Project Postcard: The Design

[PeterBrett]

The general election approaches rapidly, and we need publicity materials. I seek your help in creating some.

An orchestra I play in has recently switched from using leaflets to promote their concerts to using A6 postcards. These have turned out to be an epic success:

• They look smart (full-colour printing both sides, decent quality card)
• They're a convenient shape and size to easily carry around.
• They're inexpensive.
• They can easily be used as an impromptu poster with the addition of a pin.
• They're small and sturdy enough to be sent through the post (they would, for instance, be ideal for a free constituency mailshot).

I'm therefore proposing to get some made, since there is some considerable lead-time involved in manufacturing them. I'm going to front the cost of getting them made, and I'll be selling them on to PPUK members at cost.

Design contest: deadline February 8th 2010

I'm going to offer a free PPUK t-shirt (once they come out ) to the best full, print-ready design submitted to me (peter@peter-b.co.uk) before the 8th February 2010. The rules are as follows:

• The chosen entry must be licensed CC-BY.
• Include front and back artworks with dimensions 111x154 mm, which will be trimmed to 105x148 mm (i.e. a 3 mm border will be discarded).
• Entries must be in PDF format. All fonts must be embedded.
• It would be nice (but not essential) if you could include source files for the design, so that future cards can be based on it.
• Don't forget we can do printing in full colour right to the edges!
• The following imprint needs to appear somewhere on the card (it can be very small, but it has to be large enough to be legible -- a 2 mm high typeface should do it: "Printed by print! GmbH & Co. KG of Brückenstraße 7, D-97421 Schweinfurt, Germany. Promoted by Peter Brett of 21 Raglan Road, St. Johns, Woking, GU21 2AX, on behalf of Pirate Party UK, of 22 Fairmount Road, Worcester, WR4 9FJ." There are fines of up to £5000 associated with non-compliance.

Please feel free to post your designs on this thread for others to discuss and make suggestions for improvement. Since I'm putting the money up for this, I'm going to choose the one I think is best, and that will be the winner. Drumming up popular support for your design might help you. Or it might not.

If you have questions/suggestions, post them here.

If you want to get your hands on some postcards once they're made, see this other thread!

[AndrewTindall]

eh, I was planning on making some promotional materials after i finish my exams tomorrow, so I guess I'm up for this!

Do you want any actual content on them, placeholder text, or just the designs?

[PeterBrett]

eh, I was planning on making some promotional materials after i finish my exams tomorrow, so I guess I'm up for this!

Do you want any actual content on them, placeholder text, or just the designs?

Needs to be a complete print-ready design. Have fun!

[scuzzmonkey]

why are do you want the designs emailed? Why not post them in this topic so people can comment and suggestion improvements and remix it.

Sharing is Caring and all that

[AndrewTindall]

Design #1!
http://andrewtindall.com/materials/PPUK/A6_design1.pdf

suggestions?

edit: noticed a typo, fixing that now.

[PeterBrett]

Design #1!
http://andrewtindall.com/materials/PPUK/A6_design1.pdf

suggestions?

edit: noticed a typo, fixing that now.

Nice work! A few comments (these don't necessarily apply just to you):

• More eyecatching! Use more contrast! You can use black and white as well as blue! Consider avoiding blue-on-blue to increase readability.
• Don't leave the borders blank -- run the background colour/image all the way to the print limit, not just to the trim line. That way misalignment when cutting doesn't leave ugly white edges
• Be more emphatic. "Libel law can be used to hide the dumping of toxic waste" may be true. Stronger to say, "Libel law has been used..."
• You can fit a lot more text on there. 2 mm high text is still perfectly readable on these things (true!)
• Be more eyecatching! (Yes, I'm repeating myself). If I see this across the room it should make me want to jump up and walk over to find out what it's about!

But other than that -- a bloody good start IMHO.

why are do you want the designs emailed? Why not post them in this topic so people can comment and suggestion improvements and remix it.

Sharing is Caring and all that

This is a competition, and you never know, someone might be feeling competitive enough not to want his opponents to be able to steal his ideas. Obviously the winning design will be published once chosen, but I don't see anything wrong with people wanting to keep their cards close to their chest up until then.

