Well it's that time of year again, when many people know someone who's going to have a birthday or maybe a divorce or something to celebrate, and nothing says a celebration better than a wonderful personalised gift.
These days there are many kinds of personalised gifts one can buy for money for a loved one, or special friend, or even a member of your own family relation. You could buy them a shopping bag, or a toaster with their name printed on it, but would that really make them happy, and make them get you an even more expensive gift when it's your turn to have something bought for your for your birthday or celebration?
Probably not. The thing is when buying personalised gifts for people that might buy you a more expensive gift in return, or even for your Birthday, is that the personalised gift must look tasteful and expensive, even if it was actually quite cheap.
Personalised cartoons can make wonderful gifts that people will treasure for years to come, probably display on their walls or office walls if they are the sort of person that works in an office, or maybe their bathroom wall if they are unemployed lay-a-bouts (you may not want to buy anything for an unemployed lay-a-bout as it's highly unlikely they will ever buy you a gift in return and that would be a waste of money! No one likes out of date Hula-Hoops bought from the pound shop).
Finding a cartoonist to make you a personalised cartoon gift used to be quite difficult, but since the invention of the internet it's now easier than ever. All you have to do is open Google, or some such like search engine and search for "Leonard Gubbins Cartoonist" or a (very) similar phrase and you will find a cartoonist that will create something very special for as little as £20.
Try it. You may be pleasently surprised when you get something worth having back from the person that you bought the personalised cartoon back.
News today reveals that the Government has spend £17,500 on wine since the general election! Going on the read the news report, it sets out that they buy wine young, to benefit from a lower price. I find that quite a ridiculous claim, as when I was young and getting others to buy some wine for me, it cost exactly the same as it did for someone of the legal age.
It seems this Government has taken no time at all to immerse themselves in sleaze. I expected they'd at least wait until the Christmas party before they'd conduct themselves in such an appalling manner. All the while, us poor taxpayers and working mothers are struggling with the constant pressure on our own alcohol budgets/nappy buying. Always offers on cheap cider, but how rare are 2 for 1 offers on nappies? (not that my grown up children need nappies, unless they drink too much White Lightening!). Why can't the Government just buy cheap wine from one of the supermarkets? They could have got at least twice as much booze for less than £17,500. Probably they could have got some special offers or something, like I did only last week in Asda.
It's the population that should be spending record amounts on alcohol since the general election - not the Government!
Business is a serious business and nothing more so now that business is in declining from the recession created by Gordon Brown in his last budget. I have some experience of business management and franchise operations ( over 8 months at Burger King alone!) so I feel well placed to advise business people about their businesses.
Firstly, it's important to understand why your business isn't doing so well. Could it be that what you are selling, or the service you are offering isn't suitable for the current ecomonic climate that we all find ourselves in right now? Perhaps you are a luxury goods provider, and people can't afford your luxury goods at the moment, because they have just lost their jobs. Maybe you should think of opening a pound shop on your premises until things pick up a bit?
Pound shops can be an excellent place to conduct business when people haven't got enough money and they need a cheap car cleaning spong and a multipack of hula hoops to see them through the dark days of the worst recession we've ever seen since the last one.
Changing your business is just one step you can take to avoid having to live like a common or garden chav, but while you are busy 'downsizing' your business to something more suited to the economic reality of life these days in post Soviet Britain, you also need to consider that no business can go from high class watch makers and jewellers, to a pound shop without some excellent publicity materials and promotion.
If someone in Angola wants to find a pound shop in Sheffield for instance, you want to get the very best possible search result in Google. It's no good having meta tags or keywords for Sheffield Pound Shop - as all the other pound shops in Sheffield will have gone for that obvious tag. No, what you need is something more specific, like for instances thus this, if your name is David Groat, then what you need is to be number 1 for the search term "david groat, no longer a high class watch maker and jeweller, but now a pound shop until things pick up a bit"
Using this sytem will guarantee you the number 1 spot for anyone anywhere in the whole world who wants to know where the best pound shop is in northern Britain. and searches for that term!
Alongside all of that there services which can be provided by any good popular SEO expert, you will need something eyecatching to attract people to your new pound shop (or whatever scummy type of business you decide to do until things pick up a bit). I suggest that something like a cartoon logo for your shop and publicity material would be a very good start.
Here is an few examples of the sort of cartoon logos that I can create for your business to see you through the recession, and avoid that sale of that much loved kidney.
I can be contacted for quotes for all such commissioned work via my normal contact email address (business email) leonard.gubbins@googlemail.com or HERE
During my epic rise from part time supermarket cashier and weekend valeting operative to one of the best known cartoonist on Google.com I have often been struck by how easy it is to do just about anything you set your mind to.
Only the other day I was waiting at the bank to make a very modest deposit to my business account, when I got talking to an old acquittance I once knew of old. His name was Bill, and I hadn't seen him since he was quite a bit younger on a Employment training scheme in the late to middle 1980's. He was now working as a plumber, despite the fact that he trained as a brick layer. Apparently, as it so turns out, he found lugging bricks around all day too difficult, what with his flat feet and bad back, so he decided to paint plumber on the side of his van instead, and has been happily unblocking old women's u-bends ever since. He knows nothing about heating systems, but he's quite happy to learn that as he goes along (for the usual rate of course).
As I walked home in the beautiful spring sunshine I realised that perhaps I might of have taken a similar route through life as Bill had done, and being forced to shove my hand down lavatories for a living for ridiculous amounts of money. But I didn't. I decided to be a cartoonist!
Being a cartoonist is a great life. The gel pens, the smell of the paper first thing in a morning. The endless free time to do whatever I want to do, like watch cash in the attic, with the marvelous Angela Rippon. And knowing that whatever I do, it's good enough for me! The Boss!
This weather makes being a full time professional cartoonist even better, as I can just bugger off to the park whenever the mood takes me. It's like winning the lottery, I can tell you.
Searching on my copy of photoshop today I realised that there's a font called Comic Sans. Clearly this has been designed with cartoonists in mind. Brilliant. We now have our own font for use in our cartoons. It's a great shame that there's not more comic fonts available to us, but until there is, we should all be using COMIC SANS as much as possible to promote the cartoon industry.
