Contest Deadline Extended to 28th (yes, we know... we know...)

Okay. I know what we said earlier (No free lives, no extensions... blah blah), buuuuttt... how were we to know that our dear hosting providers would be visited by evil elves in the middle of the night and sabotaged on THE LAST TWO DAYS OF SUBMISSIONS!?

Anyways, even though the site is back up now, we would like to at least give a chance to those who have been trying to submit their entries to the site for the past two days. So, we're extending the contest to the 28th of December for submissions!

You can continue to submit on the site, but once again, if you have any problems whatsoever, please submit your entries via email. Details for email submission here. also, if you're unsure whether your submission got through successfully, do send an email to design@foldees.com and we'll check it up for ya :)

In the meantime, our humblest apologies to those who have been trying to get through to our site with submissions for hours! We're really grateful for your efforts, and will find a way to make amends for your patience, so watch this space.

Looking forward to seeing your entries... In the meantime, if you're looking for something to do this Christmas, check out www.kiva.org. It's a place where you can sponsor micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries to help them improve their situations! We've just sponsored a candy shop in Tajikstan!

	Make a loan Change a life
Name: JOSEFINA C Location: Bolivia	Loan Needed: $2,725 25 % funded

Foldees.com would love to wish everyone in the whole wide world, including our users, customers, suppliers and designers a wonderful Christmas!

Problems with uploading engine

Quite a few of you have emailed in saying that you're having problems submitting your designs. Unfortunately, it's a problem with our hosting company, which we have already submitted a complaint about already.

They have offered to move us to a more stable server, though, but this will require a few days of downtime, which we're scheduling for the Christmas period instead to minimise the inconvenience to you guys.

For the time being however, if you really really can't submit through the uploading engine, please email the designs directly to a new email I've set-up for you guys - design@foldees.com.

When you email your design, please include the following information.

Email - (The email you used to register to Foldees)

Design Title

Description

Tags

Speaking on that topic of Titles, I also want to mention that you should try for more unique sounding titles. This will enable your card to stand out from the rest, and be more easily indexable and searchable on our site, and other search engines. For instance, for our first contest, there must've been at least 15 cards entitled "Happy Birthday". Why not change to something a bit more unique, like "Only one candle!?" or something else that describes the crd a bit more. Here are a few good examples :-

cmmoong - I Don't Like Big Butts!

uden - Santa Vader

KarmaKloth83 - The Missing of Mr.Snowman

Remember, only 5 days to go! Get those submissions in quick!

Interview with Salchipunk, winner of "A Comic Book Christmas"

By day, he's Mauricio E. Moreno Flores, a 38-year old graphic designer for a web company in the second biggest city in Mexico. By night (or even sometimes during a spare moment in the office), he's salchipunk, the winner of the publicly voted Foldees "A Comic Book Christmas" greeting card competition.

His design, "Don't Forget", won by a significant margin during the voting period for the contest, which invites the public to rate the cards in Foldees contests (as an incentive, voters who voted for all the designs would get a free card). It featured 3 steps to remember while preparing for a visit from Santa, as shown below.

 

We recently had a chance to interview Mauricio over MSN, and found him to be a surprisingly humble (almost shy) person. Primarily because English is not his native language, we found ourselves talking alot more than he was. However, after a few minutes of conversation, that's when he starts displaying a wicked sense of humour that just peeks out on rare occasion (thus asking him to tell us a bit more about himself only at the end of the interview once we warmed up). Here's the transcript from that interview (which has been edited for readability) :-

Foldees Hi Mauricio! How's it going man?

salchipunk Fine thanks how about you?

Foldees Great! Are you ready to be interviewed?

salchipunk Yeah is okay but remember my English is not that good

Foldees No worries... we'll edit before it goes out. So first, I wanna ask you how you got into graphic design?

salchipunk Well, I don't about know this career before, and I was looking for a career that don't have mathematics and my brother tells me about graphic design. So here I am!

Foldees Did you study it?

salchipunk Yes I did , but for technical level only, in fact was a short time

Foldees Wow... but from your work it looks like you already have a lot of experience. Do you sketch it out first and trace it or do you draw directly into the computer?

salchipunk I sketch first and then I trace it in illustrator with a digital tablet.

Foldees WACOM?

salchipunk Yeah but my tablet is not profesional is a wacom graphire - only the smallest model.

