After many months of planning, designing, printing, all three card packs are ready to help people learn more about Siri, Alexa & Google Assistant are available & ready to ship. The website is complete and the square store is up and running. I still need to get these up on Amazon and begin a social marketing strategy.
What have I been up to this year? What are the plans? And why where there so many posts reference Magic: The Gathering cards?
MAGIC CARDS: These cards were part of an art piece featuring 18 Magic cards. I ‘designed’, ‘wrote copy’ and art directed 50 cards as an experiment using AI. This included; prompt strategy, creating images and text using AI. The final piece only used 18 finalized cards. It’s customary before an art show, to post ‘teasers’ of your final entry. I posted one card per day to engage socially and promote the event. Due to my experiments with AI, I incorporated an AI sub-section under ideation focused on AI image creation.
2025: New focus on new endeavors! Job hunting has been challenging, but I’m not giving up or waiting for others to define me or my path. I’ve decided to delve in the design-product space and launch two products in 2025—one in the first quarter and the other in the second. You may have noticed a new “Products tab” in the main menu of my website. Details are limited for now, more to come as launch day approaches.
OVERALL: This is a second iteration of the Mixologist card. I couldn’t pick between the two final images, both images conveyed the huge smokey flavor of Mezcal. This card was added to represent my brother-in-law. He is one of the only people I know who has a large knowledge base of Mezcal. If you’re lucky, at night he might have an impromptu tasting from his most beloved top-shelf Mezcals. If you’ve not tasted Mezcal, try it sometime – It’s unique and there is a large range of flavors – it has a distinct smoky flavor. Most mezcals taste differently than their aroma – expect the unexpected. Mezcal’s flavor is highly dependent on its artisanal production methods and the specific environment where the agave plants are cultivated, making each bottle a unique tasting experience. His favorite mezcal drink is called the ‘Better than Jerry’ which basically my favorite Tequila drink of Tequila, Club Soda and 2 lime wedges – He uses Mezcal instead of Tequila.
GAME ATTRIBUTES: Like my brother-in-law, this card loves to share what it has – Here, it’s the base defense with other like creatures. This takes on the mono-white position and is a large ground creature. As white is often, it’s overpowered as this card shares a 0/6 attribute with other creatures which might share its attributes. A tiny white 1/1 bird will now be a 1/7 flying bird as long as this card is on the battlefield.
SPOILER ALERT: I’m happy to announce that I began the digital pledge badges today. This is a digital badge only found in $20-$40 pledge. Below are the iterations. A & D are for single-person with difference on their names style. C is the family level pledge and could be single-use or be added to a family-badge (in addition, several individuals in the family could have single-person names). B is reserved for a organizational level or a family/person that has given beyond their category of pledge-type. Also to note, I originally wanted to bring about a sense of difference from the main BR UNITE graphic – so I added a star. As I designed more, I realized the star could represent an amount of pledges (As of this writing, I’m not sure the $1 pledges counts, but it could – Jury is out) More information can found about BR-UNITE stickers or my kickstarter. I thought I was thinking too much but there is currently a family-level pledge. Thanks in advance! Keep up the support by sharing the BR-UNITE duck art. Send feedback if you have time today.
My newest backer suggested magnets since they are easily moved around various surfaces with ease. I looked into the possibility and Sticker Mule was accepting orders. So, I had to test them right? I placed the smallest quantity to get my $10 discount. Within the hour, I just approved the quote and proof for magnet graphics. Let me know if you’re interested or have ideas for the pledge.
If you can pledge, please do…If not, please share this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jerryvelasco/inspirational-graphic-stickers-for-broad-ripple/
– Thank You!
04/08 BR-Unite Kickstarter Update: It’s appearing to be slow progress but I’m confident we’ll hit our goal. I need a few more pledges each week to keep the momentum. If you can, pledge the minimum of $1 also re-post and share! https://www.kickstarter.com/…/inspirational-g…/posts/2806723
Background: This week, I took an idea and took action. I created artwork and messaging remind people of communities, that we are more than fear. I ordered some product on my own but I wanted to produce more stickers variants. I also want to do more than just the Broad Ripple area. Im looking at Carmel, Indy, Fountain Square.
Currently: For the first week, the results are good – Im at $161 or $500, which is great for 2-3 days. I’m hitting bit of dry spot. My goal was to sell at least 1 pledge per day. The UX/Social scientist is wondering whats going on? We creators and kickstarters can’t slop out a Kickstarter project and expect it to work. There is a ton of thinking, marketing, writing and explaining, reasoning and budgets and FAQ’s. There is also pledge content to create – this is where you basically pre-sell objects in the project to drive pledge dollars. I know you’re thinking its easy just offer stuff right?, we’ve all been to Kickstarter. However, on the content creation side, its not simple, you have to build a tiered approach with limits using proper incentives to move people up the ‘amount level.’ Typically you start at something small and slowly increase what you give/promise based on bigger pledges. Obviously, I’ve done a good job at the bandwidth of pledge products to amount. This is where it gets interesting. The one pledge that is not currently working at all is the smallest pledge of $1 for 1 sticker. There has been $11 pledged for no products at all. What’s going on?
