While I can’t take credit for the lovely design of these, they sure were fun to print! This card was so awesome to see come off oress because it required really tight registration. I printed the blind impresstion first, followed by the pale blue background and dotted rules, and lastly overlaid the charcoal color. I was quite impressed with the blind impression stripes. I had no idea they’d pack a punch like this. Really cool in the end, thanks Toni for designing these great cards and letting me print them!

Round I for custom letterpress business cards for the fabulous Maylin Brito who photographs infants and really captures everything innocent, pure and peaceful about babies! Her idea was to create a mark or icon out of an acorn because out of small seeds come great trees. Can’t wait to see where we go with this on the next round of proofs.

This issue I think is ever present in the design world today, especially with wedding invitations. Often I have clients come to me wanting a bid for copying another letterpress studio’s work.

A hard thing is that many presses have similar design styles and use the same stock illustration (hello Dover) which I myself use on occasion. Be aware of your competition and be familiar with other presses so when someone comes to you, you know who they are trying to rip-off (emulate) and then offer custom design as an alternative. My usual lingo is this and it usually doesn’t send clients running:

The kind rebuff:

Hi ____,

As a fine letterpress printer I value the copyrights associated with this design and feel it a conflict of interest to re-produce said design. These are beautiful invitations (business cards/logo/blog design, etc.) and they give me a good idea as to the look and feel of the event and/or piece you are trying to produce!

I generally employ a non-compete policy in that I choose not to replicate other designer’s work due to copyright and licensing infringement. I’d be happy to work with you on custom invitations though and we can use those images as a starting point for inspiration, let me know if that’s something you are interested in…

In saying this, I’m not reprimanding someone for wanting to rip another designer/printer off and am confident enough in my design skills that I know I can come up with something unique that will satisfy my client in the end. By the end of the design phase we are light-years away from the initial design presented (not that it’s better but it suits the clients needs without losing one’s design ethics and integrity).

After having a lengthy discussion on Twitter regarding who’s responsibility it is to educate: we concluded that it falls into a lot of different categories – do we educate our clients, our interns, through mentoring – our children? Or are some people just born with integrity/ethics and others not? Whatever the situation is, I’m putting it out there that to YOU MY CLIENTS, I won’t copy another’s work. I want to make it work for you and am happy to customize for you – I’m confident that we can come up with a stunning solution!

TO MY DESIGNER FRIENDS and those that read for inspiration:

If you want to use this wording please be my guest as I want others to respect my designs as I try to respect theirs! You have worked hard to come up with your style, and your collections – protect them without driving your clients out the door :)

Lastly, If someone comes to me with camera ready artwork, I make them sign a release stating that they have permission to use said file, and that I’m not responsible for printing said file. If it does indeed infringe on copyright of someone else, at least I’m not liable – I’m just acting as printer in those situations!

Okay if you have seen his work for Veer and the Salt Lake City LDS Temple, you won’t want to miss Cameron Moll’s new ROMA poster. Only 50 ava. in the black version you can get it here but be quick, these will go fast I’m sure! Letterpress printed by Bjorn Press, I’ll be ordering on today so I don’t miss out!

Andrea came to me via Etsy wanting a set of the Letterpress Sprinkles Cupcake Tags adapted for a brand system for her bakery/patisserie. A local baker in Salt Lake City, Utah she also needed something that would cross over into the online arena where she could promote her brand/shop she’d opened on Etsy as well. In the end, the designs had her two business names but we kept with the same styling and typographic nuances so that there would be visible recognition if one was searching her out but couldn’t remember a business name (like me sometimes ;) These were both letterpress printed on 110# paper in one color of ink. The business cards measure standerd 2×3.5″ and the tags measure 1.5×6″ with 1/2″ rounded corners and 3/16″ hole punch.

