I decided to practice this planned dye cutting technique with these materials (for The 7 of 9), on a series of 2 designs I created for UNITY LIFE Greeting Cards that also fall into the category of fine art items to hang on your wall. I'll have to come up with a better name for what they're called, actually. They came out absolutely stunning, but not without lots of mistakes and such a learning curve — so it felt perfect to make my mistakes on items that are just being made to gift out to friends and loved ones. My sister's birthday is coming up and I have some important thank you cards to send out.
Speaking of birthdays, the design of these cards was created for Krist Novoselić's upcoming birthday and the entire idea to do these particular pieces was inspired by him even before I remembered his birthday was soon. For those not aware, Krist is the bassist for the band NIRVANA. It was created as a celebration of two items featuring these 2 pieces of artwork, that were sent to Krist and his wife Darbury in the mail, which I received most loving response to. A rough, scissor cut handmade greeting card of Dove of Peace & Liberation was sent to them in their package, along with a handmade booklet of FACET 1(73) ◊ ORIGINAL — and the cover of that booklet was the F. 1(73) Plate which you see here, in another digital print format and design.
Initial Impressions & Cost of Materials
In going through my first attempts, followed by making a pack of 12, everything went well enough to make sure I'd remain optimistic about my goal to produce these as planned. It was wonderful to confirm that there will be no problem laying holographic gold paper over adhesive sheets — no worries about unevenly laying the wrapping paper. I only destroyed one holographic adhesive sheet by using a boning tool before I figured out the trick (as seen in the photos). I especially enjoyed making the thumbtack accessories (also shown here). And as for the main central image — the purple F. 1(73) plate, I was pleased to find out that with some effort, floating shapes inside of holes can be properly centred to allow more flexibility of design, using the outcuts as guides — even with long nails 💅🏿😂😅. This somewhat affects my views as I design the rest of The 7 of 9.
Initial problems with the cardstock tearing on the edges was resolved using ChatGPT as a guide to my settings for each material. I did realize that I had unfortunately invested in some materials that I won't need, though. By mistake, I forgot to consider that I should sample materials before buying enough for the whole prototype. For example, the black cardstock I bought is realy bad quality — it's white on the inside and makes the edges look garish. But these things happen.
After exploring with these materials and making best use of them possible, I decided to try doing the frontmost layer of The 7 of 9, which will be black or rainbow colors, in a shiny wrapping paper instead of using cardstock. I'm pretty confident that it will look incredible and it seems there is no need for so much thickness just to produce strong, durable cards — since the adhesive is much thicker than I had imagined. The wonderful thing about that is that it will save money on materials that way. The price of the wrapping paper is almost nothing considering how much will be used.
That will help offset other costs I discovered throughout this process. I have now learned that dye cutter blades need to be replaced often if I'm cutting so much adhesive. I'll have to wait and find out just how much so, but it could be up to $60 per 144 card set in blades alone. They are $20 each plus tax. Perhaps it's only $20 or $40 if I'm lucky. Also, it's quite possible that a less gummy type of adhesive might help a lot with blades and could be appropriate, so I'll experiment with adhesive brands and see what works best. It will still be quite a while before I have the real cost figured out, but I'm excited knowing that some revelations like the wrapping paper — and maybe later finding a better price on adhesives somewhere — could dramatically lower the price of materials.
Calculating My Time To Calculate The Price of The 7 of 9
Ultimately the goal is to orchestrate the creation of the prototype with the vision logistically in mind of making it sellable as a product. I'm finding that approach is helping me aim for quality and efficiency. I've chosen to charge for my time in making these at the rate of $72 CAD per hour. This numbering goes with the numerology of the system (a total of 72 cards, doubled to 144), and just happens to be a $3 discount from what I used to charge as a graphic designer. I wouldn't charge for the time it takes to design the set, of course — but having set it all up, I would charge my time just in producing it. When working on the greeting cards to experiment with my time, I found that assembly of all the pieces was very time consuming, meaning that all moments were productive on the creation. Very little time would be spent just waiting for the dye cutter to finish a job (which sometimes takes a 30-40 mins, depending on the material). However, I anticipate that for The 7 of 9, with much less assembly involved, there will be the need to distinctly separate time spent waiting around and time with hands tied working on it.
Sitting around waiting for the dye cutter does cut into my life, so it's important to account for that practicality. There is the notion that if I purchased more laptops and more dye cutters, I could be busy working on it constantly, but I doubt that's the most practical direction for my studio as an artist who may want to sell a variety of different types of art eventually — not just The 7 of 9. I do need one more laptop for sure, but another dye cutter to go with it is in question. I have limited desk space. Perhaps a heating press is a better route.
Regardless, this all brought me to the conclusion that I'll need to just allow the price of The 7 of 9 to constantly change from set to set. I'll simply meticulously calculate my time spent with hands completely tied (with some cool desktop timer app), to whatever it ends up being each time. I won't worry about the idea that I should make it outrageously expensive by also charging for my waiting time, just to accomodate a business model that could allow it to be my only method of income. I'll add my materials to that more modest time estimate — and whatever it comes to is the price of that set. The price based on time will vary. I'll simply have one copy of The 7 of 9 available at a time — and when it sells, produce a new one when I can. People can sign up to be notified when it comes back into stock (if say, they want it but it's not in stock when they do).
So, in conclusion, the price of the system will be announced when the first one is ready and finally available for sale. Until then, it's a secret even from me. I don't even have a rough estimate yet of my time so we'll just have to find out by my producing it. However, practicing is going to make me fast and efficient. I've greatly increased my speed working on the greeting cards, and will increase it much more as I experiment with different materials for The 7 of 9. Even as I write this, I am waiting for the dye cutter to produce my first samples for social media of the COAGULA ⨺ 27(54) card faces. I will wait until I'm confident with my speed and efficiency before I try to sell it if I feel the only buyer is potentially tight for cash.
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