At any rate, it's time to step it up. I am ready to move into the new phase of marketing. I haven't been advertising myself to the public because I have enough repeating projects to keep me busy. However hiding in a tar pit of endless work is not the way to expand your clientele. You never know when you dream job is going to pop up so put yourself out there. For me, that would be painting cards for Magic the Gathering, doing concept art for Riot games, or anything at all for Blizzard.
So here's a start. I know it's not groundbreaking, but I've made business cards! Last week I found myself in a situation where I wish I had one to hand out. Fate favors the prepared. You never know who may wish to use your services or who a client may know.
So here I have two designs and the back which will work for either card. Please give me some input on these. I would love some CC on what you think is working and what I could do better.
So here I have two designs and the back which will work for either card. Please give me some input on these (but bear in mind they are calibrated for print and blogger has overly saturated them the compression is atrocious, blah). I would love some CC on what you think is working and what I could do better. I couldn't pick between the two pictures as each one caters to a different possible client. The close up of the eyes speaks to the client who wants something captivating and mysterious while the concept art shows my figurative skills to a potential art director for a video game company.
I went through several designs of the card (text, before picking this one. I new from the beginning the card needed to mimic my website in appearance. This was for two reasons. First, it is important for marketing imagery to be consistent across all platforms. This is so that clients are more easily able to put a name to a face. Second, I already had files in place so theoretically it shouldn't have taken so long to design. That one didn't pan out. I still spent all day on the thing.
Next my goal is to branch out and purchase some overhead expenses for conventions and selling prints online. It's time for me to offer my work to the world. Eventually I want to make a deck of cards, calendars, and puzzles. I can then sell them at conventions or on online stores like zazzle. If you didn't know, you can technically purchase some of my work at deviantart.com. I don't sell much there as I don't promote it at all. The biggest thing keeping me from reaching this goal is that I have not allotted time for personal projects in my schedule. This is counter-intuitive as I am not able to sell prints of the majority of the work I have been creating lately.
So if you were sitting on the fence about making a presence for yourself just do it. You can have a quick blog up like this in no time. Blogger is great for that. And business cards are a very affordable way to say here I am!
What do you do to market yourself? Share your tips and tricks with us!
