The Postcard Post: Acamy Schleikorn

Sub It Club is thrilled to welcome Acamy Schleikorn to The Postcard Post. I saw Acamy’s work and postcard on Twitter. Yet another way to get your postcards out there!

Acamy Schleikorn is a children’s book illustrator and hand lettering artist. She was raised in Las Vegas and started creating art from a very young age. She always knew that she wanted to do something to make a difference in a child’s life. After exploring hand lettering and digital illustration, she discovered the magical world of children’s books. She is passionate about creating meaningful stories and illustrations that children can identify with, especially those that are underrepresented. Acamy wants to tell stories that instill hope, spark joy, and inspire creativity. It’s a success in her eyes when a child can see themselves and connect with the characters and stories she brings to life. She is inspired by nature and people who persevere through hardships. When she isn’t illustrating or writing, she is spending time with her husband and children. She also loves playing guitar and going on adventures.

How do you choose the image(s) for a postcard?
I tend to choose illustrations that highlight a character and their interaction with the environment. I also want the character to show some type of emotion* or action rather than an uninteresting, static pose. The goal is to grab the viewer’s attention and keep them interested in seeing more. You want something with a strong narrative. Show your very best work!
*Yes! Showing emotion is more likely to evoke an emotion in the viewer and that’s key.

Do you prefer text on the front of the postcard with the image or do you prefer all text on the back of the postcard?
At this time, I only create digital postcards.* In fact, I have never sent out a physical postcard to promote my work. That being said, everything is shown on the front of the image.
*Ha! I suddenly feel very old 😉 During the pandemic, lockdowns, illustrators stopped sending postcards via snailmail but some art directors and editors are back in their offices and would like to receive physical postcards. Digital is another option now and some prefer that.

Do you create illustrations specifically for your self-promotion pieces?
I haven’t created an illustration specifically for a postcard. However, the illustrations I choose for my postcards are always images straight from my portfolio, which is carefully curated to highlight my best work.

Some illustrators create a series of postcards and send them out over time. Do you create a series or stand-alone images?
I have never created a series. I have created digital, stand-alone postcards to share on Twitter during #KidLitArtPostcard which occurs once every month.*
*Illustrators: you can use this hashtag on Twitter and Instagram. Really brightens up the feeds in social media.

How often do you send out postcards?
This year, I plan on participating in the Twitter event I mentioned above every month. I participated this past year twice, so I want to be consistent from here on out! It never hurts using events like this to put yourself out there.* It should be easy now that I have created a template in Procreate, so I can easily update and edit my postcard!
*So true! 

Who do you target with your mailings?
When I initially started participating in the Twitter postcard event, I was unagented. At that time, I was targeting agents since I was seeking representation and my goal was to be traditionally published one day. Now, my goal is just to simply get my work out there, so I want to target the people making children’s publishing decisions (art directors, editors, etc). That way, if they like my work and want to work with me, they can then contact my agent from there.

Do you have any tips on the production process?
I primarily use Procreate to create my illustrations as well as my postcard! My tip would be to create a template in whatever program you want to use for your postcard. Add all of the information needed to it such as your name, what you do, your website, social media, etc. I also added a cute picture of myself that I illustrated. After you have all of your basic information in, make sure you have an area where you can drop in the illustration(s) that you want to use. You can choose to do one image only or you can make a collage of your favorite pieces. Get creative! The possibilities are endless with the colors you could use as well as how you arrange it!

In the postcard that I created, everything on the left (my basic information) generally stays the same, unless there is something that I want to change as I grow as an artist. When it’s time to update my featured illustration, I simply replace the image on the right. It makes updating my postcard a breeze; it’s super easy.

Big thanks to Acamy for sharing her work and tips! I’m so glad to have our first digital postcard. Any art directors and editors out there: let us know your preferences for receiving postcards: digitally or via postal mail.

See more for Acamy here:

Website: www.acamydesigns.com
Instagram: @acamydesigns 
Twitter: @acamydesigns 
Facebook: Acamy Designs 

If you’re joining us for the first time at The Postcard Post, you can catch up with a general article on postcard mailings for illustrators and previous featured illustrators in the archive(there’s a tab above too). And you can see recent posts by searching for The Postcard Post on this blog. See you next month.