offer better stuff (like actual pictures) and improved search ranking. They are run by Communication Arts, so people trust them, and it might be a good place to start.

If any of you guys are paid members of ANY portfolio site, I’d love to hear your thoughts about whether it’s been worth it! This stuff is so overwhelming.

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In other news, I ordered some awesome rounded postcards from OvernightPrints.com to use as notecards to sell. I used the coupon code BC100 to get $10 off the order, so it was super cheap. If any of you guys need to order your summer mailers or business cards or something, these postcards came out amazing. They are really thick, and the satin matte finish is gorgeous. Also, rounded corners = automatic awesome. I have more on the way of 5 or so different art pieces, and I think I’ll be back for my next promo mailers, too. I’ll be selling them here, and at the Market Bazaar!

Finally got these off my boyfriend’s camera! Just a few pics of my setup. The Savannah market Bazaar was a great success! I made a good profit as well as passing out lots of cards and making some new friends.

This month, though, I am going to try to get a spot that’s NOT under a tree! Not only did a bird poop on one of my prints, but those annoying balls of pollen kept falling all over EVERYTHING. Even so, it was a lot of fun. I’ll be back there Saurday, May 9th, so come check it out!

The state of my poor display in the pictures is less than optimal… it was WINDY and dolls and prints were flying everywhere. I eventually had to tape everything down. :I