July30th
The photos say it all. Custom branding, 3/0 letterpress business cards on 110# paper. Enjoy!
To request and estimate for custom letterpress business cards or letterpress CD/DVD sleeves (we’ll help you with branding too if you’d like) then start here to get a super speedy quote from us!
July11th
Hi everyone! If you are reading this via RSS, come visit to see the blog re-design! I can happily say that I am SO excited for a new launch and updated typography to the old dingbat. Over the next month I’ll be unrolling some new site features that will help with flow and navigation as well as your user experience over here. Thanks for your patience this last little while. I’m happy to put the drama behind me and get this all wrapped up!
Abby is a very talented photographer and asked us to refresh her brand as well as print her business collateral. We printed A6 2/0 notes on 110# paper, as well as matching printed envelopes along with her business cards and were involved in designing her client CD/DVD that a third-party manufactured for her.
These were some of the final designs presented for Abby before they went on press. She was going for a simple calligraphic swash to tie in her current logo and it’s typography. Sometimes I’ll work with another employee on a project to help them learn the process of design and how it ties into letterpress printing. My employee Makayla is awesome at creating pattern so with some art direction she was able to present a few concepts for Abby’s cards throughout the process. The patterns on the rear of this card specifically were put together by Makayla after briefing her on Abby’s goals for the project and getting feedback from previous rounds. In the end the card was a 2/1 business card, letterpress printed on 220# super thick paper. If you are looking for a great photographer in the DC area, click on Abby’s masthead below to link to her blog and view her work! Thanks Abby for being so great to work with!
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.
May12th
Kim and her fiance are fans of Lord of the Rings and are having a beautiful wedding in the majestic Lake Tahoe. Inspiration was derived from Celtic imagery and she wanted a sophisticated feel to the invites that somewhat reflected the LOTR elvish mood. Her main inspiration was from the view below – that of her reception site over-looking the beautiful lake!
We took the shape of the windows and softened them up creating a frame around Kim’s invitation typography. She was looking for a whimsical script typeface, and blind impression of a pattern that flooded the rest of the invite. The final printed piece: 2/0 letterpress printed on 220#/600GSM paper. Paired with pool envelopes and matching dark pool ink.
Photographed by Geri – she’s been working for me since December and has quite the eye for photography. Stop by her blog and say Hi, will ya! She’s fabulous. For an engagement Snowing Hearts photo shoot or you can see her San Francisco trip City by the Bay photos that are amazing too!
April29th
Note my wedding ring there in the corner – yep still missing. This is tragic!!! Send me remembrance vibes please! Anyways, these cards were a blast to design. Kenyatta is a great artist, so good at so many things. She had typography established and her logo and my job was to utilize those elements to create a one of a kind layout.
Above are the press matches to her specified Pantone numbers. These letterpress cards were a 2/1 color job, with 1/4″ rounded corners. Printed on 600GSM/220# paper these were super substantial upon being finished.
Don’t you just love these bright colors? I felt like I was being transported back into the 80′s. Thanks Kenyatta for being so fun to work with and for really letting me explore some wild options for this card. On another note, has anyone seen the trailer for TRON Legacy? This tells you I’m a nerd because I totally can’t wait to see it. These cards totally bring me back to the Tron days! Okay, I’ve said totally WAY too many times in this blog post. I’m a dork.
March12th
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!
February10th
I’ve been holding out on posting these letterpress biz cards because they are just SO cool, and I didn’t know how to do the write up. I think they are one of my favorite to date on the blind impression scale. If you saw the proofs for Jessica’s two sister photography businesses you’ll know that there were two sets of cards produced. One for her family clients and the other for her goddess clients. You’ll notice on her proofs that there was a light grey outline of her logo on the blue/grey samples. That translates well to a beautiful blind impression. This was the first time I outlined a logo instead of silhouetting it. The outlined impression around and the patten ended up looking sort of quilted because the paper pillowed around the perimeter as well as on the interior. Check it out!
January14th
Add one of these Be.MINE letterpress cards to your stash by entering the Letterpress Valentine’s Giveaway below!
These came about with all the html and CSS coding I’ve been doing on some new surprises. I thought it would be great to show some love to all those programmer nerds in our lives! You can get a single Be.MINE card in the shop or try to win one with the other goods in the giveaway linked to above! Printed as a 2 color/blank interior 4Bar letterpress folded card. Paired with a matching 4Bar envelope in blossom.
January13th
Yet another fabulous photographer, Jessica Morrisy had me create not just one custom business card, but two for her two sister companies. She already had her logo, so I created layouts and pulled elements from the brand to add texture and content to her designs.
The first card is for her main business, the second for her boudoir photography clients.
Jessica was really great to work with, as she already had a good idea about what she was looking for so things went quick on the design end. I like how the direction from Jessica indicated that both of these be similar, yet still have their own feel to each brand. It was a little more challenging to keep them in harmony with each other. Check back soon for photos of the final printed piece!
January11th
I’ve had a few emails requesting to see the design proofs on Jessica’s cards so without carrying on much further here they are!
These card designs started as something more kinetic. From the beginning, the cards were going to have a blind impression and it was a matter of how to convey it best for Jessica’s brand and for the letterpress business cards. In the end she decided to simplify and focus specifically on her logo and contact info. To see the final letterpres printed cards and tags feel free to check it out!
January7th
These letterpress business cards and business gift tags were shipped over the holidays to another amazing photographer, Jessica Johnston. We went through a fair amount of proofs, and interestingly enough, round after round, more and more got eliminated from the card. I always try to consider using less in a design, as one of my professors once told me, “Take your favorite thing from your artwork/design or proof and eliminate it. It will become a better piece by doing so.”
I can’t tell you how many times that still rings true. I think part of being a designer is realizing how to humble yourself or your work. Many times when I am stuck, it’s because I think the design is perfect with that one little element. So often though when eliminating that specific element, I’ve just taken away my biggest crutch and can move on to a better and more refined design. Not all designs are subject to beautiful negative space and tasteful minimalism, however I think this piece pulls it off well.
Cards printed on 110# Lettra with 1/4″ rounded corners in tinted warm cyan with a blind impression.
Tags printed on 220# Lettra with 1/4″ rounded corners – same inks as cards. Punched with a 3/16″ hole, paired with matching 1/8″ ribbon. Get your own letterpress business cards here!
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.
December14th
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!
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!