Foldees Hahahah... we were offering the big A4 one for our first competition. You should have joined :) Your art style is very cartoony and simple, yet there's actually quite a bit of attention to detail... what are your influences?

salchipunk Yeah, I saw it in your blog but I didn't know about that contest. I love the actual cartoons, the cartoon network style is so static with strong outlines and short characters. My favourites are Puka, Courage, Sponge Bob and Fairly Oddparents.

Foldees Now the serious questions. How did you find out about Foldees?

salchipunk A friend of me told me about it

Foldees And how did he find out about it?

salchipunk I don't know, he just told me.

Foldees Oh. That doesn't make a very good story

salchipunk Hahahaha... ok let me ask him

Foldees Hahahah. ..Yes please. Lemme know when he gives you an answer. Meantime, let's continue. Have you entered any other contests before and have you won?

salchipunk Once, in my city. And I won a motorcycle. That was about 7 years ago! It was a contest run by one of our local radio stations to draw one of their radio announcers. The drawing was in water paint over paper, so that means i don't have it anymore.

Foldees What was the model of the bike did you win?

salchipunk Vespa Ciao.

Foldees That's awesome! It's one of those italian scooters, right?Are you still using it? 7 years is a long time man... means you must be older than i think you are

(At this point, Mauricio proceeds to draw it out for me using the crude-at-best MSN mouse drawing function. Unfortunately, MSN doesn't save that in its history, so the drawing is gone. Rest assured, it was a very decent rendition of an italian scooter)

salchipunk Like this. I love my motorcicle.. until I fall jajaja and I sell it

Foldees You had an accident?

salchipunk Yeah a little accident. But I did preffer don't risk in that way so I sold it

Foldees So uh..how old are you?

salchipunk 38 years and counting

Foldees Wow... that IS alot older than i expected What is your job?

salchipunk Guess.... graphic designer

Foldees What kinda company are you working for? Does it have a website?

salchipunk website not, only impress you know the habitual, invitations, magazines, etc... But i learn by my own to make websites and i work sometimes freelance, just for extras.

Foldees What's the graphic design scene like in Mexico? Are there alot of graphic designers there?

salchipunk Yes, in fact at this time we're so many that the pay is bad.

Foldees Hahahaah. I'm sorry to hear that. But now with the web, there are so many ways to market your work!

salchipunk My friend told me that he know about your contest by this page http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/

Foldees Foldees ahh... yes. we know them quite well :) Did he join too?

salchipunk Yeah he's mdavict. He draw a thin Santa.

Foldees Awesome! So when you guys joined, did you think you could win?

salchipunk No. In fact I didn't know if I should get in because i'm so negligent sometimes and i sent my work the last day.

(sound familiar anyone? for the record, Salchipunk's latest entry, "I Don't Need" is already in for "The Game of Love" *hint*hint*) 

 

Foldees Glad to see this time you submitted VERY early! Are you submitting any more entries?

salchipunk I don't think so because I don't have another idea that I really like me

Foldees No worries... so before we finish, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

salchipunk Well I'm not married but I have a kid and I live with my girlfriend and I think that I live in 2 ways because I love the punk music but I love too pop music and I like a lot the animation movies of Pixar and Dreamworks but I like too the most bloody disgusting movies... jajaja

Foldees And where do you stay?

salchipunk I live in the second city most big in Mexico and like any big city is a mess. The city's called Guadalajara - you can see it in Google Earth... jajaja.

Foldees Last thing. Anything you want to say to your fans and the people that voted for you...because you won by a very big margin?

salchipunk Oh.. I want to thank every single people that voted for me. Ouch. I try to say a lot of words but I don't know too many, I should be study English. I think that was my purpose of this year

Foldees HAHAHAHAAH. No worries man. Thanks for your time, Mauricio

salchipunk i just want add that I honestly didn't think that I've won because there was may good works there

Foldees Yes there were. Don't worry though, I'm sure that they'll give you a good fight for this next competition G'night from Malaysia...

salchipunk And good morning from Mexico.

- end -

Do design contests devalue designs?

I read an interesting blogpost the other day when trying out some Google searches to see how Foldees fared. The post was about how design contests somehow devalue your designs.

You can read the rest of the post here...

http://freelanceswitch.com/designer/design-contests-devaluing-design-and-is-it-ever-ok/

But the gist of it is that when people launch design contests, what they're really doing is wasting the design talents of hundreds (or thousands) just to get one, or a few designs they like. To the corporate Man, it's the cheapest way to get loads of designs and ideas, while appearing to support the community.

The argument is that those designers who don't get picked simply waste their designs, and those that do, don't really get much besides a hastily written press release and perhaps a single line mention in the local newspaper.

