BEXI CARDS - TRIAL AND ERROR
CREATIVE PROCESS
For me the creative process is all about day dreaming, experimentation, trial and error, and often how I like to describe my siblings, ‘happy accidents’ (kidding siblings!!)
My very first Bexi Card idea started with the phrase ‘I fancy the pants off of you’, sadly I don't remember who I was thinking of at the time, it was fun imagining how I'd illustrate it.
The initial design has evolved quite a bit, it’s no longer landscape (from learning portrait cards are easier to display) & no longer has a boarder. I love what I’ve landed on. It feels great when you finally nail a card design, thankfully I think it’s become more & more second nature to me.
A lot of design ideas, inspiration, puns, & jokes come from people watching, chats, travel, exhibitions, articles & just about everywhere.
Ninety five percent of ideas and solutions to problems pop into my head during runs, walks, showers & drives, basically whenever I have space to daydream. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170414-why-idle-moments-are-crucial-for-creativity
GETTING YOUR GREETING CARDS OUT THERE
After creating my initial few card collections, I approached stores, I would cold call, 90% of the time people were so friendly, kind & helpful, cold calling is terrifying and not always fun for the recipient, having to stop what their doing. My sales success rate was pretty high, the key’s in the repeat sales, they’re crucial. The next step is my first trade show: Progressive greetings Live 2020, this July.
BEXI CARDS MARKETING & SALES
In corporate fashion we'd have weekly sales meetings, merchants/buyers would give you a breakdown of what were the weeks best sellers, what was failing, what colour, prints, styles etc where strongest, you soon got to understand your customer (who didn't always share you’re immaculate tastes) and learn to design for them. I think I now instinctively gather sales information within in my business.
Shop owners have been happy to share with me useful information like: what sells, what current trends are working for them, often other outlets that may like my product etc. I’ve also met some lovely greeting card publishers & stores on instagram, always more than willing to support and advise like: @hattybones @trulysopel @bluebellsofbath @fromiegifts
There’s free marketing & sales information available, website builders, platforms like etsy & instagram, they have tools to show you what specific searches (tags or keywords) brought people to your page or shop, how much traffic you've had & website builders & etsy will track your sales for you.
That all said, I'm happy to finally create a product that I believe truly reflects me, but the above stats are still very useful.
EVOLVING THE PRODUCT
I started with greeting cards and now offer notebooks & art prints. I aim to experiment with screen printing: cards, tote bags, toiletry bags, T’s & more. I’m designing a calendar this year and have started to play around with debossing/letter pressing cards.
I also aim to become as sustainable as possible, eliminating plastic packaging, using recycled card stock, recycled envelopes and more (see future blog).
A downside to dyslexia (there are as many upsides as downsides, https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/about-us/the-book-the-dyslexic-advantage/ ) is a poor working memory (short term memory). I have to note everything down, thank goodness for Ryder Carroll and his bullet journal system (see future blog), it enables me to categorise & order my thoughts, it allows me to quickly reference back to my ideas/findings/to do’s etc
Owning your own business can be isolating and there is so much to learn along the way, my advice is to reach out to as many people as you can, be part of a community, It’s a friendly industry.
For me creating designs for greeting cards and surface patterns for gifts is an absolute joy!