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In the time that I had my CMC, I found that, for the most part, the design templates provided by Wizard were so rich and varied that it was hardly necessary to create from scratch.
However, in keeping with the theory that it's the simple ideas that often prove to be the best, out of all of the samples that we displayed in the gallery, this is the one that turned the most heads.
Although this was an easy exercise on a CMC, I would not attempt to recreate it on my Keencut Oval. (Note that each ellipse is a different size and shape, and, of course, positioning is absolutely critical.)
(Please feel free to add your own designs to this thread.)
John - Did you cut this as two seperate mounts - if I cut this design as a combined double mount i would have score lines on the middle bars - It may well be that other CMCs software handle this differently, but the valiani is fairly clumsy when it comes to combined shapes. Cut as two mounts combined after cutting I get the same result - looks good.
I always cut my mounts separately, this one included.
However now that I'm using the manual Valiani, I cut double mounts stacked. I'm a bit uneasy about the way the bottom mount gets scored, but I do it anyway because of the convenience.
It's good to see everyone discussing new designs, and I couldn't agree with you more about 'keeping it simple'. When I train new customers there can be a slight tendancy to go a bit OTT with some of the new designs at their disposal so I always show them the best simple yet sylish combinations, I think the old saying 'less is more' sums it up quite well!
Refering back to your 3 ovals design the Wizard has a very clever feature that combines shapes together at the press of a button. ie when you have laid out the 3 ovals as on this design, you can combine the shapes so on the top layer instead of cutting 3 seperate items it simply cuts round in 1 motion which prevents potential problems were designs overlap.
Sam makes a good point about the first experience of owning a CMC - it does anything you want - so you start cutting away trying hard to use every single function.
Well the result is predictable and you cant understand why people aren't impressed.
But the real advantage of the cmc is its accuracy, precision and speed. I rarely cut V grooves manually - No hassle now and customers seem to like them. Box liners - cut and folded they just drop into the frame in one piece. Multi apertures - That ability to design on screen allows you to get the balance of the apertures just right. You may no longer be using every function available but the ability to design simplicity is used to its full.
The next feature that I must explore is the ability to create in coreldraw then combine the printout of a design with the ability to accurately cut - huge opportunity there for overdoing things - must remember - KISS
Not sure exactly how long it took him to design but I imagine a couple of hours (really depends on the users abilitys in Coral Draw)
Markw -Coral draw is fun to play with and you can get some fantastic results as you can see from this part of the forum. TIP - Always remember to smooth of as many vector points as you can before you copy it through to improve your cut quality.
Im not sure which ones can and cannot cut fonts.
But I suppose at the end of the day the only one we use in the shop to any extent is the photo2 font where the customers can put photos behind.
like this
some webdings and windings are good for extending the cut art library, but as pointed out by Mark (above) 99 percent of mounts most people want are rectangles with rectangular windows!
The whole board IIRC is 600 x 700mm.... the balls are approximately 7mm in diameter, spaced approx 2-3mm apart.
It took me around 15 hours to design completely, it is actually 2 cuts... the first being a double mount of the cream and brown board. The second, the 'baize' single mount, with the V-grooves in. Then I have to piece together the 2 sets to make up the triple mount.
The balls are then attached to the back of the green board in the right places! (off cuts of colours).
It is a tricky piece to cut, as occasionally the ball cut-outs move when the Valiani is cutting, so I have to be quick with it to catch it.
Well I say I have... I mean I had to be... I worked for the ex boyfriend doing this, and since splitting up, havent been there to cut one.
If you need any further tips, please let me know. (The surrounding cut-outs are standard 6" x 4" for typical photos)
