Affordable Custom Card Designs
You have an idea for a postcard or greeting card, what you want it to say, and how you want to say it. Now, you need a way to materialize your thoughts without spending a fortune on design. No problem, we've got you covered!
Learn How To Create Your Own Custom Cards!
First, decide what your card objectives are. For example postcards are what you want to use for promotions and getting the word out about your business. Add coupons, giveaways, or specials to your postcard designs to produce a direct response from your customers, clients and prospects. Ask the recipient to bring the card in to apply the discount will also help you measure results.
Use greeting cards for one-on-one relationship building. Design your custom greeting cards with the individual in mind. Try to avoid a lot of promotion talk, you can include a small logo on the front of the card. This shows your business contacts you remember and appreciate them. Building these relationships effectively will increase your bottom line with repeat service, referrals, and customer loyalty.
Graphic Design Software
You've decided you'd really like to give this design thing a try. All you need now is a good piece of graphic design software. There are many options to choose from and prices that range from free to thousands. So choose what's right for your budget, but also remember the old saying, "You get what you pay for."
Best Free Options
If you want to go with a free option to get you started, here are the most common to choose from.
GIMPShopThe most popular free graphics editing software is Gimpshop. It works pretty similar to the Macdaddy Photoshop.
Paint.NETAnother freebie is Paint.NET which also has many of the same features of Photoshop.
Best Paid Options
If you're ready to get a little more serious or don't want to deal with some of the hassles free software can bring, these are your best options for good graphic design software.
This is Photoshop's little brother. You can do just about anything in Elements that you can in Photoshop. Most of the differences are in the adjustments of styles; such as adding your own amount of stroke, drop shadow etc. It's also missing some filters and other advanced features.
For the beginner though, this is the way to go. You won't even know the advanced features are missing.
One thing to be aware of. Most printers such as VistaPrint require the document to be in CMYK and Elements only produces RGB documents. (Disclaimer: nothing against VistaPrint, we LOVE Vista, especially for our business cards - just something you should know).Sometimes it's not a big deal, but your colors may come out a little different than you intended.
Our greeting card system actually works best with RGB documents so you'll be good to go here.
DUN-DA-DA-DAAAA!!
Here it is, the authority in graphic design - Adobe Photoshop! This is THE software the pros use and, if you can afford it, it's highly recommended.
Even if you don't go with the brand new edition, CS3, you might be able to find a much cheaper older version, say Photoshop 7 maybe. Just be careful with eBay and cheap software downloads, they can either be scams or illegal copies.
Royalty Free Stock Graphics
Ok, now that you have your graphic design software it's time to get some graphics. This is where it can get really fun and is the secret to cheap custom designs!
You can download great royalty free graphics for as little as $1 each! Cheaper still if you buy in bulk. Here's another secret... The pros use these sites too! Yep, they buy the same graphics from these exact same sites then charge you $150 for a custom design!
Now, to be fair, they do know what they're doing and have that artisic eye, but you can develop that too!
I've been using these sites for years and it's always fun to come across one of the stock graphics and recognize it from XYZ Magazine.
Just do a search for what ever it is you're looking for: Real Estate, House, Massage, Beach - the possibilities are literally endless. You'll get ideas for your own design just by browsing through the stock.
Our two favorites are iStockphoto and Dreamstime.
iStockphoto
iStock
definitely has the best selection and is widely used by many professionals.
Also check out their Designer's Spotlight to see some very good designs.
This help build your imagination because you'll see exactly which images
they used to come up with thier design.
Sometimes you'll scratch your head wondering how they made the final product out of the graphics used.
Dreamstime
Dreamstime is newer to me but I'm really starting to love it! Sometimes
in iStockphoto you don't have an option to purchase any other size with
vector graphics (vectors are able to be resized to any size and are usually
more expensive). I've actually found some of the same images from iStock
on Dreamstime in a non-vector format making them much cheaper.
Once you find the right image you want to use, purchase it and open it up in your graphics editor. Add your text, spice it up with a little bit of style, throw in some drop shadows or whatever. Experiment with the tools and watch what you come up with.
At first you may be tempted to get carried away with text styles - like stroke, gradient, drop shadow, outer glow and emboss. Try not to get too carried away, the more simple designs are usually the best. :o)
