Website Update-Books Section

My website is long overdue for an update, especially in the books section. I finally updated the books I've done and a few that is soon to be released, many coming out in the Fall of this year. Please take a look!

Two new books (coming this Fall) listed on Amazon:
The Great Reindeer Rebellion, written by Lisa Trumbauer and illustrated by Jannie Ho (yours truly.) It is a companion to The Haunted Ghoul Bus with a similar format and embossed pages. I also got to design this book. Woohoo!

Light the Menorah, a cute interactive book, illustrated by Jannie Ho (me!). There are small pull tabs for the kids to "light" the candles of the menorah. I haven't received copies yet but it will be fun to see the interactive part of this book.

And last but not least, I finally got my own name as a website domain name:

www.JannieHo.com

For now, it will bring you to my Chicken Girl Design site. I'm not giving up being Chicken Girl just yet, but I had to renew the domain and have been giving some thought about the name and what I want to do with it in the future. Many of you expressed to me that it is a very catchy name and clever branding, but a part of me wants to be taken "seriously" too, and wonders if it hurts me in a certain way. I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. That is it for now!

Surtex-Final Thoughts

Surtex was an incredible experience! I learned about what kind of industry was interested in my work, and discovering new companies I would of never known about. And I had alot of fun! Traffic was good for me as a first time exhibitor. The number of Surtex exhibitors was low compared to past years. I'd like to think this worked to my advantage though.

Being a freelancer, I don't get out of the house much, so one of the best part was getting to meet fellow artists and illustrators, (many which I've got to know through blogs.) One of the first people I met at set up day was fellow Illustration for Kids member Holli Conger- its so great to finally "meet" after years of knowing each other online. Also so many illustrators with blogs I finally got to see: Deb Melmon, Liz Goulet Dubois, Barbara Johansen Newman, Ellen Crimi-Trent and Kristin Sorra. It was also wonderful to see illustrators Mike Moran and Chris Reed walking the show. I'm a fan of their work and I'm quite flattered that they knew my work too! Meeting some fellow first time exhibitors was great too- hello to Eric Comstock of Comstock Design- they had some super cute alphabet art! Hope I didn't miss anyone- I talked with so many talented people in the span of 3 days.

I'm still struggling personally as to what kind of industry I want to work for. My number one passion is still children's books, but I'm definitely interested in exploring other streams of income as well.

Checked the stats on my website and found alot of people are coming through the Print & Pattern blog. Thanks Bowie for featuring me in your Surtex posts!

Getting back in the swing of things is very hard after a trade show. But I've got a few deadlines so I better get back to work. This is my report and I am sticking to it. I hope to attend again next year!

Surtex-Day 1

I came into the Surtex Show this morning with my vinyl banner on the floor :-( The velcro did not hold up at all. But one of my booth partners, Doreen, came to my rescue with S hooks that actually fit, and with some double sided tape I was all ready to go. Here is my little corner of the booth! The right side is my vinyl banner from uprinting.com and my left side were 11 x 17 prints from kinkos. I'm pretty happy with both the color and quality.

I wasn't sure what to expect today but I'm happy to say I am having alot of fun so far and made some great and interesting contacts. There were 5 of us in the booth to keep each other company: Doreen Mulryan Marts, Kevin Gunning, Brook Churchill, Inga Gecas, and myself. We make up Vivid Graphics, #552- come see us in the next two days. To be continued!

Surtex-Set Up day

Set up day for the Surtex show! Picked up my badge and put up my banner...I ended up using sticky velcro and I'm praying that my art will hold up and not in a pile on the floor tomorrow. Then I found out they were giving out free S hooks that I could of used. My only concern now is that I will remove all the velcro once the show is over. They will charge me if there is any sticky residue left over on the walls.

I was quite nervous before but now that I've gone to set up, I feel calmer. And thanks to a wonderful friendly face that dropped by- Hi Holli!

Rounded Corner Business Cards = 20% More Fun!

My new business cards looking like a game of Memory.

First time printing with overnightprints.com and I'm very happy with them. Good quality paper and the shipping was fast. Never had anything done with rounded corners before- my type is a little bit close to the edge and its driving me crazy- although I'm sure I'm the only one thinking about it.

This week is all about printing my portfolio and sucking up all the inks in my printer. Surtex is this Sunday...am I ready?!?

Chicken eggs and wedding invites, oh my!

Thank you for everyone's well wishes from the last post! Things are still crazy here as I now have the Surtex show in two weeks. Doing a trade show and getting married all within a month of each other = absolute craziness!

I wanted to finally post my chicken wedding invitations though! As many of you who might be artists/designers/illustrators, the first thought after getting engaged was...not the dress, or anything else, but....oh what am I going to do in terms of the invites?!? I had so many elaborate things going through my mind: sending everyone bound books, or a box, or a poster in a big tube. In the end, I wanted to keep things simple and sophisticated. Hard to do because I realized I struggle with doing anything sophisticated.

I ended up doing a tri-fold invitation, which gave me the story book feeling but much more simple than actually doing a book. The concept was (of course, us designers had to have a concept for an invite, haha!) a path on which we went from the streets where we first met to St. Thomas for the ceremony, and back to New York for the reception. Here is a picture of my "assembly line":

To finish my theme of a chicken wedding, we had plastic egg favors filled with chocolates tied with a matching blue ribbon, thanks to my mother-in-law (again)!
It was very easy to come up with some matching thank you flat cards afterwards.
Thanks again to all the well wishes, I'm off to do some Surtex stuff and hopefully survive the next two weeks. Back again soon!