Hi everyone, I’m Kate, Envato’s content specialist for design.
I’ve been working at Envato for almost nine years. I have a background in illustration, multimedia and communication design. In my free time, I like to design and sew my own clothes. I also make costumes and replica props based on video games such as Fallout and Guild Wars 2.
As 2018 comes to a close, I thought I’d take the time to formally introduce myself.
I’m here to answer your questions about illustration, design and being an Envato author. I hope to leave you with some tips and tricks to get you set up for a successful and productive 2019.
The discussion will focus on the design categories
Fonts
Graphic Templates
Addons
Graphics
Presentation Templates
If you have questions about the other media types on Elements, I may not have an answer for you. We hope to host a meet and greet discussion with the content specialists for Photos, Video, Themes, Code, and Audio at a later date. Keep an eye on the forum for announcements.
If you want to chat about hobbies and video games, we can do that too!
This thread will be open for 14 days, in that time I’ll answer as many questions as I can. @steve_lam and @jamesgiroux will moderate. Let’s get started!
Hello Kate - I forgive you that you are introducing yourself without vodka, we will work on that later
I have major question - what kind of works/designs are most wanted now on elements in “graphic templates” and “add ons” category - in all category with subcategories.
For now I have nothing, some food menus, some business cards, few text effects… 191 items for now.
I can make this 1k+ but I am searching niches.
What do you recommend to focus on? 9 years on Envato… you have some X-files knowledge for sure - don’t you …
PS. and damn - I bought new bose QuietComfort 35 II headphones, why everyone use apple etc? Buy bose! Head explode lol
Now that you have mentioned, I miss doing those marble textures. Will make some more
I had some reflexions, used some improvised neon light source, now I have two soft boxes, but I kinda liked the reflexion in some cases.
G’day @Manriquedelara,thank you for the song. I haven’t been to Spain yet, but I’d love to visit someday. I see you’re an audio author. I had a listen to some of your files, they’re great! Welcome to Elements
Hi @Novocaina I like vodka, but maybe it’s a good idea to drink it after work
From my experience of Elements and GraphicRiver, it’s good to have a foundation of unique files that help you stand out from the crowd. For you, it could be your food menus. Not everyone is searching for food menus, but not everyone is offering them either. Subscribers looking for menus will have a better chance of discovering your items and will remember your portfolio. The drawback is that they may only need to download a menu once or twice. Because it’s a print file, clients tend to stick with the same design for a long time.
To add variety to your portfolio you could work on adding companion items for the menus like social media templates, coupon and DL sized leaflet templates and “table tents” (the print marketing some restaurants leave out on the table to tell people about the specials). These items are easier to collect and clients change them often.
Have you considered thinking outside of the box and branching out into events, like weddings? Wedding menus are fun to design because you have a bit more freedom with the theme and don’t need to match it with a restaurant style. Wedding menus can have additions like invitations and name cards too.
For add-ons. Have you made an Adobe Illustrator add-on before? Most people are creating add-ons for Photoshop, but Illustrator isn’t as basic as it was in the past. Lots of people have access to it via their Creative Cloud subscription too, they no longer have to chose between PS and Ai. Looking at the library now, there’s only 162 Illustrator Add-ons and 800+ for Photoshop.
Goodluck!
P.S. I haven’t tried Bose before, people have told me that they’re good. I use Audio Technica ANC9 headphones when I’m working Thank you for the questions and be careful of head explosions!
Nice! I can see the marble textures working well as printed textiles (I saw the mock-ups in your item description). If you could find a way to make the marble texture into a pattern tile, that would be amazing! It could make some really cool fashion and decor pieces.
There’s a few days left to ask your design and selling stock with Envato Elements questions! Thanks to everyone who has participated already, it was great to meet you
Thank you for the questions and be careful of head explosions!