Thread: Slick Promo Materials on a Budget....Mission Impossible?

You've heard my recent sob story a thousand times over....I got into a nasty accident and now the money I'd saved toward a beautiful photoshoot, a graphic designer, and a website must go toward an upcoming onslaught of bills. Life is dragging me, kicking and screaming, down a drastically different route than I'd planned, as I will have to get more than a little "creative" with my business expenses for the next couple of months.

Since I have no plans to stop dancing or promoting myself, I figure I need to get *something* of a web presence and portfolio together to tide myself over until I can call in the big guns and resume the scheduled promotional self-lovefest. Something is certainly better than nothing. Especially if I am to get gigs to help me pay off my bills.

I'll need a website, good business cards, and a photoshoot. What are some clever ways to make all of the above happen on the cheap, but still manage to look like a million bucks? I am persnickety about quality and my ideal clients are, too. Also, how do you guys feel about free hosting services like Angelfire? Would it be worth my time to set up a temporary page on there until I get my own domain name? As for the photoshoot, friends have mentioned that I should solicit semi-professional photographers looking to build their portfolios. How do I finagle this?

Enlighten me, guys. Even if you have to verbally smack me around a bit for being such a snot about matters of commercial viability .p::

From the fixed, low-income grad student:

I just did it all myself and it was pretty cheap money-wise, but not time-wise.

For my website, I use BlueHost and at $7 bucks a month, and free domain registration it works well in my limited budget. It also came with a free webpage designer wizard. I don't have flash or roll-overs on my site, but I think it is pretty good for an amateur attempt. I could have learned how to do that, but didn't want to invest the time for it.
Youtube took care of my video gallery and I got a "fancy" flash based photo album from Slideroll.com
The only thing I can't do YET is center my site for different monitor settings. As of now, it is all left justified.

Splashpage

Business cards: custom designed them myself and got 500 of them from GotPrint.com $40 for two-sided color and lamination...was a bit lavish now that I think back on it. Could have been cheaper.

For the photoshoot, well get the best you can afford right now and Photoshop, photoshop, photoshop!

I think the best investment for promo DIY'ers is a "photoshop for dummies book". If you can't afford a book like that, start an internet based search for photoshop forums. Lots of info out there on the web. Takes a lot of time to chase down, but helps save on some serious cash.

Get ready for some serious shoulder/wrist cramping:)

Lisa-I have a website through 1&1 Internet Inc. - Web Hosting Services and Domain Name Registration. Its needs work, but we pay $5 per month-I have done most of the design-its fairly user friendly, and could be something to tide you over till you get some funds. They occasionally run specials too-my husband knows way more about this than me, so if you have questions I will ask him!

As far as a photoshoot-have you looked into working with a photography major through a local university? They are looking to build their portfolios, and will often have low rates or even do it for free; having a belly dancer in the portfolio helps to diversify it and give it that out of the ordinary-so I've been told. Actually, some of my fav photos of myself (see my avatar) were taken by a photog student! She was only 20! And did a great job. Some photographers may be willing to do this as well-you could check craigslist-just make sure they are reputable blah blah. As far as asking about this, I would just call and say-would you be interested in photographing me for your portfolio? I am looking for photos for promo materials and I was hoping we could work together if you were looking to add something interesting to your portfolio. Not sure how this would work-what's the worst they could say-no?

Business cards-I am not sure about that. I am in the market for some myself. I found a website that sells 250 for $20. They run specials too. www.vistaprint.com Good luck!

Overnight prints is cheap and fast for b-cards you can design yourself.

You can get webhosting with an easy DIY website design helper from Brinkster for really cheap.

Have a friend do some photos in some nice locations for now.

Go to ModelMayhem.com. A lot of the photogs there are expensive pros but there are also others who want to build their portfolios and may do TFP (time for prints) work. ModelMayhem.com members are required to submit at least 4 photographs so you can at least see some of their work.
I'm on there for makeup and modeling (HAAHAAAA!!!!).

I get my business cards from vistaprint..when i can get them free...then only pay for shipping and a photo upload....

regarding a website..I taught myself html and built all of mine from scratch.
I personally dont like the free website b/c of all the ads they place on there...I think you should register your domain and get that set up ...you can probably build a quick easy one or two pages...w/ just your photo and contact info...just so that you have something up. HTML isn't that hard

regarding photography...I believe having good photos really makes a difference...so if you have to save up for one of them..I would choose the photos...(I am a professional photog too), when I first started my business...I did alot of inexpensive sessions and had people model for me to build my portfolio. I would not recommend trying to find someone on Craigs list..make sure it is a reputable person...otherwise who knows where your photos will end up...LOL

Originally Posted by crystalllized

From the fixed, low-income grad student:

I just did it all myself and it was pretty cheap money-wise, but not time-wise.