I posted a comment on that blog, claiming that the title (Design Contests, Devaluing Design, and Is It Ever OK?) was misleading. Corporate Design Contests can be devaluing, but we'd like to think sites like ourselves and threadless actually give you guys some room to play, and interact with your peers.

While other user-created design sites like Zazzle and Cafepress accept just about any design that comes in, we find that you designer guys tend to perform better with a bit of a carrot dangling from a stick :)

That's why we're very proud of our design collection (which we have to thank you guys for), and we will continue to pursue the contest business model until at least we've reached a year.

Honestly speaking, the contests aren't exactly the cheapest way to run a business, but each time we see the designs coming in, we realise it's all worth it. Even though we might not see a profit from those designs today (we need to be selling ALOT more cards first), they can be sold for a long time to come.

Sales are already picking up, as those who've been checking their Royalty tabs can attest to, but we still have a long way to go, finding ways to promote the site, and to make the process of sending cards as painless as possible.

On the other hand, we also want to give you guys the tools by which to help yourselves. That's why we've since switched from the card popups to the new individual pages like this one.

If you notice, the link on the page has all the keywords you need to search for your card on Google. On top of that, we also have the new Share This sidebar, which allows you to forward the links to your friends, as well as to Digg, Facebook, or choose from one of any other 21 social networking engines to post on.

 

We've also got other plans lined up to help you guys, one of which should be launching next week, which is the individual designer pages. Not only will these pages feature all designs from one particular designers, but the links to these pages will also be featured at the back of each card we sell. This means that if the person receiving the card likes the style, he/she can come onto the site and see the rest of the designer's masterpieces.

So do design contests devalue your designs? Well, i guess it really comes down to what you do with the designs after the contest. In a corporate context, alot of the designs simply go to waste and disappear once the contest ends.

Here at Foldees, it's only once the contest ends that things start to get really interesting. Going to waste? Not a single vector.

The winners of the Foldees "A Comic Book Christmas" greeting card design contest

Just a bit of background for the non-regulars... We need to start doing that since our site's traffic spiked up during our last contest, with ALOT of international traffic.

So anyway, Foldees.com is a site that holds regular greeting card contests to recruit designs from the public based on a theme we set. These cards are then sold to the public, with a royalty of US$0.10 for each printed card sold. Our contest to gear up for the Christmas season was set with the theme, "A Comic Book Christmas", inviting designers to come up with their best comic-themed Christmas cards.

And ooh boy what awesome awesome designs they came up with this time. As mentioned in my earlier post, we were a bit pickier this time with the entrants, as you can probably tell. We received about 20% more entries this time,but picked only 60 for the final count. Part of the reason for the better response was due to our AWESOME prize list, which included cash prizes for the top three and a dip into Santa's Bag'O'Gadgets, which held 10 gadgets that the winners would get to pick and choose from worth over US$2000!

Speaking of international traffic, out of the ten winners, 6 are from outside Malaysia, so kudos to them (for those not in the know, Foldees.com is a wee little Malaysian company)! Despite this, however, a few of our local heroes have done us well and truly proud with some awesome cards in the top ten. So, without further ado...

10. Are These Gifts Tax Deductible? by HP (Washington, USA)

Winner of the Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse

When this card was first submitted, it went through about a bazillion modifications to actually reach the state it's in now. The original card had loads of gradients and shadows in it, which had to be removed to stick to our theme. Speaking of the theme, it's a reflection of the times we live in that TWO CARDS about economic difficulty made it into our Top Ten

9. Surprise! by monkeypim (Bangkok, Thailand)

Winner of the Belkin Messenger Bag

To be honest, when we first came up with the theme, we were expecting a whole LOAD of anime-themed cards. However, only a handful were submitted. It was a pretty good handful though, seeing as how two of those anime-ish cards have made it to the top tier (both, incidentally from Thailand!). We particularly love this one for the totally Japanese way it represents both Santa and his favourite reindeer.

8. Stuck on Christmas by terryisdafox (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Winner of the 8GB FlashDrive

Terryisdafox was actually one of my personal favourite designers from our previous contest, with his design, You Defragment My Life, so we're quite excited that this up and coming designer made it through this time. We particularly love the looks on the individual faces of the reindeer. Look closely at Rudolph's face at the top. Priceless.

7. Express Delivery... by MagicPotion (Unknown, USA)

Winner of the Western Digital 320GB drive

Alot of the designers for this contest came up with ideas that put Santa in Superman's shoes, but none of them quite like this. This card lets Superman literally take over Santa's job for a few days, which i think is nothing short of brilliant! Superman's version of HOHOHO is gut-busting.

