Photo-Kiosk Designers - An Epidemic (But there's a cure!)

I've noticed a new type of graphic designer emerging from the depths of the internet the last two years. They're hard to spot at first, since they talk-the-talk, but when you see their files, you immediately know what they are... they're a Photo-Kiosk designer.

Etsy is FILLED with them. The Photo-Kiosk designer is someone with a computer and access to an image editing program (usually Photoshop), who decided to strike out and make a little side business for themselves designing invitations and party favors for people online. (It's ALWAYS invitations and party favors.)

As a graphic designer and digital printer who also sells on Etsy, I appreciate their work ethic and their effort to pull in extra income, and I'm all for people pursuing art and design, but...to put it simply...YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

So I made this post to help and educate Photo-Kiosk printers on why commercial printers (like me) hate your files and how you can fix them.

Media Kit MADNESS

Lookin' all kinds of professional! Not like a food crazed sleepless zombie at all!

Look at me being all professional looking and junk!

So my numbers aren't super impressive, yet, but they're not bad considering I started the official blog in January of 2014. For roughly 2 years of hustling, this isn't too shabby.

Check out the backside after the cut!

Story Time: Don't Feel Obligated to Accept EVERY JOB

This one is a bit of a downer and mostly me venting about a nightmare job of mine I should have walked away from a long time ago. Let this be a precautionary tale to those of you starting freelance.

A group of dentists are making a directory for their 500+ member organization. The job comes to my print-shop-day-job, but we can't do the file creation part of it (they have ancient computers and no InDesign) so my boss sends them my way and suggests I freelance it to keep the job close as well as "help me out" with extra income. I'm saving for my own house so I do need the money so I talk to the clients. 

The client said they will provide an excel sheet with data about the members. I need to use that 500+ directory of data to make a book divided into three sections. 

1. Directory organized alphabetically by members' LAST NAMES
2. Directory of members organized by the COUNTY their practice is in
3. Directory of members organized by their SPECIALIZATION in the field 

I give them my hourly rate and let them know what I need to complete the job. They assure me they've done this before and that it'll be sent over very soon. 

I have better computers than my day job, and I’ve done data merging like this in InDesign before, it’s 500+ members, but it should be a simple data merge and a little tweaking here and there to get the layout to flow correctly. Should be easy enough, right?

5 AWESOME Resources for Digital/Graphic Designers that I use EVERYDAY!

What The Font!

An AWESOME resource for designers. Several times a week I have clients give me a physical copy of a flyer or business card that was designed years ago and they want me to recreate it in the digital age. Trouble is they want an EXACT copy, fonts and all, and they have no idea what the original typeface was. What do you do?

You take a photo of it and upload it to What The Font! and they help you narrow things down. They aren't always 100% spot on, but it always helps me figure things out and it removes you looking through the hundreds and thousands of fonts on your computer to find the perfect typeface-prince charming. Seriously, this site is a lifesaver and not enough people know about it. Add it to your design arsenal and stop ripping your hair out. 

Pixabay

FREE. STOCK. IMAGES. Need I say more? 

Client on a budget? This is the site for you! Admittedly this is the B or C-team when it comes to stock images, but you can't beat FREE! They have a decent selection that's always growing, and they even offer some .EPS files and other vectored imagery.

Identifont

Similar to What The Font!, but this one doesn't require a scan of the font itself. This is a series of questions designed to help you narrow down possible typefaces.

It starts out basic, "Is it Serif? Italicized?" etc, but progresses into different characteristics of certain letters, like the center lines of the letter "M" or the subtle differences in a lowercase "i." If What The Font! fails you, Identifont is a great back up.

DaFont.com

Speaking of fonts... this site is the BEST for free fonts. I've been using this site since I was a teenager! They have...I don't even know how many fonts, and they're all broken up into great categories. Like handwritten, serif, script, old school, etc. This is a great resource when you're first starting out and can't afford to buy expensive font families. (Lucidity is one of my favorites! I've been using it for YEARS!) Some of the fonts are licensed for personal use only, so be sure to check the licensing for each one before you use it for any commercial work, but when I was making designs for my college courses this resource was the BEST! It gave my designs variety without having to eat cup-ramen the rest of the week to afford it.

Gumroad

Gumroad isn't free like the others, but it's just as valuable. It's kind of like etsy. Artists have their own little shops where they sell their goods, but instead of physical items, it's downloadable artist materials made by artists for other artists. Music, texture packs, brushes, stock images, etc.

I've bought several brush packs for Photoshop and Illustrator through shops on GumRoad and I used them all the time! The pricing is reasonable, and you can put them on as many devices as you like! I have the same brush packs on my laptop, my desktop PC, and my Mac mini at work, so I get a lot of use out of them. If you're making your own brushes, textures, and resources, you might want to check this out and even open a shop of your own to make a little money on the side.  

 etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥ instagram

WIP Wednesday - Great Gatsby Prom Invite

Today's big design job, Great Gatsby themed prom invitations. #dayjob #graphicdesign #greatgatsby #highschool #design #prom #jaygatsby #poisonandantidote

A photo posted by M. Smith (@poison_and_antidote) on Apr 20, 2016 at 12:22pm PDT

My day job has been eating up a lot of my time and creativity these days, so I figured I'd try to post more about it here on the blog. I mean, I AM a graphic designer, so the stuff I make during the day is artsy, even if it is more functional and client-driven.

The most labor intensive design I worked on today was this high school prom invitation. This year the theme is "The Great Gatsby" (The movie more-so than the book), so I recreated the title screen from the film for the front of the invite. 

Check out a behind the scenes WIP photo under the CUT and I'll talk a bit more about the process of making the design. 

The long awaited return of ORIGINAL CONTENT!

