Magically transform your art into art cards

Here at Printed.com we like to keep our ears to the ground and find out about the coolest ways you guys are using your print. We’ve recently noticed a real surge in the number of artists and illustrators using postcards & greetings cards as art cards. We’ve been chatting to Faye Moorhouse, a Brighton based illustrator about how she uses postcards to showcase her artwork:

I draw weird stuff. Wonky animals, strange looking naked humans and odd scenes of animals attacking people.

I graduated in the summer of 2011 and since then have been working hard to find a place for myself in the world of illustration.

I love telling stories through pictures and have self published a load of books and zines including The Cat Ladies of Czechoslovakia, Winkfield, Three Very Gruesome Love Stories, A Catalogue of Hoarding Related Injuries, A Catalogue of Outrageous Swimwear and, most recently, Death Customs.

It’s pretty exciting to work a story through from beginning to end, and I like to see how one story can inspire so much work. For example, The Cat Ladies of Czechoslovakia story has been really popular, it won a Best New Blood award at D&AD New Blood 2011 and got a Highly Commended in the Comica / Cape Graphic Short Story Prize. I’ve taken elements and characters from this imagined folk tale to develop more illustrated products. I sell cat ladies prints, mini zines and plan to add a cat ladies garland to my illustrated paper garland range.

A lot of my ideas develop from these stories. As well as creating books, I also create original pieces. I like to work in series, so, for example, at the moment I am working on a series of ‘Animal Attack’ illustrations, which tell the tales of capybaras, alligators, squirrels and grizzly bears attacking unsuspecting naked humans. These are really popular with my customers and it’s exciting to think of the conversations my illustrations will bring about in their new homes.

I am soon going to make the (very scary) leap from going part time to full time at my illustration job. It’s a scary prospect, but something that I am also super excited about. My aim for the first few months is to look for new stockists for my work. I’ve already started doing this and now have a selection of my postcards for sale in ILLUK shops in Taiwan.

I used Printed.com to get these postcards printed. Normally, I hate sending things off to get printed: I like to print the majority of my work myself so I can keep a close eye on it. But I was so pleased with the results from printed.com – they did a great job of my postcards, the quality is excellent and the turnaround was very quick.

If you want more tips from Faye, check here 10 tops tips for putting on a successful illustration exhibition from Printed.com blog. We love to see how you are using your printed matter. Tell us about the ways you use your print by tweeting us @printed_com a picture using the #ShowItOff hashtag.