6. Oops Chimney by Iconwalk (Bangkok, Thailand)

Winner of the iPod Nano 8GB

The second of our designers hailing from Thailand, this design was also anime-ish in style. It's a modern take on Santa, and the fact that most people don't really have chimneys anymore. I have to say, for this one, the inside illustration is the money shot, which is unusual, but quite awesome.

5. The Adventures Of Dave by KelvK (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Winner of the Canon MPC-145 Printer

Who is Dave? Why not Alvin, Simon or Theodore? We don't know... but we don't care either. We're nuts about the cutey pie lil guy. Awwwww.....

4. Snowboarding Santa by Kokuzo (Bandung, Indonesia)

Winner of the iPod Classic

The only entrant this time from our brothers down in Indonesia, this is one of my favourite designs, style wise. The simple clean lines and sense of movement without movement lines is exactly the kind of design aesthetic we love here at foldees. Speaking of which, I think the illustration on the inside is even better!

And now, down to the Top Three kahunas, who will also win US$600, US$300 and US$150 respectively.

*deep breath*

....

Ok, here goes...

3. The Penguin Christmas Wishes by micute85 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Winner of the WACOM Bamboo Fun Tablet and US$150!

Another theme that's starting to get alot of attention today is the environmental issue. As you guys already know, we at Foldees love our greens! As such, we're all for cards that carry a message along with the joy of knowing someone loves you. This deadpan delivery conversation of two penguins perfectly encapsulates that in a way that's both funny, and not heavy-handed, even in the slightest. It also reminds me of a really good book i recently read. Congratulations to micute85, and we wish her a quick recovery from a recent road-rage attack.

2. All I Want For Christmas Is by ZacYouth (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Winner of the Apple iPod Touch and US$300

And once again proof that Malaysian designers can still hold their own in an international arena. ZacYouth (aka BryanZ) was a designer that also participated in our first contest. He didn't win anything in the previous round, but if there's any proof of that old message "If at first you don't succeed...". This card is another one talking about the current economic climate, with an absolutely hilarious inside illustration that shows one of the reindeer having taken off his antlers in protest.

1. Don't Forget by salchipunk (Jalisco, Mexico)

Winner of the LG 22" Monitor, US$600 and boundless glory and fame!

And the winner of our second Foldees contest hails from distant Mexico (our logistics experts are still scratching their heads on how to send him that 22-inch monitor)! This card has enough ideas for three cards, crammed into one. Despite the intense competition, this card has been leading since the first day we opened for ratings, and never looked back since. It's a testament to the combination of clean design, and good ideas, and is a thoroughly deserving winner of our 2nd contest. Congratulations to Mexicans everywhere and we hope to see more of you guys in our next contest!

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Also congratulations to all the winners! If you didn't make it into the Top Ten, and would like to fnd out what placing you got, please email me at contact@foldees.com. And don't forget to tune in to the blog this weekend to see our Honourable Mention list :)

In the meantime, thanks to everyone for joining, don't forget to check your Royalties every so often and and get your entries in early for "The Game of Love" for a chance to win that first prize of a cool US$1000 in cold hard cash! The fun never stops at www.foldees.com!

The Game of Love Greeting Card Design Contest

As soon as we've closed the ratings for our previous contest, we begin a new one! This is a trend we'd like to continue in future to ensure there's always something for you guys to do on Foldees.com.

This time around, we're getting all mushy with our latest challenge to all you wacky designers out there...

We're taking to our third love (after comics and facebook), for games of any kind!From now until 24th December 2008, we'll be accepting submissions for Flirty/Love related cards having to do with games. What kinda games? All KINDS! Contrary to the misleading poster, we're hoping for designs that come from not only video games, but even things like Monopoly, Warhammer or even Congkak.

As usual, just download our AI template, and get to work! No gradients, filters or fancy effects allowed.

Admittedly, we've gotten lazy trying to second guess what cool prizes to get you guys, so we've decided instead to give Cold Hard Cash!

How much? How about US$1000 for the first prize?

That's 1 MacBook.

Or 7 iPod Nanos

Or 200 copies of WIRED.

Or 500 Foldees Cards (no pressure).

In fact, the other prizes aren't too shabby either. US$600 for second, US$300 for third, and a nice tidy US$100 for fourth and fifth.

As usual, the winners are picked by the public :)

Speaking of which, come back in about five days, and you'll find out who won our last little contest ;)

In the meantime, here are a few ideas that we'd like in particular to see.