[cc]

I like Andrew's design. As Peter took the chance to mostly suggest improvements on the presentation, I'll put forward some ideas to improve what is written:

• I have been going through the forums, and CCTV seems to be a serious point of contention between our members, and a topic on which no consensus has been reached. In order not to alienate some voters who are in favour of CCTV, I would suggest we mention the Digital Economy Bill instead on the matter of privacy. e.g. "The government aims to spy on all internet connections" or something like that.
• "Reform copyright law, so distributors can no longer take advantage of the artists and the public" (I don't like the word "consumers" tbh)
• I don't like that money is being mentioned in the "join" bit. It makes them realise we're trying to sell to them, rather than enable them to help their country. How about "Join the party to show your support"
• Donations are important, but what we really want them to do right now is to volunteer (here on the forums to help out with policy-making, or IRL to spread the word). My suggestion is "Volunteer to stand for what you believe in"
• The website is mentioned twice on the same side of the card...
• The CC legal-speak gives a bad impression. I suggest "Copyright © Pirate Party UK, All Rights Reversed"

Just a few ideas. Feel free to use (or not use) them as you like.

[samgower]

The CC legal-speak gives a bad impression. I suggest "Copyright © Pirate Party UK, All Rights Reversed"

Even better: Copyleft (כ) Pirate Party UK, All Rights Reversed

(The symbol for copyleft is the same as copyright but backwards, see: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... pyleft.svg)

[cc]

It's Reversed, not Reserved

[AndrewTindall]

made quite a few changes, but i've got to get the bus home now, will upload when I get back.

[rancidpunk]

The CC legal-speak gives a bad impression. I suggest "Copyright © Pirate Party UK, All Rights Reversed"

So what we going to do if someone does nick the design? Pirate Party UK sues for breach of copyright? Good headline that would make, ffs.

How about no copyright take the chance to lead by example and prove it isn't necessary to copyright everything anyone creates.

[samgower]

The CC legal-speak gives a bad impression. I suggest "Copyright © Pirate Party UK, All Rights Reversed"

So what we going to do if someone does nick the design? Pirate Party UK sues for breach of copyright? Good headline that would make, ffs.

How about no copyright take the chance to lead by example and prove it isn't necessary to copyright everything anyone creates.

Read it carefully, it says all rights reversed, as in backwards, the other way, etc. It's a copyleft thing

[rancidpunk]

The CC legal-speak gives a bad impression. I suggest "Copyright © Pirate Party UK, All Rights Reversed"

So what we going to do if someone does nick the design? Pirate Party UK sues for breach of copyright? Good headline that would make, ffs.

How about no copyright take the chance to lead by example and prove it isn't necessary to copyright everything anyone creates.

Read it carefully, it says all rights reversed, as in backwards, the other way, etc. It's a copyleft thing

It still reads "copyright" and I hate copyright.

[scuzzmonkey]

whack it under CC-BY-NC-SA and be done with it.

hell, or just CC-BY-SA (which i think it might already be - lol)

[AndrewTindall]

Design #1 Version #2!
http://andrewtindall.com/materials/PPUK/A6_d1_r2.pdf

The addition of images + more colour means filesize is up above 1MB now, haha.

I've purposely avoided going down the whole "filesharing!" route, to try to negate/avoid the perception that we only stand for free filesharing.

[rancidpunk]

Just to be pedantic, filesharing is free apart from the bandwidth you pay for.

[AndrewTindall]

Just to be pedantic, filesharing is free apart from the bandwidth you pay for.

and the subsequent throttling you get for going over the (not-at-all-)fair-usage!

[glambert]

http://i47.tinypic.com/ojwjp.png

Simple but effective?

Stolen my favourite poster too for the other side as I think it's VERY effective.

[JohnB]

http://i47.tinypic.com/ojwjp.png

Simple but effective?

Stolen my favourite poster too for the other side as I think it's VERY effective.

I like it! I especially like it because it uses a poster that's specific to one of core areas other than copyright, which I think we have to really work at to make it clear that we are not just "the party for filesharing" or the "party of free MP3s" as we tend to be branded, and as everyone talking to us tends to focus on primarily. At the same time.... "Do you want to be watched" and the CCTV image are a perfectly good metaphor for other kinds of surveillance, such as monitoring internet traffic in the attempt to enforce copyright and apply "three-strikes" type regimes.

[scuzzmonkey]

glambert, thats awesome