Greeting Cards: Part II

So i ordered the cards from Vistaprint, only a box of 40 to see how they came out. Can't order les than that from them and the prices worked out cheaper than 25 from a different place. (I have no money so went for the cheap option)

The cards turned up with this red tinge on them....clearly I was not happy about this and told vistaprint. Instead of a refund they offered a new batch completely free. I went with this but brought up my concerns about the red tinge. Was told to re-upload the pictures but lighter, so did this and they said the tinge will be sorted and sent the cards.

Received the new batch of cards on the weekend, nice and fast turn around which is good....sadly I am still not impressed with the quality. I will not carry this whole frustration with them on because I think if i was a company ordering cards to send to clients they would be spot on. But for me, selling the cards in the artistic and greeting card market they are no where near good enough quality.

So what I've learnt is that to achieve the printing quality I want for these cards, (and anything I don't print myself in the future) - I need to see a physical proof before the actual print is done. And please dont think Vistaprint are not worth going to, they are very good for promotional material - business cards, leaflets, etc and offer good prices all round. But for artistic greeting cards they fall short well before the line.

Greeting Cards

I am in the process of starting a greeting card business. It will not only publish my photographs as cards, but also my sisters lino prints (http://www.beccathorne.co.uk/index.html) and hopefully work from other artists from different genres/areas of the art world.

The designs will be of highest quality, very artistic and beautiful but do not fit into the common, "samey" designs that you see. They will be abstract/atmospheric/surreal/alternative, etc. Designs that could, for the most part, work for any occasion all depending on how the buyer interprets the image. They will all be very unique designs, pictures that are a work of art whether they are at full size hanging on the wall or scaled down as a greeting card on the mantle piece.
I have just sent off to get a very small batch of cards from designs by both myself and Becca, ready to take round to the distributers I have already spoken to and show them the type of thing that will be on offer. The designs for these 40 are Christmas related so I can try and have a trial run selling them before xmas! Here are the designs -

© Becca Thorne

© Becca Thorne

© James Thorne

© James Thorne

Help For Heroes - Black Tie Event

I thought I'd post up a few of the photographs I took of the Help For Heroes evening afew weekends ago for Wye Valley Life Magazine, like i said i would in a previous post!! The images are now published in the Social Section of the November Issue.

First time actually photographing an event like this but i was pleased with how the photos came out.

All Photographs are Copyright © James Thorne