• Romantic interests involving characters in games (we've always wanted to see the Jack of Spades finally get it on with the Queen of Hearts)
• A few Orc-related cards (e.g. "Your new +10 Charisma armor makes me sweat!")
• Pseudo game screens like our poster (but not actual screencaps!)
• Pixel-art!
• One-page gags involving things you use to play the game such as the relationships between Bowling Balls and Pins or the two parts of the Wii controller.

Beyond that, please please SURPRISE US! We love surprises! Honestly, we really do look forward to the entries from each contest because we're constantly amazed at what you guys come up with.

No, bem69 did not hack our site

Fortunately, he's a better graphic designer than he is a programmer. Or so I've heard. Actually, the logo is our way of highlighting a particular designer once in a while. Since we met bem69 at our party, we asked him if he would like to be the first to try his hand at modifying our logo.

Interested? Simply think of what would be relevant to the time, download our logo on this AI File, and send the AI file right back to us at contact@foldees.com with the email subject as "IMADEYOURLOGOL33T!". In that email, also give us your preferred callname, and your website link.

We can't promise to publish all the logos we receive, but if we think it's suitable, we'll definitely put it up and have a link to your site :)

This gives the particular designer a prominence on our site. In fact, to kick start this off... I'll give 3 free cards to the designer that can make our logo over for Christmas again.

A few things to watch out for when designing our logo

1. Do not change the dimensions of the crop in the AI file (387x81)
2. you can shrink the logo to accommodate your illustration, but make sure it's still y'know... visible.
3. Please refrain from using any words in your illustration.
4. As usual, no drop shadows, filters or effects :)
5. (Small print) We reserve the right to basically own whatever you pass to us and modify it as we see fit, although we promise not to do anything wicked with it. e.g. like tattoo it on our programmer's bum.

Hope to see some interesting entries :)

Photoshop UnPhotoshopped

Proof that creativity exists anywhere, and under the weirdest circumstances. This is an ad for Software-Asli.com in Indonesia. FYI, Software-Asli translates into "Original Software" in the Indonesian language.

Yes, those are REAL PAINTBRUSHES. See the making of the ad here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18697966@N00/2982281565/in/photostream/

also, a quick reminder while we're at it - only 5 MORE DAYS to the close of the ratings period! so get in, vote quickly, vote fairly and get those funkeedoodly FREE CUSTOMISED CARDS!

We can talk!

As you can see, we've just implemented a new chatbox on both our blog, and our Foldees mainpage, so you guys can talk more amongst each other, and better still, we get to talk to you!

Any comments you make will be automatically published to both mainsite and blog, so feel free to use either to keep in touch of who's saying what.

Also, this goes without saying, especially after my previous post, but PLAY NICE! The chatbox won't be moderated, except for profanity and spam, so we're leaving it open.... for now.

In the meantime, enjoy your off-topic discussions!

Play Nice!

Guys, once again, we're happy that there's so much feedback to the cards! However,  there are still misunderstandings aplenty, and as you've probably noticed, we're starting to moderate alot of the comments again.

First off, click on this link to see our stand on comments that we deem are proper or otherwise.

Once you're done with that, allow us once again to say that if you're going to critique something, at least make it constructive. A few comments made on the site such as "No Good" really don't help the designer improve himself. At least a mention of what you don't like about it would help, for instance, something as simple as even "Too dark".

As for the designers, try not to take criticism too harshly. There are so many opinions in this world, and people do tend to be a bit more candid on the Internet than in person, so our advice would be to take what you think is fair, and let the rest just slide off.

At the end of the day, the only opinions that you should take into account are from people you respect :)

Parody or Satire

There's been a few comments lately about the use of copyrighted characters and items in Foldees cards, and I thought I'd just clear this up before our next contest. Yes, we did discourage the use of Copyrighted characters in our previous contest, but this was more because we didn't fully understand the difference between a parody and a copyright.

Now we kinda do, although the line is still grey in some areas. Very simply, according to U.S. Copyright laws (and Americans should be the best at this sort've thing)...

Parody is an authorized use of copyrighted material, but satire is not.

Whoah, okay. English 101 lesson here for a second. "What in Mario& Luigi's name is the difference?", I hear you asking. Well, in very very simple non-technical terms...

A Parody is something that used a property (e.g. star wars) to make fun of itself within that universe. This means that Star Wars characters can make fun of each other, or their situations. For instance, Darth Vader dressing up as Santa Claus and giving his son, Luke a present, is a parody. This is because if it wasn't Darth Vader or Luke, this wouldn't be very funny. As far as we understand, this is totally cool with George Lucas (please don't Force Sue us!).

