Ideas That Work MAGICWhile thinking about designing some
new self-promo
materials, I dug out an early self marketing piece from way-back-when. This is probably the 1st 'mailer' I ever did for myself. It was from 1990 & it was a small folded postcard that opened to reveal the magic of
Wizard Graphics-- my first company.
The cover stars the WG Wizard!
State-of-the-art, art! My wizard dude was an early computer illustration chunkily mouse-drawn in
Adobe Illustrator 88 by building simple shapes over scanned clip art (
borrowed from a Clipart book-- hey, I told you it was 1990!). I added some shading (
available in percentages of 10), shrunk-down star art on a black background and a very magical font exclaimed:
Ideas That Work Magic. Bam! Impressive, eh? These were printed at the copy shop on glossy card stock, roughly hand-scored (
as you can see below), folded and scotch tape sealed.
Looking back in time, the other side seems like rather bold & brash filler. The plain back was meant to look like a real postcard and includes a decorative script that read:
Having a great time, wish you were here! Business has boomed and we are quite successful. Call us and find out how we can help you and your business get a new, sharp look for the '90s. See you soon...!Oh baby...!
The inside is all black like the cover and has a clipart top hat showering money (!!!) and a sharp-dressed 70's clipart dude. These pieces of stock art were both once used in a cut-and-paste sales flyer I had created at my first graphics job at
Appliance Parts Distributors, late 80s (
see back when here).
The fancy WG business card pops out since it has that expensive purple gradient on it (
again, see old post about the history of my own personal biz cards including the original wizard, of Wizard Graphics). The sharply written, prince-esque marketing hoopla reads "Wizard Graphics Can Create Magic 4 U," "Design & Layout - Appearance & Appeal," "Creativity is the Key To Make It Happen," and the hit-'em-while-you-got-'em, call to action "Call Today."
My first design business supplied the following graphic design services (
we have come so far):
promotional pieces
advertisements
business cards
business forms
newsletters
letterheads
invitations
brochures
envelopes
posters
menus
slides
fliers
logos
signs
and
much
more!
1990- there were no websites as of yet and the 'slides' mentioned were for event presentation (
because Power Point was in it's infancy). I was starting to use computers back then and Pagemaker made laying out 'business forms' a snap. I once did an order form for Kreher's Egg farm -- my roommate was an Egg Farmer for a bit in the early '90s.
I sent these out in the US mail, maybe 50-60 pieces, to business addresses I looked up in the telephone book. I don't remember how I gathered this hand-made, targeted list of potential companies
deserving of 'magic design'... but I sent them out and waited. A good portion of the list were bars and nightclubs in the Elmwood Village and Allentown, as well as a few existing clients. I think I had officially had a part-time job as a freelancer for about 4-5 years at this point.
Was the first self-mailer a success? Well for 1990 standards, not bad really: marketing-wise there is a loose concept, it delivers the list of services, it displays the fancy biz card and the call to action. I remember, I did get some work from an existing client, so it did win me a design project... You know, it was first stab at self-promo and I am still doing this 20 years later.
FOOTNOTE: This is not the earliest example of graphics I have dug out, did this poster from 1987-- the pre-computer days of Buff State....
