Business card:
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Having sampled a variety of different business cards and printers I selected uk.moo.com as from the samples they offered the best quality and largest variety in designs. The website is quite easy to operate and you can either design and create your business card using their model program or upload your own designs as an image (which I did as I found their restrictions to placement of type, typfaces and size limiting).
I had initially thought of using moo.com for another reason as you can print multiple designs in a set without additional costs however I ultimately decided to keep the one design as I haven't a niche or specific areas of illustration I would like to work in so didn't feel I needed different business cards targeted at different marketing audiences.
For my business cards I chose a rounded edge design with a matte finish. I felt the matte finish and rounded edges complimented the soft water colour illustration featured on the front of the business card. I chose this piece as I felt it was something both interesting and colourful to look at, it was designed with the purpose of being printed onto white pillowcases and I thought this would work with the white background for my business card also.
As for the back of my business card I kept it quite simple again with a white background (continuing on from the front) and clear, black type. I kept the information minimal also, my name, what I do and my website. Further details can be found on my website and it also leads you into viewing my website. The artwork this time was not the primary focus but something to accompany the text and I felt this image did just that, it's bold and colourful but not distracting from the information being provided on my business card.
Throw Pillows:
For my throw pillows I had a general audience for the designs, the artwork varied and displayed my illustration practise as a whole. The designs I had printed were pieces I'd made specifically for being put onto throw pillows, these being the hummingbirds and peacocks. I'd designed these pieces with the printing process in mind as I knew my designs would be printed onto white backgrounds so kept the backgrounds plain but the designs themself very colourful with the paint splatters.
The first of my throw pillows I printed through www.spreadshirt.co.uk (see above), this printing company were cheap and cheerful to print. The restrictions to using this website were that your design had to fit into a box for the printing margin, this meant that I had to scale down my designs. I was relatively happy with the finish on these pillows however some details were lost in the printing and scaling down so I decided to offer a "luxury pillow" as an alternative.
This time I used www.artrookie.co.uk, a website for artists to upload and sell their work (Society6, but UK based) This website, much like moo.com with business cards, offered a range of materials to print onto and filling for your pillow. As this was a luxury product I decided to print onto faux suede and have the pillowed stuffed with duck feathers. There was also no restriction to your design as the website offered full-bleeds on your images and I felt the finish and quality was much better on the end result.
As well as the designs I had printed I also uploaded to sell a few other designs which I felt lent themselves to throw pillows and represented my illustration practise well as promotional items.
Tote bags:
For my final promotional item I created some designs to print onto tote bags. As a student, I find myself in the need of a resuable bag for carrying shopping, library books but the existing designs I often find myself embarassed to carry and turn the back inward facing to hide the design (these are usually targeted more to women) so I decided to design my own.
To reach a wider audience I created three different designs: a general shopping bag design 'Bits & bobs', a men's design 'a Man bag' and a women's design 'Totes a tote bag'
I once again used www.spreadshirt.co.uk to print my designs as they were cost effective and the quality of their print onto tote bags was superior to their pillowcases in which detail was lost and restrictive, they primarily print onto t-shirts and tote bags and the pillowcases are something they have branched out into.