July13th
Kate is a quite talented writer and asked me to develop her name/brand so that she can continue to grow her brand/blog as well as writing style into a larger audience. For the first round we explored typographic options for her name that were minimalist and retro. Although none of these were the direction she ended up heading in, I thought I’d show you our starting point for her designs!
June24th
This is Adam, our 18 mo. old neighbor. After a tragic incident on the 24th, he has been life-flighted to the closest children’s hospital (SLC) and is in the ICU fighting for his life. He is 18 months and the youngest child in his family. The hospital is 350 miles from Idaho, and both of his parents are down there praying for a miracle and full recovery for Adam – waiting by his bedside. The rest of their kids are here in Idaho with extended family and neighbors. Susan & George are amazing parents, live a life of service to others, and have so much love for each of their children. My heart is breaking to see this happen to such a wonderful family. Please help and be entered to win some awesome goods!
To raise money for Adam’s life-flight and hospital bill, I am offering a free set of (100) letterpress 2 color wedding invitations and reply cards for every $2000 worth of money raised. That means if we raise $10k there will be (5) FIVE people who could win.
Winners will be randomly selected on July 31st. To qualify, you need to contribute $10 to Adam’s PayPal fund (button below). I know via my stats that I get at least 400 unique visitors a day to this site. That means that if 200 contribute, then we’ve hit our first giveaway package! AND for every $10 you contribute you’ll get an extra entry to up your chances of winning!
You may remember Jessica’s custom design proofs for her suite that was blogged about awhile back. Well it’s time to unveil the finished piece!
Jessica’s invites are a 1 color suite – remember that you are entered to win a 2 color suite! Click to donate and help Adam, all proceeds will go to help pay for his life-flight and hospital stay!
June8th
This was one of my first Small Branding Letterpress Packages that shipped after the product listed in my shop. Candace creates beautiful biking suits for the lady-like tom-boy made of natural fabric and utilizing their weaves as an alternative to all the synthetic bike-wear out there. Linnen, tweeds and a myriad of other fabrics are part of this collection of bike wear that you can casually wear but are nice enough to wear to the office as well. With a hint of Art Deco charm, these suits are a great improvement on the spandex bike uniform.
Candace needed new branding and wanted to really play up the Art Deco side of things. We ended up going with a simple vintage bike artwork and then played in her CC monogram with some art deco patterning framing the info on her card.
Typefaces are reflective of the time-period and she went for a clean registration black ink to set off her brand and tags for her letterpress collateral.
Click on Candace’s banner to be taken to her Etsy Shop and to see all of her wonderful creations for fashionable biker ladies!
May31st
You may remember Maylin Brito’s proofs that were up on the blog awhile ago. Sometimes proofs take a totally different direction through the process and it is awesome getting to know the client and figure out where things end up. We ended up steering away form the acorn concept because it just wasn’t quite working out with all the revisions we kept working on. Instead Maylin opted for simple black and white as her current packaging is black and we didn’t want to stray too far from her current brand equity with these cards.
Letterpress printed as registration black, and with a blind impression on 110# paper.
April21st
Spring has finally arrived here temporarily (its supposed to snow again this weekend) but for now we are enjoying the lovely weather! These letterpress wedding invitations were done in 2007 but I’ve been having one of my employees re-photograph all of my wedding suites since my camera is out of commission for the time being. Let me tell you, she is doing a fabulous job with styling. I am LOVING what she’s done so far and just can’t wait to show you all!
These poppy invites were the inspiration behind the other poppy product in The SHOP.
The pieces included invitation, reception insert, thank you note, ceremony insert, and bridal luncheon insert.
If you are interested in a custom letterpress wedding suite from Dingbat Press, contact us, we’d love to work with you!
April7th
Jessica was looking for traditional, black and romantic letterpress invitations with a hint of oversized script typography for the bride and groom’s names. She wanted clean, classy and sophisticated with light pink envelopes – this job is in the final design phases and I can’t wait for it to go on press!
February23rd
These letterpress business cards were for the fabulous Kerri McConnell who is another really fun and incredible photographer. Man I love you photographers! Kerri was looking for something, fun, fresh and modern (as you’ll note in her by-line). She was really drawn to the coach logo, something with a little vintage flair with a hint of modern clean lines and typography.