A Satire, on the other hand, is something that uses a property (e.g. star wars) to comment on a societal situation that doesn't involve that character, usually with an intention other than humour (although it might be funny). For instance, Darth Vader slicing through an American ballot box. In this case, you have to ask, "Why does Darth Vader hate American politics?" That's when George Lucas will bring his lawyers down on you and use the Wookie Defence to sue you (and us) for billions of dollars.

However, this only applies to copyrighted characters and likenesses. So how do you know when something's copyrighted? Well, chances are, anything that you've seen in a movie, comic or any modern medium in the past 50 years could safely be considered under this category. Most publications and media have really really teeny tiny text in them somewhere that says they own everything and have the right to sue you to oblivion if they want to.

Most times, they won't unless it's offending in nature, or causes them loss of revenue in some way. However, we'd prefer to at least play it a wee bit cautious, even if at the end of the day, we want you guys to go nuts.

So, for the time being, as long as it's tasteful AND funny or witty, and non-political, we'd probably let it by. Do let me know if I've made any factual errors in this article.

In the meantime, go wild!

Comic Book Christmas cards now on sale! (and the ratings have begun!)

Here we go again...

Some of you observant ones might have noticed that we uploaded the Christmas cards to the server last night, to give you guys a sneak peek at what's on offer (and to designers, who your competition is).

Well, enough with the teasing. Ratings are now open at www.foldees.com/designrating.aspx from now until November 20th!

The Ratings

As mentioned before, we've kept the pool smaller this time... so you have 60 cards to rate in all. For those of you new to the site, we have a random ratings engine which randomly brings up cards for you to review (you need to be logged in though).

Once you've rated all the cards, you'll get a Coupon Code that you can use to redeem a FREE CUSTOMISED CARD! Before you ask, no you don't have to make a purchase to redeem your card. Heck, if you're not buying anything else, you don't even need a credit card. See how we love you guys?

The Incentive

The highest rated cards after the ratings period (which ends 20th November 2008) will determine who gets first dibs into Santa's Bag'o'Gadgets, with over US$2500 worth of goodies and cash to be won. Once again, please vote fairly. We pruned a sizeable number of votes from our last contest due to what we deemed to be unsportsman-like behaviour, and we'll do it again to ensure that this is a greeting card contest, not a popularity one.

Improvements

For you card shoppers, we've just included a category system that'll make it way easier for you guys to search for cards. We're currently working on a version that'll let you scroll through more categories within the same page so watch out for that. Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions of things you'd like to see at our site, do send them to ideas@foldees.com

Speaking of ideas, many of you have requested individual card pages so that you can forward them to your friends. We're working on this right now, and it should be up by the time the ratings period is over :)

 

In other news, to our Malaysian friends, we're also going to be in The Star Section Two, with a super cheesy picture of myself and my (business) partner, Alvin, so go pickup a copy to see what we look like up close n personal like.

Till then, happy ratings and don't take any milk-based candy from strangers tonight (Halloween cards next year fer sure).

That's a wrap once again!

And submissions for the second Foldees contest have now been closed! Happy DIWALI everyone!

Thank you to everyone for once again taking the time and sweaty palms to submit some really quality work to our site.

This time around, we've taken a slightly different stance in terms of the entries we received. Quite a few of you were asked to re-submit your work with a rejigging of ideas (no, it wasn't just you).

This is because we've decided to take a consultative role in your greeting cards. We've found that while many of you have some awesome ideas and abso-fricking-lutely wicked designs, you also had your fair share of issues with phrasing, and copywriting.

While we won't profess to be greeting card experts, our team does have a strong editorial background in copywriting and publishing. As such, we want to work with you guys to get the best out of your cards!

Of course, this level of consultation also takes its toll on our time and resources. As such, not all of your cards will make it into the final cut. Despite receiving slightly more submissions this time around (around 200+ on last count), we've narrowed this round to a final cut of 60 cards (our earlier contest, "We Are All Geeks" had 70 finalists).

Remember, on 1st November, we open to site to our now (in)famous Random Rating Engine, which will scroll through all the cards randomly asking each for a rating. Put in about 15 minutes of your time to review all the cards, and you'll net yourself a FREE CUSTOMISED CARD sent to anywhere on the planet... no strings attached! So don't forget to blog, shout, use a sandwich board and walk the streets or post on your favourite forums to your friends asking them to come down and give us a hand in choosing a winner.

