crit pls

[will smith]

Hi all
Would like feedback on the jpeg attached to this thread. It's a simple xmas card design, the baubles in the bottom left are the company logo, which I've added noise and blurred, alpha channeled, added lighting effects etc. I spherised it also to get a bit more dimension.

The ribbon that hangs from the top of the card is a simple brush in illy. I tried a tinsel effect which looked messy, and have tried to get a ribbon effect using gradient mesh effects in illy but they looked a bit too heavy.

The bg is made up of christmassy words - as a 5% opacity of metallic gold.

I have tried to keep this design simple and uncluttered, but am not sure whether it looks a bit vacant. Please, any feedback on the effectiveness of the baubles and the design would be greatly appreciated,
TIA
Will
and I'm not the fresh prince BTW!

[Satchel]

Maybe you could add the company name to the right side where it looks a little off balance?
S.

[Mynock]

Wicky wicky wild. I would turn it landscape, crop more of the ribbon, put the company name tag line at bottom, and find a background like a tree behind it.

[Jason Fraker]

I'm not in love with the colors used in the ribbon. It looks more Mardi Gras than Christmas up there. I like the simple elegance of your layout and the square format is good (although it costs a bit more to mail a square piece). Let us know how it turns out.

[TheBluePanda]

I think the string is a bit too long, but there might not be anything you can do about that. You may also want to try making the ribbons thicker, and definately change the purple to red.

[vtwin_gary]

as others mentioned i also think the co. name should be there you could consider putting it in the gold with the "christmassy words" but @ 100% not 5%
good luck

[will smith]

Hi all
Thanks for comments, excellent feedback, and i have adjusted the design slightly. The theme has stayed the same, but I have made the composition more geometric. I have also changed the ribbon colour to red n green rather than the mardi gras madness of the first one - and now the ribbon is shorter which makes the baubles look less like medals. I have also picked out some text in 100% gold (excellent suggestion vtwin), the company name is on the outside back and on the inside too. The text on the inside of the card follows a similar style (see "card 3") - changing the opacity of each first letter to spell out the message. I have had mixed feedback on this - some people just didn't get it and I don't know whether I'm trying to be clever for the sake of it - any comments on this again are greatly apppreciated..
W

[TheBluePanda]

hm.. those new pix arent workin for me, some sort of error :/

[Jason Fraker]

I get a black background with faint images when I view those. More like a funeral mass than Christmas:)

[TheBluePanda]

I can see it now, had to use Safari. I like flatbg.jpg better.

[will smith]

merde. I used safari to upload them, just tried it on ie, it don't work. I didn't know it was bad to use safari, it didn't say owt on the old upload window.

Never mind, I think I am on the right track anyway, thanks blue panda, and all the others, group hug!