Creating Your Own Custom GC Designs

boomtime gives you the ability to upload your own GC designs, thereby providing a more unique brand and identity for your customers.

There are three steps to creating your own GC designs:

  1. Create a JPEG graphics template that meets our requirements and your branding style;
  2. Upload your JPEG graphics template using the "Add Design" task under GC Designs; and
  3. Tell boomtime where to put the important fields (i.e. To, From, For, Message and/or Logo, if you did not build these elements into your GC Image).

1. Creating a JPEG graphics template as your GC design

It's usual to hire a graphics artist to help, if you're not familiar with creating graphic images.

To create a custom GC design, a high-res JPEG file is needed that consists of your custom GC design, and is 670 pixels wide and 490 pixels high. That custom GC design should also include your logo, any relevant contact information you want (i.e. postal address, phone number, etc), as well as room for the fields boomtime places on a GC design when a GC is sold. More

One of the best ways to see what you need, is to examine previews of your own GC's in boomtime. Pretend you are a customer, and try out various GC designs. Put different information in the To, From, For and Message fields. Notice how those fields are addressed in the different GC designs, and make sure you incorporate those needs into your GC design.

2. Uploading your custom GC design to boomtime

To upload your awesome new JPG file, go to GC Designs and select the "Add Design" task.  On the Add GC Design page, specify a name for your design (your customers will see this - be descriptive but brief). Also, decide whether you want this custom GC design to be included in "Most Popular", which are the designs that show by default on the first load of your IGC page.  Finally, select a "Design category:", which represents which group of categories this particular custom GC design will be placed. It's common to use categories for events, occasions or particular holidays.

Then, skip down to "New JPEG design:", and hit the "Browse..." button to retrieve your JPEG graphics template. When you have the proper file selected, hit "Update" to upload your JPEG graphics template.

3. Placing "to/from/for" fields on your custom GC design

Once you have successfully uploaded your JPEG graphics template to boomtime, it's now time to tell boomtime where to place the important fields (i.e. where to put the data for To, From, For, Message, etc). This is sometimes tricky, so please Contact Us if you need any help.

Some tips and tricks to help you placing important fields on your custom GC design:

  • Field placement is accomplished by using pixel coordinates. The first field represents "X" or the horizontal coordinate, and the second field represents "Y" or the vertical coordinate. "0,0" represents the top-left of the GC design. "670,0" represents the top-right. "0,490" represents the bottom-left. And, "670,490" represents the bottom-right.
  • When the "button" is checked for any field (i.e. To, From, etc, where you see "(x,y)"), you can take your cursor down to the actual GC design at the bottom of the page and click where you want the field to be placed, and boomtime will place the field coordinates in the appropriate box for that field.
  • The "Alignment:" drop-down tells boomtime which portion of the field you want placed on the specified coordinates. For example, picking "center" for "Logo:" tells boomtime to center the logo over the specified coordinates.
  • To NOT display a particular field (i.e. your website or phone number), make the coordinates "0,0" for the particular field.
  • Remember alignment: If you have two fields roughly in-line with each other, make sure they have the same "X" or "Y" coordinate, whichever is relevant, to help prevent the fields from looking uneven. For example, suppose you didn't put your website address in the GC design, so you want boomtime to print it on your GC design for you.  You've decided you'd like the web address on the bottom-left, opposite the expiration date, which you want on the bottom-right. You would make your web address "Alignment:" left, and pick the relevant (x,y) coordinates. Then, make your expiration date "Alignment:" right, and pick the relevant (x,y) coordinates, but make sure the "Y" coordinate is the same as what you picked for your web address to make sure these two fields look even.
  • Avoid placing fields right on the edge of the GC design. It looks nicer when fields are placed at least 4 pixels from an edge.
  • Remember: The customer inputs the To, From and Message. This means the data from these fields can become quite long. You want to make sure your GC design (and field placements) have enough space for long fields (yet look good for smaller fields).