My day job and all my side jobs have been running me ragged. I haven’t gotten to do anything create for myself, outside of @sometimesfoodie, in ages! 

For Camden Comic Con last week I made a few new items, mostly buttons, and I finally hooked up my cintiq! So (hopefully) I can start updating this with more of my own stuff. Here’s a booth-photo in the meantime and some photos of the two new button packs I made and donated to the Comic Con Costume Contest as prizes. 

If you want to grab a pin pack of your own be sure to visit my etsy shop!

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

New Stuff on Redbubble! - Unconventional Conventionists

I made notebooks with my movie night poster. (But I removed all out movie going info)

I got so much done this weekend! I can finally walk and move around without feeling pain, since the NY Fancy Food convention really kicked my butt, and I put my mobility to good use by getting a ton of stuff done for Otakon. (Which is approaching so quickly!!!)

Since I'm getting a lot of my art files in order for printing anyway, I decided to start adding them to my Redbubble shop as well.

More 365 Art Buttons

 I’m working on a little button-pack for Otakon with some of my 365 art. These images aren’t final, they have a bleed to allow the images to wrap seamlessly around the button. I’ll have to print them out and give them a press to see if they need some tweaking before I commit. I’m really digging evil-cat-monster-thing as a button, I hope he turns out nicely.

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

Day 176: Business Cards make me legit, right?

Summer Fancy Food Show, Here I Come!

I'm heading to NY this weekend to attend my first ever food industry event! (I’m so nervous!)

Wifi-permitting, I’ll be posting updates while I’m there, but I don’t know how great my connection will be. Keep an eye on my Instagram account for any photo updates.

Since I am still playing around with my business card design, I just printed and cut these temp cards at work to get me through the weekend. They are standard size (3.5"x 2") on 12PT single side coated stock. Not too shabby.

The final cards will have a spot UV, which means stamp-like gloss coating, on the front with all the scattered images, but I'll be sticking with a matte back just in case I want to write any notes or anything while I'm networking.

See you all on Tuesday!

Day 175: The Notebook

Another digital design entry for tonight. I've been so busy getting ready for Otakon and the Fancy Food show that I didn't have a chance to draw tonight, but I got a lot of design done!

This will be a little Sailor Moon themed spiral notebook! I think it's pretty cute, what do you think?

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

Day 142: Not a drawing...but

My grandmother passed away. Everything is really surreal, and even though this isn't really a drawing or doodle, it's still artistic, so I'm going to count it.

I made these custom memorial cards for my mother, uncle, and grandfather to mail out to their friends and distant family. My grandpa wanted something simple, so we stuck with a black and white theme. I wish I could have it done with raised printing, but there's really no time.

I also made more polymer clay stuff for Otakon/Etsy tonight. If that counts.

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

Outer-Belly-Buttons! New Buttons on the way!

I wanted to make some button designs using the sailor moon items I vectored, but I didn't want them to look thrown together, so I whipped up some faux space scenes in Photoshop and came up with these.

I'm pretty happy with them, but I am not too sure how the spacey background will look when it's printed. I'll find out sometime this week when I print up a few sheets for a test run. (I hope the stars show up, if not I'll go back into the files and make them more exaggerated so that they do. I think the stars really make these designs POP.)

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ DA ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

You are what you eat: Infographic

Here is a food-based infographic I made while I was in college. I gotta say, my eating habits really haven't changed....

♥ etsy ♥ store envy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥

Possessed Monitor hosting a RAVE!

WARNING: Video contains flashing lights and general spookiness

My monitor randomly decided to be festive and host a rave while I attempted to work tonight.

♥ etsy ♥ store envy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Instagram ♥

Outer Scout Wand Stickers & Drowning in REAL LIFE

Outer Scout Wand Stickers now available in my etsy shop~!

First let me say that the outer wands are now available in my etsy shop, so please go check them out!

Okay, now time for my to ramble, rant, and panic. (Although not too much since I have so much to do I can't devote too much time to this ;_;) There are also more photos under the cut!!

Work-Work (Stuff I do at my 9-5 job)

Being a graphic designer at a print shop means that the majority of my day is spent remaking or reworking preexisting business cards.

This is one for a fancy bridal shop. I feel like my design is an improvement, but we'll see how the client feels about it tomorrow.

♥ etsy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Instagram ♥

Stuff I do at work

I don't just make Sailor Moon Stuff ya' know..

A local Rock & Roll Memorabilia and Merchandiser wanted a new shirt for their employees and customers, so these are a few options I whipped up for them at work today.

They ended up going with a variation of the first shirt in the top row, with white ink on a purple shirt, but I preferred the 3rd shirt on the top row. (With a bit of tweaking of course.) I thought that design would look really cute distressed on a baseball style tee. (Where the sleeves are colored but the body is white.)

♥ etsy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Instagram ♥

Buttons Coming VERY Soon!

After finishing two characters I figured I would take a mini break before starting the next one. (Just a day or two off.) I want to try and work on some other projects that don't use digital media. In the meantime, I'll be printing both twewy poster designs up as buttons and they'll be available in my Etsy shop later this week!

♥ etsy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Instagram ♥

Finished...Maybe?

Urg, I really don't like this one for some reason. I might choose a different quote to put on the background because the one I have right now just doesn't fit right. Plus, I always relate Joshua to the color purple in my head, but this theme is more on the blue/periwinkle side.

Visually I like the purple background more than the blue, but the blue is canon and makes sense. What to do? Either way I am kinda, sorta, done with this one. Time to move on to the next character.

♥ etsy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Instagram ♥

The Ultimate Player (not really though...)

It's getting there...I started adding color but I felt like the coloring looked wrong. I think I am just going insane.

♥ etsy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Instagram ♥