Posts Tagged ‘graphic design’

FREE holiday card templates

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Today is a “YAY DAY!”

Yay for brand-new and beautiful holiday card templates! <<< CLICK HERE >>>

Yay that they are FREE.

Yay that if you choose to use one of these for your own holiday greeting card, you have just saved yourself a lot of time and hassle trying to figure out what you’re going to do.

Yay for these 5 lovely ladies who won the design contest. Congrats to each of them!

Yay for the many, many more entries that came in. Choosing was sooo hard. I so appreciate the talent, the time, and the willingness to share.

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I’m pleased to announce the 5 featured designers and am pleased to have them introduce themselves here today.

{ Joanna Polling }

I call Sun City, Arizona home. I am a graphic-designer-turned-photographer and a graduate of Arizona State University. For six years I did graphic design work for my church until I had my twins and decided to stay home. I’ve since turned to children’s photography as my main job (well, #2 to being a mom to my three kids). It started out as a hobby. Like every other mom I just wanted great pictures of my kids. It has since turned to a business and I’ve enjoyed it more than any other work I have done.

Web |  Blog |  Facebook

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{ Kimberly Lund } Picture was taken by Shawna Taylor Photography.

I live in a small town just outside Wichita, Kansas and I grew up in an even smaller town in central Kansas. During the school year, I teach special education in a transition classroom for three year olds. Some days I can’t believe I get paid to do something I love so much. I started scrapbooking in 2000, switched to digital in 2004, and now I dabble in hybrid art journals as well as digital layouts.

I also love to read and many weekends, you’ll find me with my laptop turned off and a good book in my hands. My family also loves to go on vacation and our two favorite spots are Branson, MO, and Walt Disney World. I’ve been blogging since 2005 at document life now. Sometimes my teenage son helps me out there. I turned 40 this past summer, and I’m raising teenagers. I’ve never been happier.

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{ Nisha Morton }

Home is in South Australia along with my husband and our 3 young children. I work part-time as an architectural drafter but have taken time off work to care for my 4-month-old baby. Actually work seems like a pleasant and somewhat distant memory now compared to the constant demands of this little guy!

I started out initially paper scrapping a few years back now. One day about 5 years ago I was editing some photos on the computer when it occurred to me that I could add some text and just print it out. This worked well and I was feeling quite pleased with this new approach I had figured out … only to find within days that there was a whole digital scrapbooking industry already out there.

I turned my hand to designing for digital scrapbooking about a year ago at Two Little Pixels. It started off as a hobby but I am enjoying the design process so much that I hope to branch into card or surface designs. My label is called Jot and Scribble and my personal style is more towards the crisp and simple side.

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{ Lauralee Lemon }

My name is Lauralee Lemon and I live in the Cleveland, Ohio suburbs with my husband and two children ages 3 years and 3 months. I’m a stay-at-home mom and love it! It’s wonderful to be home for all the little moments. But when I do need a break and a little creative me time I like to craft, sew, make cards, design on the computer, and dream about painting (it’s not realistic with a 2 bedroom apartment and young kids).

In 2006, I worked a short nine months at DCWV, a scrapbooking company, designing papers, stickers, etc. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of Illustrator. Most of my computer design is for my kids, my house, or projects for friends. I started an etsy shop a year ago called YellowMums where I sell printable birthday and learning paperie. I also have a craft blog by the same name [yellowmums.blogspot.com] where I post a free printable weekly.

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{ Anna Milot }

I live in the quite Northeast corner of Connecticut.  I enjoy reading, going to concerts, wine tasting, laughing, entertaining, and spending time with my family and friends and newborn son Graham. I began my love affair with graphic design in college where I was studying advertising and took a class in graphic design. And the rest is history.

I now work in higher education as a Graphic Designer and Marketing Manager for Student Activities. The atmosphere is awesome and the students are wonderful. I tried my hand at designing my wedding invitations 4 years ago and found a new design niche that I loved. What was once a small hobby has now turned into a very big hobby. I enjoy designing all sorts of invitations, announcements or thank you cards for friends, family and people I get to know through word of mouth.

Anna’s Blog

graphic design contest

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

I know some of you are already thinking about your holiday cards. And if you weren’t already, you are now.  ; )

If you were around here a year ago, you might remember that we offered FREE digital templates here on beckyhiggins.com. Remember these?

I’d like to keep the tradition alive and offer you free digital holiday card templates again. All you have to do is digitally drop in a favorite picture and that’s it! Hooray for simplifying some things in our life, right?

So here’s the twist: I’m opening this up to YOU. If you are a graphic designer, or even if you have enough experience with Photoshop to know what you’re doing, I’d love for you to come up with one of our newly offered designs! If your card design is chosen, you’ll win:

1. Project Life

2. Spotlight on my blog

3. $100. That comes in handy this time of year, no?

Are you up for the challenge? Do you know someone with design skills that would be interested? (Direct them here.) This contest is open to anyone and everyone, no matter your industry or experience. I just want to see your best holiday card design. The winning 3-5 designs will be the digital holiday card templates that are offered on beckyhiggins.com this year. They’ll be available as free downloads for everyone to use as they wish.

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{ the nitty-gritty }

1. All artwork must be original art. You can’t use any paper or embellishments from digital kits.

2. Each design must be submitted as a 5×7 and 4×6. {Added note: Thanks to reader “Lori” for also adding that Costco will print custom JPGs in their special 6″ x 7.5″ greeting card prints. Sooo … please submit in that size as well!)

3. The orientation can be either horizontal or vertical.

4. Include the year (2010) somewhere in the design and perhaps a title or caption that is holiday-related.

5. Files must be saved as 300 dpi png files.

6. You must leave a blank space where the photo is to be placed. The photo should be prominent in the design.

7. As for style, well … that’s up to you. You’re the designer. But since I will be personally choosing the winning designs, I’ll give you a tip on what will likely stand out to me: Clean and uncluttered.

8. The deadline for submissions is November 6th; that’s next Saturday.

9. Email submissions to submissions@beckyhiggins.com

10. No more than two designs per person.

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All that said, I seriously can’t wait to see what you come up with! Good luck!

Added note: I have no rules about who you are and if we know each other. This is open to everyone. So whether you happen to be a personal friend or if you’ve never even heard of me before today … you have equal chances. I just want the coolest cards to share with my readers and my bias is only about the design itself.  : )

Another added note regarding fonts: Please be mindful of copyrights. Your safest bet is to use generic fonts like the Arials, Helveticas, Geogias, etc. Be sure to save your layered files for any slight changes you may be asked to make.