Saturday, May 9, 2009

Marketing ~ Bio & Brochure


Last year, the artists at The Studio Gallery were to create a "bio" page to be framed and hung on the outside wall of the gallery, to the right of the door. I was so busy making socks all last summer and fall I never did get one made.

This morning I realized I needed a bio page in two weeks and went to the computer with no clue how to go about it. I opened Microsoft Picture It! Photo 7.0, found where I could create a flyer, and went to work, figuring out how to add, re-size, and move text and photos, and so on. I decided on simplicity, keeping photos and text of a reasonable size (not everyone's eyes are young!), and by 11 AM had a draft that would just need a bit of tweaking. Thankfully, that job is almost done.

Since I had what I considered to be a reasonable success this AM, I decided this afternoon to start on a brochure for Shuttle Works Studio, something I need finished and printed in about three weeks. Using the same program, I again added text, photos, re-sized, tweaked, and have a decent draft of a brochure. It will be a tri-fold, printed double-sided.


When printed, the text size was larger than it appeared on the screen, which is why I couldn't get the text and photos as I had originally envisioned. Tonight I am considering readability vs. volume of content, and will likely do another version with smaller print and additional photos, print the second version out, then decide which will work better.

Marketing is not my favorite task, but it was fun working something up for both projects, I think mostly because I was able to figure out the basics of accomplishing this task without the help of my two teens who were not home at the time. However, it was also much needed time away from the loom and sock machine. I may be up late tonight.

7 comments:

Peg in South Carolina said...

Very nice, though I do appreciate the printing issues! How lucky you are to have found you already had good software for creating this.

Janice Zindel said...

Yes, and not where I expected it! I had purchased a software program for doing brochures and a lot more but haven't yet installed it. This was in a photo program and easy to work with. I haven't begun to explore what I could do with it, but it was enough yesterday to do what was needed. I can also re-do when there is less pressure to have weaving and socks finished. This will be a good start.

May do the brochure again this evening with smaller print and see how it goes. I wrote a friend last night saying I could be like Reader's Digest, and have small print and large print versions.

Life Looms Large said...

The brochure and bio look good from that picture (if I'm understanding that that's what I'm looking at?)

I like that you used a lot of photos. No one really reads entire brochures anyway, right? (OK - just speaking for myself I guess!)

I wonder if blogging helped you put that together so quickly - since you're used to putting together words and photos about your work.

Good work getting a task like that out of the way so quickly....it's something I'd definitely tend to put off!

Sue

Carol from MN said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Carol from MN said...

GREAT job Jan!!! Nice, crisp, fresh clean approach.... after all the quality and beauty of your work speaks for itself!!!

Janice Zindel said...

Not to worry, the deleted post was an almost duplicate of the one that follows it.

Hi Carol, I have the comments set to be moderated which I think confuses people so must go back inside blogger and change that.
Sorry!

Janice Zindel said...

Thanks for the positive comments on my bio sheet and brochure draft, they are much appreciated.

I still need to go back and tweak them, but have been busy at food pantry (they had a big food drive and it's now all arriving, expiration dates being checked, and being stored. What a job!

Whenever I think about working at the computer, I know I should be weaving or cranking socks so that is what has been coming first. Do need to get back to it though as that also needs to be done. Not enough hours!