One of the things that really took off were the amount of international entries to the site this time around. For that, we mostly have to thank Francesco from www.graphiccompetitions.com, who not only posted about our contest, but even extended the date when we did. Aside from that, we also did our random posting on blogs and forums, which has resulted in a good 30-40% of our entries this time from beyond our shores.

As some of you guys might know, we're just a small Malaysian company, that is aiming for the big leagues and wants to bring everyone with us! And I have to say this again, I am once again in awe of the talent on show here. It's really a testament to what we believe we can achieve in the greeting card market, with so many talented designers out there in the market.

Also, with the names removed, you'd never guess which countries these entries come from. Except for BadAdam's one design: -

5 essential ingredients in a Foldees card (and a sneak peek at our Comicbook Christmas collection)

1. One fresh punchline - The greeting card is one of the only mediums on the planet that lets you have a punchline (i.e. you can hide the punchline until the recipient opens to greeting card). Don't waste this opportunity! Find a way to leave something that would either elicit a wink or a smile from someone.

2. A light splash of vectors - This is something that is a personal preference for me. I love uncluttered designs with simple, solid lines. This is also part of the reason why we chose to disallow gradients from our designs. I believe that one of the main things that makes Foldees designs stand out on a rack (which we are getting soon ;)) are the clean uncluttered designs on many of our cards.

 

3. Two tablespoons of CrAzY - I always believe that a little bit of craziness never hurt anyone. We love cards that get that "What the heck!?" response, and we've been getting our fair share of those from our first contest.

4. A pinch of purpose - While the cards are primarily made for the contest, we do need to sell them at the end of the day. This means that the cards have to be created with a specific purpose in mind, and not just as a design showcase. Another blog post will be created on this soon, but the main thing is that as long as you can imagine yourself giving the card to someone (who isn't a paper recycler), you're good to go :)

5. Bake in current time - One of the advantages of you guys submitting in designs is that we can use them almost immediately, with a very quick approval process. This makes it possible for cards to come out that relate to current events, for instance, the current economic crisis, or a new movie.

 

Yup, some awesome Christmas Cards comin' your way. And one heckuva promotion for all your friends living far, far away!

Stay tuned!

Don't use plastic bags!

One of my personal pet peeves is plastic bags.

I absolutely detest them, and here at Foldees, we keep our use of plastic to the absolute minimum. We use a small plastic sheet to keep your blank cards dry as they reach you, and that's it.

Unfortunately, especially here in Malaysia where we're based, plastic bags are used with abandon. Even among my own group of friends, people still have the mentality that since plastic bags are free, they should just take them.

One example was when I went with a bunch of friends to 7-11 for a coupla beers. My friend got the Heineken can in a plastic bag. As soon as we walked outside the door, he opens the beer and chucks the bag into the wastepaper basket. I asked him in shock, "Dude, why did you even bother taken the bag!?"

"He gave it to me."

"Can't you just say no?"

"Ok, Ok captain planet."

Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is common. The problem is, plastic bags are non-bio-degradable. This means that they won't just rot away (unlike paper) when thrown. Your plastic bag will find it's way somewhere, and here's a good idea of what will happen to it.

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016

So what can you do about it?

Well, stop using plastic bags with abandon. If you've only got one or two items, stuff em in your pockets, or just carry them by hand to the car. If you need to use a plastic bag, then at least make sure you use it well. Wrap your trash with it.

Several supermarkets have started offering recyclable shopping bags. You can usually see em at the checkout counter for under US$1. And the advantages in using these isn't only environmental. They also don't cut into your fingers the way a plastic bag (with a bag full of rice in it) will, and they look alot cooler too! You'll also be amazed at just how much of your groceries you can fit into one of these babies.

Foldees places a huge amount of importance on being as environmentally conscious as possible. Our paper, as mentioned on our site, is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. This means that the paper is sourced from well-managed forests, and even has procedures in place to make sure that human rights are respected in its harvesting (which is why the paper is so bloody expensive). Unfortunately, we can't use their logo since we can't (yet) afford their vigorous certification audit. However, as soon as we can afford to, we will.

Even our envelopes are made from Hemp paper, which is made from paper-waste products (although we'd like to switch to post-consumer waste once costs allow).

We believe that our greeting cards are meant to convey all sortsa of wonderful feelings.

And guilt shouldn't be one of em :)

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

While I was doing my PR rounds and trying to get into a few international forums, i stumbled upon something astounding.

www.foldsy.com

The resemblance is uncanny. Did they get word of us? Cos I can assure you, this is news to me. I'm dumbfounded!

