IF: MAGNIFY

I’m posting an oldie again. I have a ton of sketches, but no time to scan them or color them in yet. School started this week and my schedule has been turned upside down! I am still making little progress on my mailer, but I hope that will change next week. Happy weekend everyone! And thanks for your visits and comments. I really appreciate them. I should start visiting blogs again in a week or so. Sorry, I’ve been so disconnected!

NEW ID and SCBWI newsletter

Last week I realized that all of the materials in my mailer needed to be designed, so that they would be coherent at the very least. I then began to re-think my entire identity for promotional materials.

I guess you could say that I’ve reached an identity crisis! Am I a designer or am I an illustrator? Do I promote my business name or my personal name? I’ve thought about this issue for quite some time and at first, I just combined my business name (TENENGO) with my name (art, illustration and graphic design by…). But as I started to design the promotional materials, I disliked it more and more. It went against everything I know about branding…. A clear consistent message and a memorable image! It was more like a confusing mess. Someone once suggested that it seemed as Tenengo was representing me.

So I put on my designer hat and tried to approach it as if I were a client and not think of it in personal terms. The solution: Two sets of materials. One set with emphasis on illustration but still mentioning graphic design and promoting my name. On legal documents it will say ‘A Division of Tenengo Design, Inc, and the other just promoting Tenengo and will have more of a Design feel. I will eventually separate the web sites, but for now, they will work together.

Here is a sample of some of some of the new materials with the new logo. I'm really happy with the outcome. I have sent everything to the printers. I used PsPrint.com, which has a great promotion going on right now. I have used them in the past and have been very happy. I’ll post the final package when it’s ready…

I think it is important for an artist (or anyone trying to be in business for that matter), to have a great logo, and a ‘look’ or brand that is carried all throughout their marketing pieces. I am not going to tell you what branding is, or what a great logo should have, there are plenty of web sites and blogs out there that talk about these subjects. What I will tell you is that your logo and your collateral is the only thing representing you in a mailer and many times the only thing potential customers will see. Don’t have it be something else on the ‘TO DO” list that usually never gets crossed off!

On a separate note, I’m so excited to have one of my illustrations featured in the ‘illustrator’s corner of my local SCBWI newsletter.

And the Winner is....

I used the random number generator and added double entries for those that commented and started to follow my blog.

The winner is Tom Barrett! Congratulations Tom! I'll be getting this in the mail to you as soon as I can get your mailing address.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I had a lot of fun!

Character Study

Work in progress...

Any comments or feedback are always welcomed...

IF: WRAPPED

This is an oldie, but this week is just too hectic with school about to start and trying to make progress on my mailer.

I wanted to share my progress on my first mailer. I found the market survey from the SCBWI web site, (which is made my membership completely worth it!), and I am creating a mailing list with that information using Outlook to do a mail merge later on. This process is tedious and time consuming.

The mailing list was taking so long that I decided to work in batches so that I could still get some packages out this week. I then turned to the items I’m including in the mailer like a reply card, and it dawn on me that I would have to design this card. Well, one thing led to another and I am now in the middle of re-thinking my entire identity, from logo, to letterheads, business cards, etc.

Have you figured out that I am a perfectionist? I want everything to be ‘just right’, and I know that is really impossible, but for my own sanity I couldn’t send something out that I would feel did not represent me properly, like my portfolio. So, back to the drawing board it is… and it looks like these packages will go out in September instead of August. (Grrr….)

Today is the last day for the contest...I'll be posting the winner on Monday!

IF: IMPATIENCE

His impatience to fit in and make friends is scaring the animals away!

This is late for me to post, but if you read my previous post, you’d understand that I’ve been playing catch up for the last few days.

I have been working diligently in preparation for my very first promotional piece. I’ve been talking about this package that I am going to send to publishers, editors, etc… before the end of the summer. Meanwhile, wondering if my work is solid enough, asking myself, am I ready? Sure enough, I look at my entire portfolio and feel like trashing most of it! Not a good way to make progress, but I really think that my work has evolved in the past few months and my work from 6 months ago does not represent me anymore. At the same time, I don’t want to keep reworking and reworking endlessly without sending anything out. So, in an effort to freshen up my portfolio, I have created the piece above. I have another in the works, But that’s it! After that, I’m sending my stuff out! I also updated my web site and took out a bunch of old work. I may take a few more pieces out in the next weeks.

I invite you to take a look at the contest I have going on right now to win a kid’s necklace. The last day to enter is this Friday the 14^th.

A few days ago the very talented and humorous illustrator Roberta Baird honored me with two very special awards. I am especially grateful because I really admire and respect Roberta’s work.

This award was created by Ces in honor of another very loved and wonderful blogger Bella Sinclair.

The second award is The Superior Scribbler Award.

Here are the rules for the award

Each Superior Scribbler must, in turn, pass the Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy buds.

Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to this post, which explains The Award.

Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List (!?) at the Scholastic-Scribe’s blog. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives this prestigious honor!

Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

I am please to pass this to award on to some wonderful blog buddies who have inspired me with their kindness, friendship, dedication and unbelievable talent!

1. Nicole

2. Deborah

3. Froggie

4. Jannie

5. Diana

NO COMPUTER FOR A WEEK! (No, it wasn't a punishment)

I was without a computer all week! Last Sunday night the hard drive on my iMac just gave out. My computer is just over a year old, so I was really surprised to see the hard drive error out. I also have a Time Machine back up set up, but it had been giving me many ‘unsuccessful back up’ errors for over a month so I was really nervous about how much work I had potentially lost. My husband, who is gifted with anything related to computers and telecommunications, was able to get the machine up and running for the purpose of verifying the back up.

We had also bought an Apple protection plan when we purchased the machine, so once we verified that the back up had indeed been working, we took the machine to Apple on Tuesday. They had it ready by Friday with a new drive and OS installed. It took my husband over a day to get the back up restored and everything running, but I have to say the back up system was flawless! I have everything just as before and other than the initial ‘freak out’ and loosing a week’s worth of time, it was really painless!!!

My recommendation other than having a back up is … definitely invest on a protection plan or added warranty, you just never know!

Also, BIG thanks to my hubby for taking care of all the technical stuff!!

IF: MODIFY

I was so excited about this week's word because it applied to my current project. You could say it also applied to my last posted illustration with the robot too, since that one was an old sketch I modified. This week, I am doing another one of those 'before' and 'after' pictures. The before is actually a rework of a previous IF prompt 'rambunctious'. I liked the idea, but was never quite happy with the end result. It was time to MODIFY the old one and play around with composition, line, color and well...see for yourself. I'm quite happy with the outcome.

Hope you have a great week and don't forget to check out my contest.

BEFORE: (Acrylics on watercolor paper)

AFTER: (Pencil colored with Photoshop)