I’m taking a short holiday break until the 4th of January, thus the no-posting on this here blog. However I thought I’d pass on some business card letterpress eye-candy until then to hold you over.

These letterpress business cards were printed 2/1 in charcoal and warm yellow. I liked how the client wanted to put a descriptive blurb describing the type of photography she shoots to differentiate herself, and immediately convey her style. The cards ended up being quite substantial as they were printed on 220# paper (required for double sided printing) and make quite a punch when handed out to clients. Lanne provided the design on these and pulled from my aspen mini notes for the backside imagery. After a few rounds of tweaking this was what we finally came up with together.

I have this amazing book, by Clarence P Horeuning (sp?) that I love to draw from on occasion. Although I did have a heck of a time trying to track it down…it has since been a great resource for vintage letterpress/ad cuts. Published in the late 1800s, then again in the 30s and again in the 50s. I’m not sure what my edition is but it’s OLD, I think 1934. It has all these amazing illustrations/cuts that I’ve started to scan in and archive in my “to use someday” file. There’s also a sister companion with Victorian type, initial caps and letter-forms that are incredible. Like hundreds of pages.

Enter Karen. She is a lovely sister and is ordering a set of notes for someone special in her family (sibling). She wanted oak tress, and I thought “YES! finally I get to use some of these beauties!”

Now I know these might not even be oaks, but they look like it to me. Since they’re a little ambiguous I think they pass quite well for oaks.

So I missed posting yesterday, too much letterpress jobs going out the door! To make up for it though,  I’ve got lots of free gift tag and place card goodies (personal use) for download this holiday season. Click on the image to be directed to my flickr stream where you can download the original image file direct to your desktop – there’s more after the jump so head on over and get some goods!

The original file is letter (8.5×11″) saved at 300% so just scale to size when printing out at home or the local print-shop and have fun! Cards measure 2×3.5″ when trimmed.

As a little gift to you, I’ll have surprises all week for you to download and prepare for the holidays! Free printable goodie #1, Dingbat Gift-wrap :) Click on the images to be taken to my Flickr stream where you can download the large image file by clicking on the images below:

The original file is tabloid (11×17″) saved at 200% so just scale to size when printing out at home or the local print-shop and have fun!

These letterpress business card designs are from the proofing Round II for Alfred & Emma of Alfred Salom Photograpy. The first round of designs and concept was a good starting point for birds in flight, however Emma wanted to push the designs a little more and explore a few repeating pattern options in addition to what we had previously hashed out. The silver/grey got tweaked a little more this round in saturation to add a punch when letterpress printed.

All business card orders receive complementary design services that are built right into the price, something not all printers offer with their pricing packages. Of course you can submit your own files as well, but this is a great incentive to update your identity/brand at a fraction of the cost. Some of my clients start from scratch, others come to me with a logo and then we work together to establish layout, typography and design that is cohesive with the look and feel of the brand. A handful of my clients have ready-made files which I then pre-flight and edit to fit the nature of letterpress printing if necessary. What ever your needs are I would love to work it out with you!

These letterpress escort tags were shipped out a few weeks back for a bride who was doing a modern holiday wedding. Her colors were brown, plum and cream.  Angela came to me with a few ideas in mind: she was having an Italian and travel themed wedding and was looking for a few different options to explore in the designs. One option was to explore a vineyard illustration, rough and modern as they were celebrating at a great winery and she thought that might be a way to bring across the location in the details.

She had also mentioned the possibility of doing a luggage tag or passport styled tag as they were going to name their tables after cities in Italy – you know, Rome, Tuscany, and the likes.

Our last option explored was to reflect her main floral arrangements, which were going to be made up of roses and anemones so we obviously explored that route as well.

In the end she went with  the anemone favor tags and escort tags that would be hand-calligraphied with guest’s name and table number on them.

Letterpress printed on 110# soft white Lettra in a grey/brown and matched with 1/8″ satin ribbon.

These letterpress moving announcements shipped out recently to one of my favorite clients, Sarah. When she came to me wanting some moving announcements, she had an idea in mind and then I went to the drawing board and came up with some options.

Her main concept was to have some sparrows in flight and wanted the wording “We’ve migrated” on there. SO cute! Since she had recently had a baby and had some custom letterpress announcements printed we wanted to keep a similar feel to this piece yet still have it be a fun project. Printed in navy ink on Arturo 240GSM paper with deckle edge, interior and exterior with printed envelopes, I’m sure they’ve migrated all over Australia by now to announce their move.

I just shipped these Saturday for a client in Oakland: letterpress printed, 3 exterior ink colors and an interior message, I’m really happy with how they turned out and that they (all 500 of them) are out the door! You can get a single East Bay holiday card for yourself just like this one (blank interior) in the shop NOW! I think the cranes are my favorite part of the whole card.

I don’t know if you are familiar with the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, so if not I’ll indulge you:

There were these princesses that seduced men and took them to an underground kingdom to dance the night away. The king was offering a reward to anyone who could solve the mystery of the twelve dancing princesses (and find out where all the other princes had disappeared to). The royal gardener wanted a shot at solving the mystery and a chance of winning a princess for his bride – so he befriended the youngest princess in hopes to get invited for a night of dancing. When finally invited, he was required to follow the princesses to the secret kingdom. While underground he passed through a forest of silver and gold and stole a branch of leaves off each tree. In a nutshell, the royal gardener solved the mystery, but only by passing through the underground kingdom and by bringing back proof to the king – oh wait and he stole the heart of the youngest daughter who confessed it all to the king in the end.

These letterpress gift cards/enclosures/escort cards reminded me of what I had imagined the forest of gold to be like. Bright, gleaming, and elegant you can get these as a set of five or order in bulk for an event if you’d like!

Check out these AWESOME re-purposed clocks made from old china and plates by FaireHoure. All the clocks are one of a kind and great for those looking to start a clock fetish! I’ve never been one to hang dishes on my walls, however these clocks might change my mind. Ranging from $17 – $60 these would be a great house warming, bridal-shower, or holiday gift at a great price! Enjoy.

All product featured by The Dingbat’s Agenda is un-sponsored. No gifts, product or exchanges were made for the feature of these items, I just post them because I like it :)

I realized when organizing my photos last night that these totally haven’t been blogged yet!

Letterpress business cards, printed 2/1 on 600gsm/220# Lettra paper. Designed by Deuce Creative for the client and then printed via letterpress.

You may have seen my Letterpress Mod Mimosa cards awhile back that were available as recipe and 4Bar notes. They were a pain the bumsky to print. Registration was a bust everytime, and they became the dreaded product in my collection – until now! I’ve revised and tweaked the design a little and here is a peek at the new product shots!

To purchase, click the images to be re-directed to the letterpress store. They come paired with black index folders for easy organization in your recipe box too so if you don’t have a box and need an excuse, look no further!