Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Creating an Easy Etsy Banner

Your Etsy banner sets the tone for the rest of your shop and should be consistent with the rest of your branding and your overall aesthetic. But what if you're Photoshop illiterate such as myself?
Using this forum post from Etsy, I found a way to create an easy banner on PowerPoint. It doesn't get any easier than that! Here are the steps to follow so that you too can create your banner:

1) Go to Page Setup.

2) Set the width at 27 inches, and the length at 3.55 inches, with a landscape orientation.

3) Get your creative juices flowing! One of the easiest ways to ensure your banner keeps the aesthetic of your products in mind is to use actual pictures of your products. Just drag and drop the picture(s) from your local hard drive to the PowerPoint banner and adjust the size. Then, add a background color and play with font colors and styles. Simple as that!

Following the above steps, here are the new banners I came up with:







Thursday, October 20, 2011

Business 101 - Business Cards

One of the first things every craftsperson should do when they start their business, after creating their initial product line, is to make business cards. After all, how will potential customers know about your amazing wares without a little self-promotion on your part?

When I first started, I took the cost-effective approach and designed business cards in Word and printed them out on business card paper from the local office supplies store. But I soon realized I needed to step up my game and get some professional help to make me something a little more flashy.

I soon found out about two online card printers, and have been very pleased with the results.

The first printer I used was Moo, being initially drawn to their offer of a free sample pack of 10 cards. I found the site to be very user friendly, and liked that photos were easy to upload from my computer, Etsy, Facebook, or Picasa. I was so impressed by the paper and photo quality that I subsequently ordered a pack of mini cards.

Here's the front:


 And the back:



I opened another Etsy site, Ring Bling, a little later on.



As I needed business cards for Ring Bling as well, I found a new printer, Vistaprint. I found the site to be a little less user friendly and a little more cluttered than Moo. However, while lacking in certain areas, Vistaprint more than made up for this in price. These are the cards (one-sided) I purchased:



In the end, my number one tip for whichever printer you decide to go with is to sign up for their email lists before making your purchase. You'll often get sent a discount code to use. And for the newbie craft business owner, each little savings goes a long way.