Semester VI: Elevate Your Brand
This semester's theme is 'Elevate Your Brand,' focusing on the idea of taking your brand to new levels from the inside out.
So many people focus on the word "elevate" and how it applies to branding and image, but what they don't tell you is that if your work doesn't back that level of perceived elevation, having an 'elevated brand image' won't help you at all.
We're taking the idea of 'elevation' to the next level, talking about how to elevate your work, your knowledge, your style, and your aesthetic to set you apart in the industry first and foremost.
Develop a Unique Calligraphy Style
We see the same styles recycled over and over again as artists and calligraphers are inspired by all the same things they see on instagram and pinterest. In this course, we’ll teach you how to develop your own style away from outside influences and to take a more critical and analytical approach to building a unique aesthetic.
Learn to develop your own style with intention and discipline to set yourself and your work apart. Build a repertoire of styles from formal to modern with the principals taught in this course.
We’ll begin with a basic calligraphy style and show you how to evolve it into several styles, all that feel and flow naturally with the understanding that a unique approach allows us to attract unique and higher end clients.
The Instagrammer’s Dilemma
Each semester, I have a favorite course and this semester, it’s The Instragrammer’s Dilemma.
In this course, we’ll dive in to a bit of social psychology and start to unravel the ins and outs of buying habits through social media platforms. We’ll tease apart the issues of monetization, how to monetize your social media platform, and why what you have tried in the past hasn’t worked.
We’ll begin to understand how to harness your instagram account as a powerful tool for marketing and sales through the understanding of the laws of reciprocity and buying habits of consumers.
We’ll also take a hard look at your current approach and understand that sometimes being successful requires a change in how we view our own identity.
THE ART OF PAPER MAKING
Join us as we pair with Stephanie Hare of Share Studio and spend the day with her learning how to make handmade paper.
We’ll discover the tools and techniques, including cooking and hand beating kozo, machine beating, and several drying techniques. We’ll watch her work through a batch of pulp as she shares her vast knowledge with us.
This course is perfect for anyone interested in beginning a hobby or career in handmade paper, but is even better for stationers to gain an in-depth understanding of the process behind handmade paper. With such a labor-intensive process, handmade paper tends to be a higher end product with a price point to match. Many stationers have a difficult time selling high price point items to clients, but after taking this course, you’ll easily be able to explain the value of such costs and start to elevate your work to higher-end products and clients.
WEDDING STATIONERY ETIQUETTE
Building out wording for wedding invitations can be incredibly intimidating and stressful. Every line on the invitation indicates something, stands for something, and is there for a reason….so how do you know which options to choose? Selecting the incorrect layout can be offensive or communicate the incorrect message to guests.
As stationers, we should know wedding invitation wording and etiquette inside and out, giving us the ability to guide and advise our clients in the proper decorum based on their wedding and specific needs.
In this course, we’ll walk you through the details of building out invitation wording. We’ll review some of the origins of the wording and why we use it, what it represents or indicates, and how to property put wording together. We’ll also touch on a modern approach to some of the older traditions.
The most important portion of this course will review how and when to begin constructing your client’s invitation wording to create a seamless and simple creative process.
CREATE A REPEATING PATTERN IN ILLUSTRATOR
There are many ways to create and use a pattern. In the wedding industry, we see in gracing the liners of invitations, or the backs of printed pieces. Most of us create patterns by hand in Illustrator or Photoshop, but in this course, we’re going to learn a new method. A seamless repeating pattern is a pattern that is automatically generated from a small amount of work, expanding endlessly without seams or edges.
This type of repeating pattern is uniquely useful for scalable or larger pieces, such as wallpaper, wrapping paper, or fabric. In this course, we’re going to learn how to use Illustrator to create a scalable seamless pattern ideal for surface pattern design.
BUILDING A CUSTOM CREST
Custom crests are totally having a moment right now and are hugely popular! When I first started in the industry, I thought that art pieces like crests and patterns had to be created in one go, with everything painted together and scanned in as one piece. The idea of assembling them in Photoshop or Illustrator felt like cheating and I felt like “as a designer and artist” I had to be able to do it all at once. As I’ve honed my skills and experience, I’ve learned that idea was a load of crockery!
In this course, we’ll learn how to build a crest from individually painted artwork pieces to create a seamless and effortless custom crest for a client. We’ll also look at creating several versions to be used throughout their design, varying in size and complexity.
use coupon code
‘SPRING5’
for 5% off all courses!