And sorta flattered :)

Besides, the designs comin from you guys are wayyyyyyy cooler!

A few entries already, and the aftermath of Prize-giving (and pics for both!)

All things considered, it's been a quiet week for us for once. Our staff (all three of us) had a really good break over Raya, and now we're back, pumped and ready to kick some booty!

And what a surprise we had while we were on our little break as well. Two days after we launched the competition, we started receiving entries! And they're pretty darn good, so the rest of you better get your keisters in gear.

Here's one entry from ud33n. I love this one.

It's one of those more subtle type jokes that I love. Besides, who wouldn't crack up at the site of Darth Vader in a Santa suit? I mean honestly....

Speaking of Santa suits, check these babies out...

L-R: Bem, Jayhan, Me, Chapit's friend, Chapit, Vapour, Roong and (sorry i forgot your name!)

Our first prize-giving ceremony was a nice, casual affair, which really let us get to know you guys better (and for you guys to get to know each other better!). At the event, we launched the 2nd contest, of which you know the theme by now (thus the reindeer horns). Here are a few more pictures from the event.

Preparation for the event. The girl in white is jean, our DB for the night.

 

The early comers, including Michael from The Star, his photographer, Darren, JayHan, Justin and Kevin.

The really late-comers, KarmaKloth83 (aka Matthew) and his girlfriend. they arrived just in time to finish the leftovers (Thanks guys! We hate wasting food!). Matt showing off his new bangs :)

  

Wernshen, the writer from LowYat.net with me, and PheiPhei with Hwe Chin holding up the foldees button badge.

Our DB doesn't like guys with facial hair. Apparently it tickles. St. Justin does his best impersonation of Home Alone.

My friend Calvin doing a bizarre impersonation of Zummi's an Urge To Poke.

4th place winner, Chapit, receiving his Bamboo Fun Tablet! He's quite a sleepy guy. Hope he wakes up to participate in this round of competition since his entries were some of my favourites.

2nd place winner, Bem69, getting both the Intuous3 4x6 (which he will be carrying around as his mobile design kit), and a cheque for RM1000! Bem came with his lovely fiance, Soulie (you can see her on the right holding another camera).

The final picture of the night, Guess who this car belongs to?

And five days later...

Emila Yusof receives her extremely big cheque (not in size, but in amount), with her winning card, and her MASSIVE Intuos3 A4. Our slightly height-challenged photographer accidentally cut my forehead off.

Unfortunately, Emmanuel Martinez (noelevz) hails from the Phillipines so he couldn't make it. CheeChingy is still at large. Anyone who has any clue as to her whereabouts, please contact us immediately*. In the meantime, to our Muslim buddies, HAPPY HARI RAYA, and Foldees.com would like to hope that you've stuffed yourselves silly after all that fasting!

 

* Just kidding, we're passing her gift to her tomorrow :)

"A Comic Book Christmas" Greeting Card Design Contest (plus a few ideas to get you guys started)

 

That's right! It's time for our second contest!

This time around, we're decking the halls... with comics!

Once again, it's the same rules. Pure flat colour vector art. No rasters, filters, shadows or trasnparencies.

For the theme, anything to do with christmas and comics will suffice. What kinda comics? ANY KIND! Anime, superhero, newspaperstrips, Single picture, modern, classic, pop-art, old school, new school, whatever!

Here are a coupla ideas to get you guys started off!

• Cards with covers that look like comic book covers

• Covers with multiple section punch-lines like comic strips

• One page gags

• Two page gags, with the 2nd page inside the card

As usual with our contests, go nuts! Let those creative juices flow and let's make it a Christmas to remember!

What's in it for you?

Whoah. We've got something well and truly nuts this time. In the spirit of Christmas and giving, we've got 10 awesome prizes! Better still, you get to pick what you win!

No comprende?

We have a list of prizes ranging from iPods to multi-function printers, and depending on how highly-ranked your card is rated by the public, you get preference of your prize. meaning 1st place winner will pick first, 2nd place winner will pick 2nd and so on...

What are the prizes? click here!

Also, we've got US$600 cold hard cash for 1st prize (in addition to the prize you pick from Santa's Bag'O'Gadgets), US$300 for 2nd, and US$150 for third!

How to Join?

Easy! just download our AI Template, follow the instructions, and upload your files here!

The contest is open to anyone from anywhere, as long as there's some way we can get those prizes to you (whether by boat, plane or air-balloon).

Contest ends 20th October 2008, but remember, the earlier you submit, the more we can help you tweak your designs!

So get cracking!