After completing this project, I started thinking…it’s hard to turn away orders because someone has a small budget and only needs a starter pack of business cards to get going. I really love branding for people and wanted to provide a way for it to be cost effective for my clients as well as practical on the design and  printing side. So I’ve looked at a few different options and have come up with a solution. Many times when someone comes to me, they are a new entrepreneur on a tight budget, looking for a small branding package. As a result of wanting to contribute more to my customers initial investment, I’m now offering smaller minimums if purchased in a branding suite. Here is the first of a few new packages I’ll be unveiling over the next two weeks.

THE SMALL LETTERPRESS BRANDING PACKAGE! And to announce the launch, I’m GIVING AWAY one set this month (March).

THE GOODS:
1 set of 100 standard business cards – square corners. Letterpress printed, 1 color ink front sided printing. Printed on 110# Lettra paper.

1 set of 50 tags (either 2×2″ or 1.5×6″) – 3/16″ hole punch and rounded corners. Letterpress printed, 1 color ink (same as business cards). Front sided printing. Printed on 110# Lettra paper.

1 banner OR shop avatar OR blog masthead provided in a .jpg file

1 logo provided in a .jpg file

All custom designed for you (or incorporating your own logo) – 3 digital designs presented, 2 rounds of revisions.

LASTLY, HOW TO ENTER: To be counted you must do the following:

1) blog about your business and why you want the branding package. Goals, inspiration or how you got started are all great ways to introduce your business to me.

2) link back to The Dingbat’s Agenda ( http://blog.dingbatpress.com) and my shop (http://dingbatpress.etsy.com)

3) come back to this post and comment with a link to your specific blog post (links to your blog home will be disqualified, it must be your specific post)

Lastly, the more you promote the giveaway, the more I’ll know you want it. Tweet it, Facebook it and show the world you know you want it! All entries need the first three points above to qualify for selection, the rest of the social media plugs are up to you!

Contest ends March 30th, 2010 at 12:00am MST – I’ll choose a winner and announce it on April 1st!
Once a winner is selected and notified, they must respond within 1 week to claim their package. Production will be 4-6 weeks from start to ship date.

After being enamored with Jessica Morrisy’s business cards and Sweetie’s Bakeshop proofs, Jenn wanted an adaptation for her letterpress wedding invites. Going for a light/dark combo, the next round will explore some brown in replacement of the light blue. Latte maybe? I can’t wait to see how these turn out!

If you are interested in an estimate for wedding invitations contact me and fill out the form, I’d love to work with you!

These Wall Envy letterpress cards shipped ages ago, but yet again I found them while archiving my photos. Vickie was really inspirational to work with. She knew exactly what she wanted and was great about providing the client brief to help direct me into the direction we should go. She an her hubby are a great photography team with killer modern taste. Right now I’m working on helping them re-brand their website and blog and all I can say is AWESOME! If you need more than just business cards, please just contact me for pricing. I’m reasonable and really love helping you get the bigger picture together with all your design elements in a row.

Letterpress printed business cards, 1/1 on 110# paper. 2.5×2.5″ Square cards with 1/4″ rounded corners.

In following yesterday’s SpudNut post, I felt it suiting to show these business card design proofs that were done awhile ago for Sweetie’s Bakeshop. Delicious and delicate, these cards were really fun to design. With this specific design we needed to make sure the pool color was light enough in value so as not to pose any problems with the pink over-print. Value can sometimes be an issue in letterpress printing (and offset too) because inks are transparent by nature so there can be show-through which needs to be accounted for when presenting designs. Thankfully the client was more than flexible with the color so we could make sure there was perfection in print quality and color hue. Can’t wait to show you the finished product!

People think us country folk aren’t refined and sophisticated but let me prove you wrong, I can’t tell you how many lovely people I interact with daily in my community. There are some really great friends to be made who will bake just about anything when you have a baby or just have a bad day (with crying babies in the background ;) -ENTER SPUDNUTS – I don’t like to get too personal because it’s not in my nature, but its been a rough few weeks with diabetes management with my 5 year old. High carb foods, especially things like donuts are the bane of my existence. Not because he’s diet restricted, but more because he’s sensitive to certain foods with carbs. Even when we calculate how much insulin needs to be injected, if the insulin hits his system faster than the food digests, he can have a serious reaction which we found out when cooking these. I feel like it is a complicated algorythm in which I’ll never learn no matter how hard I study quantum physics, molecular biology or advanced mathematics. So I just continue on being a mom and designer.

