Artist Trading Cards
ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) are playing card sized, little works of art that are sized two and a half inches by three and a half inches and are to be traded, not sold. Normally they are traded face to face or by snail mail. The main idea of them is to share your artists endevours.
I was involved in some ‘real’ swaps a while back and it was all good but I found postage costs horrific - the concept was not (and at the time of writing, still isn’t) really all that well known in New Zealand. The swaps I have encountered have been very limited by place numbers.
The two and a half inch by 3 and a half inch format is a really nice format to work with. Because they are so small, there is not that feeling of dread (oh how am I going to fill this space up?)
For those of us who started out digiscrapping, the main thing to remember is that because they are small, it’s really easy to overload your layout. My personal opinion is that one main pic or block of text as the focus is the kind that looks best.
Digital ATCs don’t seem to be as accepted as much as ‘real ones’ and I’d really like to see this change, as I am ‘pro’ the digital format and postage costs can be prohibitive.