After finishing inking up one of the business card design, I proceeded to colour it to see how it looked while also playing around with a horror themed colour palette. Here is a bundle of quick notes for myself on how to improve the image and the presentation of the business card/ book idea.

Other thoughts:

• Instead of having the highlighted colours on myself in the design, I could have it professionally printed to have a reflective surface or a shiny surface?
• If the paper quality is too nice it will be too difficult to fold it into a book or a concertina.

Here are various different colour palette for the design, to see which one looks the most visually appealing and also which colour palette would  be the most suited on describing me personally. 

(Keep in mind these are scans, of print outs of the photoshop files, so the colours are not exactly how they should be).

Some quick thumbnails playing around with my love of professional wrestling and retro video games. After getting some advice of off fellow illustrators, they pointed out that as much as the wrestling suits me more, it would become harder to connect the business card with my website, the whole point of this USP.

To which they pointed out some of my previous work during inktober, had a video game feel to it, especially the gameboy inspired artwork. So I'm going to stick to my USP being around retro video games.

(Creating a habit takes 30 days)

Notes:

Portfolios:

• Professional portfolio can contain work from last year.
• Employers like to look at process work.
• Stick around 6-8 projects for the portfolio.
• Stay flexible with your portfolio.
• Think like a client or employer while designing your portfolio.
• Include testimonials?
• Stay in first person during the "about me" section of the website.

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• Send a physical letter rather than an email.
• Show that you have done your homework in the letter.
• Keep it brief.
• Visit galleries to build connections.
• Make the most of the free booze!

To do list for hand in tomorrow:

• Questionnaire
• USP
• Website
• PDF Portfolio

Also more attempts at playing around with the presentation of the USP. Focusing more around the idea of the business card being a little book or a concertina book.

Here is a combination of me attempting to create a mind map to find my unique selling point, before giving up and asking other people that know me to write down what stands out about me.

The main things that stand out between them all are:

• Band t-shirts/movie t-shirts.
• video game geek.
• WWE/wrestling.
• Norse mythologies.
• "Beerd" (Thanks Ronan).
• Funk Culture (Alex Pardee, Dave Rapoza, Vandroid (Tommy Lee Edwards), synthwave.
• Focus around the use of ink.

Possible ideas coming to my head right now after receiving this feedback.

• Memory cards themed around retro consoles?
• A business card that folds out to be a mini portfolio?

What stands out about me?

• Checkered Shirts (Bit too generic)
• Beard (scruffy) (Pretty much all around scruffy to be honest)
• Love of wrestling.
• Retro video game collector.
• Knows Spanish. (Could play off the fact that I lived in the Canary Islands for 7 years?)
• Buys an unnecessary amount of figures/ toys for no reason at all, just because they look cool.
• Really likes buzz lightyear.

What do you plan/want to create?

• A business card more suited for me. ( As I have only had ones quickly rushed before events, rather than have one more finished and prepared for whenever I need it).
• A way to connect my instagram, twitter, website, etc. all together .
• Possibly a creatively sized business card, as to stand out from the others? But only change the size if it makes sense for my idea.
• Maybe a mini package including a mini version of my current portfolio, and my business card? (maybe have a business card that folds out to be a mini portfolio?)

I will most likely come back to edit this blog post when ever I come up with more ideas, or if I have more questions within my head I need to answer.