blog.JacobBurke.com

Let’s have a bluegrass festival in winter…um, ok?

Posted on: February 1, 2011 at 10:25 pm | Posted under: Design, Life, Work
Tags: bluegrass, festival, winter, Work | Comments: 1 Comment »

In July of 2010 I was approached by my boss at the resort telling me he has a friend that wants to put on a winter bluegrass festival.  I was hesitant at first, because bluegrass festivals are normally held in the summer on farms with camping and all of that fun stuff.  We decided to put it out there and see if anything would come of it.  I was tasked with building a website that would offer information on the festival and the bands playing.  A slew of site updates and the creation of an email list followed, I didn’t know what I was in for.

Once I saw the flyer that Rick had put together, I sprung into action.  I found a more “comfortable” shade of blue, replaced the dreaded Papyrus font and turned the poster into an 11×17 format.  Well that was the start of many more projects and many more poster revisions.

As the months went on, we decided on a 4×6 informational postcard, then we needed CD samplers to send to radio stations, oh and the postcard and poster underwent about five revisions each.  We added sponsors, more bands, things needed to be tweaked here and there until we were happy with it – well until Rick was :)  Interesting thing, the posters that we had printed at State Theatre were not the final design – that design was not printed until the afternoon of the festival, in which we wanted a poster for the musicians to sign (more on that later).  Gift certificates were also added into the mix in mid-December, that was one of the easier tasks – only two revisions to that design.

A few weeks out, I found out that the resort was nearing capacity for the weekend.  I thought to myself, “wow, we did it, we are going to sell out and this is going to be huge.”  I was right about that, but the work wasn’t over – not nearly over.

Roughly one week before the festival, I sent out for banners (we had a conversation about that back in December, but decided to table it – wish we hadn’t).  I had the design done, but it needed to be tweaked to fit the measurements of the wall – thankfully we had those – I ordered two, it was a BOGO with the printer, glad we did.  Then we needed a shirt design, just modeled it off of the banner design and called that done.  Finally, I was home free – nope!

I arrived at the resort on Thursday, one day before the festival started.  I was there to work – bar, security, whatever was needed of me – when you have the word “marketing” in your title, you do it all.  I was still creating signage for this event, even the morning it was supposed to start, oh the fun.  The final poster design saw the light of day after three different attempts to get the PDF file to Staples for printing.  Finally I exported the design as a JPEG and they were able to get the art printed so that we could have posters to get signed by the musicians – and you all wonder why I don’t get much sleep anymore :)

Overall the event was a resounding success – we sold out the resort both nights, the concerts were very well attended and I finally got to meet my favorite female bluegrass artist – the beautiful and talented Claire Lynch (her band was pretty awesome too).

So, would I do it all again – oh yeah!  I love the music of the bluegrass community and how supporting the community is of one another.  I have been a fan for a long time and have been listening to Claire Lynch for a while (more about that in a later post).  I can’t wait to start planning for next year and hope we can find some ways to make the event bigger.

Rick and Scott, thanks for putting this project on my desk, it is some of the best fun I have had – even with all of the work involved :)

More Business Cards…

Posted on: April 23, 2009 at 3:47 am | Posted under: Design
Tags: business cards, print, sale | Comments: No Comments »

Well I stumbled upon another great offer on business card printing and could not pass it up.  No, I did not order another 1,000 business cards for myself; I did however get cards printed for a client.

Last week I found out that All Business Cards is in the midst of running a promotion on 1,000 free business cards – the only cost is shipping.  I must admit that 1,000 cards for $19 is an excellent price, considering we almost sent these cards to get printed at the local Staples for a heck of a lot more.

All Business Cards did an amazing job on the printing.  I am very impressed with their work and have already sent them four more orders and will most likely be going back to them with more work :)

If you are in the need for some high-quality printed business cards, then give All Business Cards a try.  If you need some designed, then drop me a line.

New business cards – do I even need them?

Posted on: April 9, 2009 at 11:39 pm | Posted under: Design, Life, Technology
Tags: business cards, mobile technology, networking | Comments: 4 Comments »

My new business cards arrived today from UPrinting.com and I couldn’t be more pleased.  The great part about getting these cards is that I only had to pay for shipping!  The company was running a special during the month of March for 1,000 free business cards for “Creative Professionals”.  Since I just finished up with my new logo, I figured that it was perfect timing and took advantage of the opportunity.

Is the traditional business card dead?

Last month I heard about a new service called Contxts, which lets you share 140 characters of information with people that send an SMS to their number with your name.  The sign-up process is pretty simple and once you have your details entered, you can tell people to get your information by texting your name to 50500.

Business cards are easily lost, get destroyed and take up space.  By having the details of a person sent to you via SMS, there is no excuse for not having their information.

With the ever-expanding base of mobile device users, is the traditional business card dead?

Share your thoughts, cheers!