Do I Really Need the Money? No. I am making the designs available to anyone who wants to use it. If they want to use them for products they can. They can only use the graphics for non-profit ventures.
$1 for 1 sticker: How could I go wrong here? This was where I thought I could leverage the macro part of my pledge system. Make the lowest amount pledge for the smallest increment of product which is a single sticker. Just a dollar right? You can barely buy anything for a dollar.
Small but Problematic: What I didn’t realize that the average price for stickers is based on sticker bundles online and in stores. Nobody buys one sticker. In the bundles you get a good amount of stickers for $5-$20. This means the average price on stickers is less than $0.25. This makes my sticker pledge a bad investment. Is it really a bad investment or perhaps I didn’t explain it correctly.
The $1 Sticker: Perhaps I didn’t explain where does the money go? $1 for 1 sticker is a horrible deal based on the sticker market? Let’s assume (after I decide the quantity I can cover) the cost of the 1 sticker be somewhere between 0.15 – 0.25. Instead of me using the excess as profit (which I am not profiting), I apply the remainder to make the whole order possible. If I can do this, I can offer anyone a sticker for free. When a $1 backer comes to pickup their single sticker, there might be more to give. How much more? I’ll know when I get the full amount and can drive the cost per unit/sticker as low as I can get it.
Quality: Maybe I didn’t discuss quality of the stickers. I’m not printing crappy stickers on a printer at home where the ink will wash off on the first rain. I am ordering stickers from a premium online vendor, Sticker Mule. On their site they say, “Made from premium material with a protective laminate, they are durable, waterproof and dishwasher safe. Our labels feature a soft, non-glare finish that is ideal for a variety of uses.” I have had one of their stickers on my car for 2 years and the blacks are still black.
The Ask: Is it the best time to ask for money? Probably not. Many people may not know where their next meal is coming from and need to save every dollar. That’s ok. At the very least, if you’re reading this and working, please pledge something. If you can’t pledge share my kickstarter link with others who might just have a dollar they don’t need.
Ideas: I’m looking for other artist-designers with other ideas for the other metro areas I mentioned.
Toying with the idea of creating a series dealing with a way to remind people that UX has some core approaches and rules which need to be remembered. 
Move over 300, the new record is now 327.
300 views may seem small to some but for a single individual organically producing web traffic its a big number. 300 is almost 10 views per day. Simply trying to increase traffic is one thing, but being on the job search trail, it makes a huge difference. It allows one to see general page-hit(s). In a job search, filled out applications rarely produce any feedback if you’re not being considered, but web-hits will show data someone is looking at your work. For myself, I’ve been keeping a log since 1/28 when I was really close to breaking the record. I gave up the chance in February due to the 28 day count for the month but February has surprised me!
01/31: I’m current at 261 views and approaching 300 views which my record is 299. I only need 39 more views. This is my last day until views will reset to zero for February which will have 28 days.
02/20: I never made the 300 mark last January but I’m surprised with the 28 day month making huge numbers – Who knew? Once again, I’m excited to see if the site’s traffic can break my old record. Its now at 249 with 8 days to go.
02/21: At 292 for the month – Only 8 views left to go!
02/22: At 299! Completely tied with the record. Just need one person to view. I have 6 days for 1 person.
02/23: Still at 299. I was out Friday and the weekend typically doesn’t generate the same amount of interaction. Shocked that not 1 person in two days has visited my site.
I’m thinking of testing the Twitter Promote mode in March. It’s $99 for one month. I’d like to think theres research to back my interest, but the explorer in me says, “There’s only one way to understand value of testing but to jump in”. I might add the text hear and continue to post daily or make it a different page/post.
02/25: It took 3 days to get one visitor to just drop by. It must have been someone who’s been here since they directly viewed the food gap page….this pushed my site to the new record of 300. Which means through 2/28, the record could be elevated even higher. I doubt it will go to 400, but lets see what Twitter Promote will do in March? If someone reads this and has done Twitter Promote, I’d be interested in your opinion.
02/26: The number is 318 with 2 days left – 325 or 350 is a possibility.
02/27: 325. For the month of organic posts, this is a good number. If I’m lucky I’ll get 10 more tomorrow.
02/28: 327 this morning. We capped February with new record of 327 for the books.
3/1: Hello Twitter promote mode…Looking forward to seeing how you might change the month of March. (not sure I will post here or post separately)
JVS 