We made some SpudNuts from our famous Idaho Potatoes and crazy blood sugars ensued. DUH. Granted they were about 100 carbs each, so with David’s insulin to carb ratio that equaled 5 units of insulin. He usually has about 15 units a day so that was a ton more than he usually gets. That will be the last time that I’ll attempt to cover for something totally unreasonable for his little tummy.

Thankfully he wasn’t too keen on the cinnamon/sugar dusted SpudNuts so I got to eat all of those. However he really loved the sprinkled variety. So we decided to make mini-SpudNuts and survived the sugar-high and following insulin crash. Rounded out at about 26 carbs each, they were the perfect solution to our donut exploration. Although still high for some, I feel that in our house if we restrict all sorts of treats then it will only backfire. David is such a good boy, I just couln’t say no to the donuts when that was his request for the recipe of the week. And we survived with only one blood sugar reading above 200 for the day.

Look at that pink vanilla bean nutmeg glaze just dripping with goodness. Yea for smaller portion sizes and for smart country friends who really know how to cook in smaller portion sizes (I can’t take full credit for sizing the recipe down).

This was a one color letterpress invitation suite for Penny and Brian. Penny was super easy to work with and so enjoyable. I have to say, the whole time I was designing this invitation I kept humming Penny Lane by The Beatles! I know, original. It’s like when people call out to my “Yo Adrienne!” from Rocky – I digress. Penny’s whole wedding will be wildflowers and outdoors in the wilderness. Since I’ve lived in the bedroom community of Jackson Hole, this was fun to work on because it’s right in the vein of living rural. We have a strip of grass on the outside of our driveway with an 80×6′ garden of wildflowers. It was so amazing last summer to see the California poppies, lupine, aster, hawkweed and more blooming in bright color in my front yard. Can you tell I’m itching for spring?!

If you are a budget bride looking for letterpress, but aren’t sure you can afford it, you should consider a one color invitation. This one is simple and minimalist however I’ve seen some really intricate and beautiful wedding invitations done as a one color as well. If you are interested in an estimate, don’t hesitate to ask!

Bored one night, I thought I’d have some fun on Zazzle and become a shoe designer for a moment. Seeing that there just aren’t as many cute boys shoes out there I thought I’d do some mid-mod keds for the summer! Here’s what I came up with in a few hours.

Both sets letterpress printed on 110# Lettra Paper. A6 (4.5×6″) and paired with matching envelopes.

Kelly’s is a great example of the square flap envelope. You can get yourself a letterpress personalized set of notes then pick typeface, dingbat, ink and envelope color. Once your purchase is made, I’ll generate a digital proof for you, then upon approval, these will go on press and ship usually within 12-15 business days!

I don’t claim to be a web designer. They have a unique art that I don’t quite grasp but would like to learn more about. As I’ve kept up my blog and coded my own website over the last 4 years I feel like I’m finally able to grasp HTML and basic CSS now. Dreamweaver is my software of choice because I think Adobe understands how challenged I am when it comes to back-end coding/programming. As I’ve dabbled more in the web arena I’ve had the opportunity to see clients brands taken from our initial business cards into their website and it really rewarding for me to see the whole identity come together. Here’s a quick blog banner I’ve been working on and we are implementing a blogsite combo for ease of client content management. This has been a great change of pace for me and reminds me why variety is important in my work. While I love letterpress, I’m glad I have different seasons (wedding season, tax shelter season, holiday season, wholesale buying season) to keep my focused and also to keep my ADD tendencies in check. Enjoy!