For my website, I use BlueHost and at $7 bucks a month, and free domain registration it works well in my limited budget. It also came with a free webpage designer wizard. I don't have flash or roll-overs on my site, but I think it is pretty good for an amateur attempt. I could have learned how to do that, but didn't want to invest the time for it.
Youtube took care of my video gallery and I got a "fancy" flash based photo album from Slideroll.com
The only thing I can't do YET is center my site for different monitor settings. As of now, it is all left justified.

Splashpage

Business cards: custom designed them myself and got 500 of them from GotPrint.com $40 for two-sided color and lamination...was a bit lavish now that I think back on it. Could have been cheaper.

For the photoshoot, well get the best you can afford right now and Photoshop, photoshop, photoshop!

I think the best investment for promo DIY'ers is a "photoshop for dummies book". If you can't afford a book like that, start an internet based search for photoshop forums. Lots of info out there on the web. Takes a lot of time to chase down, but helps save on some serious cash.

Get ready for some serious shoulder/wrist cramping:)

Wow! Your site is really nice. I just got a website using bluehost as well. Did you use the webpage editor they have to build your site? I am using wordpress right now, so my webiste is more of a blog. I won't post it here because it's not even close to done!

Sorry for the threadjack! This is a great topic. I'm in the same boat with you, Satin...trying to get the most bang for my non-existent buck!

what I just used (as I too am on super-budget until I'm employed full-time [ack!]) was google pages. It was a WYSIWYG editor, as well as a more in-depth HTML editor....I have ZERO html skills and was able to put together my site in a few days. And, there are no ads! Once dance actually starts being something paying (hopefully in the near future), or I have a job after August, I'll go to a pay site...but for now...

najlabellydancer - Najla

I second Azhia on ModelMayhem. I posted on craigslist a trade of lessons for photos; I got an amazing photographer who didn't even want lessons but liked the idea of adding a bellydancer to his portfolio. He also did the photoshopping himself! I just had to put a link on my site to his.

Originally Posted by crystalllized

For the photoshoot, well get the best you can afford right now and Photoshop, photoshop, photoshop!

I think the best investment for promo DIY'ers is a "photoshop for dummies book". If you can't afford a book like that, start an internet based search for photoshop forums. Lots of info out there on the web. Takes a lot of time to chase down, but helps save on some serious cash.

Get ready for some serious shoulder/wrist cramping:)

That is assuming, of course, that Lisa has Photoshop...unless she has a friend in IT who can hook her up, Photoshop will cost a few hundred dollars.

I also use Googlepages and it works, although I will get a paid domain eventually. Also my friend has the Yahoo Web Host tools (get the one for small business, not individuals) and I was really impressed with it. It's no dreamweaver, but it has a ton of templates, so you don't have to start from scratch and if you ever wanted to get a site built from the ground up, you would have that option.

Good luck and show it all off when you are done!

[QUOTE=andalee-oriental;191985]That is assuming, of course, that Lisa has Photoshop...unless she has a friend in IT who can hook her up, Photoshop will cost a few hundred dollars.
QUOTE]

I guess what I meant to say was:
"Photo edit, photo edit, photo edit"

To me, Photoshop has become synonymous with photo editing much like Kleenex or Band-Aid has become the common name for facial tissue or adhesive bandages
Of course, there are plenty of free photo editing programs on the web.
Picasa by Google is one. Just type in "free photo editing software" and tons pop up.

Originally Posted by ejaghana

Wow! Your site is really nice. I just got a website using bluehost as well. Did you use the webpage editor they have to build your site? I am using wordpress right now, so my webiste is more of a blog. I won't post it here because it's not even close to done!

Sorry for the threadjack! This is a great topic. I'm in the same boat with you, Satin...trying to get the most bang for my non-existent buck!

Thanks:) I just used the webpage editor included with the service. It can be a bit frustrating at times, but it worked fine for my purposes.

If any of your students are skilled in this stuff, perhaps trade some free lessons in exchange for work on your website?

I did my website from scrath - 0 dollars (it was very easy, the program was very user friendly, I had no prior experience).
webhosting with Yahoo - $12 / month - highly recommend them. (first 6 months is $9, and the program comes with it)
photos: you can look for ads where photographers offer to take your pictures, you keep them for free so they can up their portfolio. You can also look on Craigslist for such ads, or post one yourself asking if someone is interested. All of this posting is for free, so you have nothing to loose.
Worst case scenerio you have a friend take a few pictures of you - you have to play with the lights, the background, etc. but you can get some cool pictures out of it - then you must photoshop the heck out of them, especially the background, enhance the tone and colors.
You should have 3-4 quality pictures with a different costume in each, very different poses and different props if you do any.

You can just design a business card in any image editor with your best photo, put your name, phone number and website on it. Upload it to Overnightprints.com. I think 100 cards would be $9.95 + shipping, 250 is about 15 bucks. you'll get them in about a week. Sometimes they email out offers such as only pay the shipping on one sided business cards up to a certain amount.

All of this is very inexpensive until you can afford to spend more. I feel that a website is more and more important and it pays for itself.

Good luck!