We utilized Bernhard Fashion and Estilo to give it an updated typographic vibe with a hint of Art Deco. Kerri’s old website had a lot of pink and she didn’t want to stray from that color as it’s one of her favorites. In the end we came up with a great registration black and pink design utilizing polka dots and a double-stroke border reminiscent of one of the old Coach logos. Thanks Kerri for being such a doll to work with, these were a really fun project for me to design and print!
Printed via letterprses on Lettra 110#/300GSM paper with 1/4″ rounded corners, 2 ink colors. Custom designed, you can get a sample set for yourself here to see all the different cards I’ve done and then contact me for an estimate for some for yourself!
February18th
Adam deals in rare books and manuscripts. He was looking for letterpress business cards along the line of something simple and one color. Here’s what I came up with for the first round:
February8th
These letterpress calling cards were done for a client who LOVES to fish. He wanted classic black type and a dingbat. Although a little larger than dingbat size, this fish is sure to catch your eye.
I think they turned out well, don’t you? There’s nothing like rich registration black printed on crisp white paper. I used to hate printing black until I learned the art of mixing registration black – back in black baby!
January6th
These tags are for a dress exchange start-up looking to rent/exchange couture dresses for events, weddings, galas or whatever suits your fancy. The client needed letterpress business tags to ship with dresses : here we are in the first round of design phases.
After watching Project Runway and seeing Robert Best, it was amazing to see how his work translated into the collectible Fashion Barbie over the last ten years. Since I now have a little girl old enough to want to play with Barbie I have started looking at all the fabulous fashion that she’s worn over the years. This project was great to get me back into the fashion spirit and search the archives of all the beautiful dolls out there. Because really, isn’t Barbie the epitome of couture and celebrity?
Pulled from old and new, these tags are my own interpretations of some of my favorite couture dresses over the years, some from Barbie, some from fashion designers – derived, revised and finally illustrated by yours truly.
October2nd
In wrapping up autumn week I thought I’d show you this experiment with edge painting. I know there are a few processes, all of which seem tedious. I recently happened upon someone who had mentioned they like to use a stamp pad/ink pad to achieve this effect so I thought I’d give it a go.
With the Lettra paper, it seemed to give great coverage on the sides however absorbed pretty quickly into the paper and onto the front. As you can see on the fanned cards, there is a little bleed that carries through to the front. The bane of every edge painters existence. I think with these cards it looks great as it adds a nice distressed element however don’t think I’ll be trying that technique on invitations any time soon.
If you’d like to score a set of 10 of these, comment to win!
The GOODS: 1 set of 10, 3×5″ cards paired with red envelopes.
Letterpress printed in black ink. Edge painted with red ink.
1 comment per person, randomly selected sometime Sunday October 3rd. Good luck!
UPDATED! Congrats KATY! Lucky number 13.
July13th
May13th
This isn’t the final printed piece but a press proof on test paper. Calligraphy done by the lovely Kathryn of Della Carta Calligraphy. This is a sneak peak of a custom process where I generated designs and layouts, they were passed on to Kathryn and then passed back for final layout touches. I really enjoyed working with such a beautiful pen-woman! And the letterpress, it was sweet being on press expirementing with different papers. More to come on the details of this project over the next few days!
Donate $10 to help a 20 mo. old baby fight for life! - By donating you'll be entered to win a set of 100 letterpress invites (2 color) and RSVPs OR a set of baby announcements/thank you notes!!
Update: 7.11 Adam has been moved from PICU to NTU (Neuro Trauma Unit) where he is miraculously doing well. He is finally breathing on his own, they've taken out his PICC line, and they are on the slow road to recovery. He has been determined as having an anoxic brain injury and the outcome is still unkown. Right now there is positive feedback from the doctors and only time will tell. His brain is about a year behind what it should be. So for a 20 mo. old baby that puts him at re-learning to sit up on his own. He will continue to receive treatment at Primary Children's Medical Center. Your donations will go towards his hospital bills, and you'll be entered to win some sweet wedding invites or baby announcements! Click the picture above to donate!
