On the self promotion front, I have to admit, that I’ve been very neglectful of the direct mail postcards of late. I’ve send out Xmas cards to clients the past few years (a very small mailing list), but I haven’t done a full blown, big list mailing for at least a couple years (either 2013 or 2014 was the last time I sent out a full mailing). I’ve been directing the self promotion funds towards other avenues which have proven to be less than adequate on their own, but have finally gotten around to putting together a mailing that will be hitting the mailboxes sometime in the next two weeks (likely while I’m on our trip to Ireland in early October – doh!).

This was an personal favorite image of mine that I actually planned for a postcard a few years ago, but never got around to actually sending out. This will be an oversize card – 6×9 I believe, and I’ll hopefully be able to garner a few cartoon projects out of it.

If you aren’t on the mailing list and would like to be added, drop me an email and I’ll drop one of these postcards in the mail to you.

Another promotional postcard should be hitting the mails sometime this week. Been a while since we’ve done a mailing, so we’re going to try and get a few of these things out during the next few months and try and drum up some business. The website was getting stale as well, so I did a complete overhaul to coincide with the mailing (picture and link below).

Slowest work year since the early 90s so far in 2011, so I’m once again putting together a new mailing postcard in an effort to rattle the bushes and get some momentum going around here. While brainstorming about what to do this year (we decided that another large format card might be the best bet, since it worked pretty well last year), I got to thinking about what kind of work that I’d like to promote, and I remembered how much I enjoyed doing maps back in the early years of the past decade. This grew into the concept of doing one of those ‘picture maps’ with the ‘greetings from’ lettering across the face. My original concept was to draw a ‘specific’ item for each and every state (either a landmark, or famous person, or major industry), but after a while, the concept turned into a sort of career retrospective, where I was lifting images from old illustrations spanning the past twenty one years. Also, I wanted to highlight my versatility, plus the concept of using my old illustrations as reprint art, so I tried including as many different styles as possible. I’ve put together an ‘annotated’ version of the card with a special page off of my website, which will explain where each of these illustrations came from, original client and date, and also explain several of the personal tidbits hidden throughout the image. (click on the image above to see a larger version) These should be going out in the next couple of weeks, so if you don’t end up on the mailing list and wish to receive one, be sure and drop me an email and I’ll make sure you get added to the recipients.

Addendum: August 2011: I think this ended up being one of the least effective mailers I’ve ever sent out. I got one call, from a designer looking to have me do an illustration of an ‘old time ‘greetings from’ postcard’. Another oddity about this mailing, was the fact that we never received a single ‘return to sender’ postcard back to us in the mail (usually we receive at least 25-50), which makes me wonder how reliable the mailing service we use actually is.

Since its been so slow recently, I figured it was high time I sent out another promotional postcard. I drew this one up this week, as a way of pushing my cartoon style, which has been getting used less and less the past few years. I originally planned on doing a 4.25 x 6 postcard, but after I got most of the way through it, I figured it might have more impact on a larger size, so I think I’ll send it out as a 6 x 8.5 instead. Since it is so busy and full of tiny details, I’ve also linked a larger version of this which can be viewed by clicking on the image above.

Aside from the postcard mailing, I should have an ad appearing in one of the upcoming issues of Communication Arts, as a co-op promotion with theispot.com. For the ad, I ended up re-using an image from a magazine cover for Ask magazine last summer (pictured below).