I showed her the card collection from the Dark Nouveau brief, as well as the 4 finalised tshirts for my FMP.
Janneke explained that all merchandise sold in the museums shop had some have some link to the exhibitions and what the museum is about. The museums exhibitions are about the history of society and generation, politics and historic events.
So at that point I knew my cards didn't have a link to the visuals already in the shop so she wouldn't buy and backed that up by saying the subject didn't link to the merchandise already in the shop but despite that she was enthusiastic about my work and complimented the creative style and thought they were clever and humorous, but because she liked the style and content of my work she asked me if I would be interested in producing a minimum of 6 cards inspired by the museum!
The cards would be blank inside and not linked to any occasion, the style would have a repetition to the style in my previous card collection, only the subject would change so that it linked to the museum. Janneke suggested I wait until after uni so I don't feel any extra pressure and said that there wasn't a deadline for the completion of the cards.
I'm definitely going to take up Jannekes offer of producing a card range for the museum as it would be great for my existing portfolio as well as promoting my business name.
All the cards would have a brief attachment at the back of the card, with my photograph, name, place of study and my website name. This is great for promotion purposes and I hope more business comes from this project.
We discussed how payment normally works, Janneke said that she normally runs by a 100% mark up, so say I sold each card to her for £1, she'd sell it in the shop for £2. I've found a greeting card printers where if I had 300 cards printed, it would work out at 23p per card. To pay for the additional cellophane and envelope for 300 cards it would work at an extra 3p per card. Giving me a profit of 74p per card. £222 for 300.
Janneke told me I could contact her via about any advice, ie. printing advice, quotes and she'd be happy to help.
She's already forwarded on an email a printing house she's using to print postcards she'd designed for the shop with a printing quote, I'll attach here at a later date and the contact details, which I've extracted from the email, which is below.
New Leaf Press (Salford):
My contact there is Billy Lucas – he’s lovely.
Explain I suggested you contact him.
0161 205 0405
Mandy Bowden’s dad runs a printing plant and the details are as follows:
You’ve have to explain you got the contact from me and that I suggested to check with them...
They’re very nice.
It's great to have Janneke has a contact as she seems really helpful and has given me a great oppotunity to produce work for the shop, I'm really excited as to where else this may lead.She also gave me a suggestion of contacting wildlife attractions, who will stock merchendise related to birds, which she thought of after viewing my magpie cards. I think it's a great idea and will think of other places to contact where the subject in my cards is relatable.
Overall the feedback was great and she has provided me with contacts, suggestions, advice and an amazing project opportunity which I can't wait to start when I've finished uni.
I sent Quitting Hollywood the above email, hoping to get some relevent information about submitting artwork to them. I thought if I could submit my card designs to them, this could be used as a portfolio viewing but I have decided against using them as one of my portfolio viewings from the below response.
