TTM: Some Very Special Customs

Have you ever introduced a child to something new?  Be it a sport, musical instrument, game or hobby?  Have you ever seen the transition point from them participating in what you are doing to them just doing it all by themselves?

That's a pretty magical moment.  When they do it because THEY WANT TO DO IT....not because YOU are doing it.

Recently, that's what happened with my niece.

She's been on a bit of a band kick lately.  In particular, two groups.  Therefore, two sets of custom cards needed to be made.

I've already shown off the One Direction cards she designed and sent off to the boys (no luck as of yet), and today comes these offerings from a band called Marianas Trench.

Don't worry....I never heard of them either until recently.

Now these aren't Photoshop mock-ups.  These are the finished, printed and cut products.  And they look pretty darn awesome I must say.

Marianas Trench were one of the bands featured during the Grey Cup halftime show.  But that's not where my niece first heard of them.

They participated in 'We Day'.  A concert and celebration for kids who volunteer and are just a positive influence in their school.  Larry King, Martin Sheen and Mikhail Gorbachev gave speeches and there were a number of bands who performed.

One of them being Marianas Trench.

My niece has not stopped talking about them since......literally.

By the way, the backs of these cards look really slick.  I was worried about all the black and that they might not print well, but au contraire.... they are spot on.

Here are a couple of the other band members.  My niece left a pretty obvious spot for them to sign.  You gotta think that they'll hit the spot....right?

My niece did a really nice job of coming up with a plan and finding the photos that would fit.  She was a little concerned about one pic since it was in color and the backs needed to be black & white.

Good thing my software program can do that sorta stuff.  She was pretty pumped to learn that trick.

She assembled the cards tonight and it was at that time I realized that one of the cards was missing the front band name text.  A good reminder to check, check and double check your work.

Seems we missed a second boo boo.

Background is spelled wrong.  But don't worry, we'll fix it before we send them out.

Here's the final back (don't want to short change the bass player).

Now as I mentioned, my niece did these all on her own.  In fact, she started working on these without even letting me know.  She had the concept and the photos and had the Photoshop template from previous work we did.

She's good enough on the computer to figure it out on her own now.  That's a pretty cool feeling.  She did a bit of troubleshooting and when she made a mistake - she just did it over.

Trial and error....just like her uncle.

But again, the fact that she embraced this project all on her own just really makes me feel awesome.  And for that, I am crossing my fingers even more that these guys will return the cards signed.  Because if there's one thing I've learned....if you get a TTM success, odds are you'll continue on the path of sending out stuff.

And just to share some of the inspiration of her design, she used this photo as the basis of the card front.

As you can see, lots of cloning in order to isolate each member.  My niece did a nice job.

She also used the text from this album.  Some good cutout work there (although I showed her the 'magic wand' tool afterwards which would have saved her a good chunk of time).  Sometimes going the long way around the block really reinforces the methods and workflow.

She also took inspiration from this font style and used it on the back of her cards.

Overall, I think she did a great job of designing, choosing her fonts and sticking with her ideas.  Making it work.

We'll be practicing our double-checking (I'm bad with that too), but in the end as long as it looks good - then it is good.

We will be popping them in the mail before Christmas and since they are from Canada we are hoping to hear back with a successful bunch of signatures early in the new year.

A big congratulations to my niece and a huge fingers crossed.

Way to go kiddo!!!