calendar, red bubble, affordable, high quality
A High Quality Calendar
31/12/08 13:08 Filed in: Presentation
A3 calendars of your work for $20
Sounds too good to be true so it usually isn’t... that’s the sceptics retort.
But let me show you how.
I only found out about this resource on the 6th December, two days before the pre-Xmas order deadline. I had never seen one so had no idea of the quality, though I had read a forum thread which was enthusiastic about the finished product.
I ordered five for myself and got them by the 13th. It cost me a further $25 to post one to my Mum in Northern Ireland so that was more than the cost of the calendar. She got it just by the 28th December so mission accomplished. (and loves it by the way).
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO
It’s not too late for a 2009 calendar if you jump on the computer right away. You would probably receive yours by the third week in January so that’s not too bad. Or, start planning your 2010 version.
RED BUBBLE
The service is provided by Red Bubble in Sydney. http://www.redbubble.com
On RedBubble you can:
First you need to register to become a member (it’s free). Then you are allocated a red bubble of your own in which to upload your images for the calendar. At upload time you can select to have these images be viewable by the red bubble community or remain private for your viewing only. Not being sure what I was doing in the short time available to me I played safe and made the images and the subsequent calendars private. You can change this later.
SIZE
The full calendar is A3. I have discovered by my own measurements that the maximum size for your image is 27.5cm wide by 24.2cm high. Within that maximum print area you could have a 27.5cm wide panorama which is only 10cm high. That will work though it will be centered in that maximum space. If you wanted the image to appear higher in the space then you would have to include a larger white canvas area in your finished file, offsetting the image towards the top or bottom of the space as required.
TYPE
Yes you can include a typed description for the image, but it must be part of the image itself. There is no page layout capability with the website software. So if you were formatting an image to the normal camera 3:2 ratio, a 27.5 wide image would occupy 18.33cm high, leaving you up to 5.87cm of spare canvas are to create you typed story about the image. You’d do all this in Photoshop and save the final image as an 8bit jpeg at 300ppi.
When you have your twelve images, you then upload them using redbubble’s software to your space on the site... one image at a time unfortunately. They are about 3Mb each so it does take a few hours to complete this part of the task.
Next step is to select the calendar tab in the My Account section of the website. here you choose which image will be used for January, February etc. This part can be done in 10 minutes or less.
Then you add a cover image. The dimensions of the cover image can be larger than the monthly pages. I used 2874px wide x 3271px high
Then you click the create calender button and in a minute you have a preview of your calendar. If an image looks wrong or you’ve uploaded the wrong one, you can re-trace your steps, make corrections and re-create the calendar.
SURPRISES
Choose your filenames carefully as they are reproduced at the bottom of each page.
Choose your username carefully when you first register to join redbubble. The user name appears on the bottom of the front cover and also on each page associated with file name mentioned above. Maybe your normal name is best.
VALUE FOR MONEY
I’d give it a 5 star rating. The print quality from the Indigo proffer is superb. The packaging is good. The turnaround time is good. You can pay from your PayPal account if you have one as well as the other usual methods. You can try to sell your calendars via the redbubble site. You are asked to apply a markup and they will pay you the balance due to you on a monthly basis. Realistically you want to have your 2010 calendar ready for purchase by July of 2009.
As a give away to clients or family it makes a superb personalised gift. And at $20 it lasts a lot longer than the bottle of wine your were going to give before you read this blog.
There are sample calendars on the redbubble website to give you some ideas. I will bring mine with me to the next club night to let you feel the quality.
Have a great New Year!!
David
Sounds too good to be true so it usually isn’t... that’s the sceptics retort.
But let me show you how.
I only found out about this resource on the 6th December, two days before the pre-Xmas order deadline. I had never seen one so had no idea of the quality, though I had read a forum thread which was enthusiastic about the finished product.
I ordered five for myself and got them by the 13th. It cost me a further $25 to post one to my Mum in Northern Ireland so that was more than the cost of the calendar. She got it just by the 28th December so mission accomplished. (and loves it by the way).
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO
It’s not too late for a 2009 calendar if you jump on the computer right away. You would probably receive yours by the third week in January so that’s not too bad. Or, start planning your 2010 version.
RED BUBBLE
The service is provided by Red Bubble in Sydney. http://www.redbubble.com
On RedBubble you can:
- Receive encouragement and positive feedback on your work. Gizzillions of comments each nano-second (OK each second)
- Sell your work online. Over the last 19 months RedBubble has shipped 114,000 items of art to 71 different countries (including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu). We take care of all the hassle. Give us your digital file and we will turn it into the finished product, deliver it to your customer and take care of any customer service problems. You control the pricing of your work – and decide how much you’d like to be paid (RedBubble doesn’t charge a commission – we charge a simple base price).
- Buy framed prints, posters, canvas prints, t-shirts, greeting cards or your very own calendar.
First you need to register to become a member (it’s free). Then you are allocated a red bubble of your own in which to upload your images for the calendar. At upload time you can select to have these images be viewable by the red bubble community or remain private for your viewing only. Not being sure what I was doing in the short time available to me I played safe and made the images and the subsequent calendars private. You can change this later.
SIZE
The full calendar is A3. I have discovered by my own measurements that the maximum size for your image is 27.5cm wide by 24.2cm high. Within that maximum print area you could have a 27.5cm wide panorama which is only 10cm high. That will work though it will be centered in that maximum space. If you wanted the image to appear higher in the space then you would have to include a larger white canvas area in your finished file, offsetting the image towards the top or bottom of the space as required.
TYPE
Yes you can include a typed description for the image, but it must be part of the image itself. There is no page layout capability with the website software. So if you were formatting an image to the normal camera 3:2 ratio, a 27.5 wide image would occupy 18.33cm high, leaving you up to 5.87cm of spare canvas are to create you typed story about the image. You’d do all this in Photoshop and save the final image as an 8bit jpeg at 300ppi.
When you have your twelve images, you then upload them using redbubble’s software to your space on the site... one image at a time unfortunately. They are about 3Mb each so it does take a few hours to complete this part of the task.
Next step is to select the calendar tab in the My Account section of the website. here you choose which image will be used for January, February etc. This part can be done in 10 minutes or less.
Then you add a cover image. The dimensions of the cover image can be larger than the monthly pages. I used 2874px wide x 3271px high
Then you click the create calender button and in a minute you have a preview of your calendar. If an image looks wrong or you’ve uploaded the wrong one, you can re-trace your steps, make corrections and re-create the calendar.
SURPRISES
Choose your filenames carefully as they are reproduced at the bottom of each page.
Choose your username carefully when you first register to join redbubble. The user name appears on the bottom of the front cover and also on each page associated with file name mentioned above. Maybe your normal name is best.
VALUE FOR MONEY
I’d give it a 5 star rating. The print quality from the Indigo proffer is superb. The packaging is good. The turnaround time is good. You can pay from your PayPal account if you have one as well as the other usual methods. You can try to sell your calendars via the redbubble site. You are asked to apply a markup and they will pay you the balance due to you on a monthly basis. Realistically you want to have your 2010 calendar ready for purchase by July of 2009.
As a give away to clients or family it makes a superb personalised gift. And at $20 it lasts a lot longer than the bottle of wine your were going to give before you read this blog.
There are sample calendars on the redbubble website to give you some ideas. I will bring mine with me to the next club night to let you feel the quality.
Have a great New Year!!
David
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