Ladies and gentlemen, I was thinking on the blog train frequency thread and on the ammount of FANTASTIC palettes we have on June Blog train ideas and also on how short is being the votation for it, and very weird idea came to my mind: Why on the month we don´t have a blogtrain we don´t make colabs?
I submited that idea for Marisa, and she told me to come here and share it with you, to see if we appreciate it and how many people are intrested in colaborate.
The diference between the colab and the blog train would be that, in blog trains, each one does her/his kit or mini kit, and on the colab we will make only one big kit together. Or maybe two, if there are too many people intersested to fill only one kit.
To make this work, we will need to have some things in a more formal approach, and a quality check too, to make sure that all parts have a minimum quality standards. We we could get the second, or the second and third, who had more votes at the July blog train, for colabs.
I don´t know for sure how stores that have colabs assign what will each designer do, but we can probably divide the tasks and ask people to choose which one they want to do. Examples of tasks would be
-one solid paper for each color, using the same texture(s)
-one tone-over-tone paper for each color
-glitters
-5 patterned papers
-3 patterned papers and 3 elements
-A flower pack with 6 flowers of different colors
-4 themed elements
and so on, in a way they are few items for person, but we can put together a nice kit.
Yeah, it´s a weird idea. But maybe it works. To know if it has a chance to work or not, I need to know:
-Is there someone that already worked on a store colab to help you telling how it´s usually done?
-Are there people willing to be part of the quality check team for the colab?
-Do you want to participate on it, knowing that the portions will be all very tiny and that the theme will be probably known 1 month and a half before the deadline to submit the kit for quality check?
I am the first subscribed designer, lol.
I think this sounds like fun, Lorien! And like a different kind of challenge from doing a blog train. I like the idea of having group QC and having a preview that shows everything we made together.
One thing about a collab vs. blog train is it seems like you download the collab all at once, in one place? Rather than going from blog to blog? I may be incorrect about this. At any rate, one thing I like about blog trains is having people come to visit my blog, lured by the free goodies
It's not marketing or anything, since I don't sell stuff, but it's just fun and bolstering to have readers and commenters. Or is the difference with a collab more about the size of each contribution (smaller) and overall coordination (much more coordinated).
I also think it's a fun idea to pick our theme and palette from the runner-up of the blog train vote.
I would want to read up a bit more on QC and maybe establish some group standards but I would definitely be down to be part of the QC team as well.
I'll do it, just give me an assignment.
I'll pitch in too! I've lost my mojo....so doing the blog trains and collaboration kits may help with that.
If you want people visiting your blogs, you could do everything as Lorien mentioned, but still have individual downloads on people's blogs. This way it will be a bit more structured and cohesive than the usual blog train, but you can still host the individual parts on your blogs.
I'm in!
I hate doing papers, so I'd prefer doing ellies. Themed ellies are my favorite!
As Marisa said, there is no reason why we shouldn´t host the colab in our blogs if we deceide so. We will just need a list of the other parts to post in the end of the post. And people that join and don´t have a blog, their portions can be hosted for someone else.
I am very happy you are enjoying the idea, let´s see how it turns out
I like the idea and would love to participate.
Usually on colabs each designer has his/her own license.
Some of us usually do almost everything or everything from scratch, but some use CU products as well. It depends on your skill level.
You can for sure make an alpha for this colab (or for the blog train - we have some alpha lovers here! You can participate on the blog train without a blog too - it´s just a matter of hosting the file somewhere and post the link to it on the blog train listing
I like the collaboration idea as well. Lately I've had a hard time coming up with inspiration and this is the type of thing I need to help me out. I prefer creating papers over anything else.
Sounds interesting! As usual with me though I tend to wait until the last minute to sign up for things because I never know exactly what my schedule looks like... and I'm picky and don't participate in things if I don't like the colors/themes.
I'm available.............I can fit this in between various classes! No preference on the assignment - I'll take anything that is required.
Sounds like fun! I'll try:)
I like the idea... I wouldn't mind trying it out
I'm interested. Like Violet, I want people to visit my blog. I've only done one blog train so I'd be one of the newbies.
Things deceided:
1) We will try it out, as we have enough members;
2) Designers who have a blog will post their parts on their own blogs; if someone either don´t have a blog or don´t want to post in her blog, his portion will be offered in other designer´s blog WITH PROPER CREDIT.
3) Each designer will have its own terms of use (although I thnk we can probably set some standards here, for example allowing S4H in all or almost all kits, but we will discuss it later)
4) We will go for the second most voted palette on June Blog Train.
It sounds like fun. Sign me up!
All the cool kids have blogs . . . guess I better get one, too. Any preference for this sort of thing? I've seen Blogger and Wordpress, but am not familiar with which might be a better choice. Any help on that would be appreciated.
I would like to take part in this collab. I'm an absolute newbie on designing, but creating some papers seems possible to me.
@Holly, there is a discussion going on the chit chat forum about starting a blog (and also one about maintaining/growing it)
@Holly - PLEASE make it a wordpress blog over a Blogger one. I've heard the learning curve is steeper (I started using wordpress back in 2007 so I can no longer remember lol) but wordpress has an excellent spam filter which means you do not have to employ the evil Fort-Knox-security CAPTCHAs for people leaving comments. If you do go with wordpress and it's confusing, I'm happy to help out if I can.
I'd also vote for Wordpress over Blogger. Wordpress is a little more complex but it's so much more customizable and has much more powerful tools available.
You do have to be careful though, if you use their free service for anything commercial they'll shut it down.
well, seems that the palette is chosen - It´s sweet things. I changed the name of this topic so we can discuss things we still need to think about together. I am making the introduction/rules/signup for it, and I hope subscriptions can be opened soon.
I need, however, to ask something for you: I am thinking on individual previews and a big collective one also. Do you think the individual previews need to have a standard? What do you think on using Marisa´s preview template as a standard?
I think it is a great idea. It will show everyone who downloads where the collab began right? Should we use it for our individual previews also? (Along with our personal seal, stamp, etc?)
This is what I am asking you all Cintia, I have no idea!
You can download my preview here: https://www.digitalscrapbook.com/marisa-lerin/designs/paper-preview-template
@Lorien: I think it would be a great idea to standardize the previews. But I believe it should be rather a choice than an obligation ( Much like the Blog trains go if I am not wrong...) Unless the standardization is really important. Another idea ( If it is ok with Marisa) is to use her seal along with our own. This way we could use it anywhere in the preview and give people a little more freedom regarding the arrangements. What do you think?
I think it's a great idea to do both Lorien. Have a big collab preview and a preview of your own part on your blog beneath it. I would use Marisa's template for the collab preview and leave the personal preview up to everyone joining.
sorry for not updating this faster, but I had a hard time to writing the rules (and needed to take a break of it due to INSD things. I am finishing them, and I hope to post it in a very short time.
Is there a link to the color palette?
*EDIT: I found it!