From the inbox...

You may remember a post I did back in October, prior to the most recent Presidential Election about some cards that I designed and printed in support of the Obama campaign.  You don't remember that post?  Well then, you can go back and read about it here.  We ended up giving away all of the cards as a result of that posting and today I received a lovely e-mail message from one of the recipients.  She wrote: 

I'm one of the people that you gave an Obama card to back in October and I just wanted to let you know how it ended up. I framed it and gave it to my mom for Christmas.  I was a little nervous about it because it was a good bit smaller in comparison and not made by me as my sisters presents were, but she absolutely loved it.  (She definitely got a little teary eyed.) 

 

Thank you so much!

She even sent us a picture of the framed card we sent her, which you can see at the top of this post.  Pretty cool, don't you think?  It's always great to hear from people who are enjoying your work.  

In case you were wondering, I no longer have any more of the Obama cards from the original printing.  However, because of their popularity, I am considering doing a second printing, which I will post about here, when and if it ends up happening.  It won't be for a little while, due to the number of different custom jobs for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and baby showers/announcements that are currently in the works, but I will definitely keep you posted.  

Thanks so much Caitlan, and I'm so glad you and your mom loved the card!

Linda & James are Getting Married!

Our lovely spring wedding busyness is continuing nicely and I will be showing off several new sets of wedding stationery to you very soon!  This is one of the first of those newly completed sets.  A month or so ago, I was contacted by a lovely bride-to-be in New York City named Linda, who had fallen in love with the custom letterpress wedding invitations that we created last year for Mrs. Coconut on Wedding Bee.  If you want to see the post we did on that set of invitations, with pictures, on this blog, you can find it here.  Linda is getting married in June at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and thought that a design similar to the one we did for Lynn (Mrs. Coconut) would be just perfect for her!  Linda wanted to use different colors and fonts and change the design up just a little bit, but still keep pretty much the same layout and design elements.  You can see the complete suite we designed and printed for her above!

Here is Linda's invitation by itself.  We used a very nice spring green for the scroll pattern, the birds, and the couple's names and a chocolate brown for the little dots and the rest of the text.  The invitation is a standard A7 size and was printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Pearl White paper.  Isn't it pretty?  Below is an even closer close-up so you can see the pretty fonts and colors that we used: 

The invitation was paired with a coordinating green invitation envelopes from Green Paper Company.  We used the same script font that you can see above for their return address that was printed on the flap.  The return address was printed in chocolate brown, which stood out really nicely against the green.  Check it out below: 

Linda also ordered a set of reply cards to compliment her suite.  For the reply card envelopes we used the same green from Green Paper Company and printed the same style of address on the front of a 4bar envelope.  You can see that here: 

Her reply cards are double-sided.  The front side features the reply information along with a space for the guests names and a reply-by date and the back side features a space where the guests can write a message to the couple.  Here is a photo of the front and back side of the reply card with the envelope: 

To save some money on printing and platemaking, we decided to go with one color for the reply card.  We used the same green from the invitation and this is how it looks: 

I really love the way this design turned out in one color and I think Linda's use of two colors for the invite and one for the reply card was an excellent and cost-effective idea!  If you really like a particular design, but want to try to save some money on your printing, mixing up whether you do one or two colors on your different pieces is a great way to do that!  Notice in the above two photos how you can see the letterpress impression from the front side on the back and vice-versa?  Linda asked me to do a really deep impression and this is what you get.  I don't recommend going super-deep on pieces that are double-sided because it can make them hard to read, but for this design I think it worked out well.  

Congratulations Linda & James!  

Wedding Sneak Peek

I'm very excited about a rather large wedding invitation order that I've been working on printing this past week.  The wedding colors are deep plum and white and I've already printed the invitations, reply cards, outer invitation envelopes and reply card envelopes.  Those four pieces, as well as the unprinted inner invitation envelopes are on our house paper, Crane Lettra in Pearl White, printed with deep plum colored ink.  This wedding set also includes a reception card, menus and programs.  The reception card, menus and programs are being printed in a cream (almost white) colored ink on a custom made deep plum colored paper.  I just finished the reception cards and boy do they look cool!  Check them out above and below: 

Pretty fancy, unique and awesome, don't you think?  (The photos were taken in the shop, which explains the uneven lighting and the press and other accoutrements in the background).  

The custom paper was made by Porridge Papers in Lincoln, Nebraska.  If you are unfamiliar with Porridge, they are a small batch custom paper-making studio.  All of their paper is made to order and they have some really fun options, like custom colors (just about any color you could want), scented papers, sparkly papers and plantable papers with growable seeds embedded in them. If you have the budget for it, having custom paper made is definitely a wonderful option for your wedding invitations or other special event.  We are also printing the menus and programs for this suite on this same plum colored paper.   Watch out for those and the rest of this suite in a later post!  

Custom Business Cards: Sarah Quest

I have an awesome friend named Sarah who finished massage school last year and is starting her own massage therapy business here in Eugene!  Lucky for me, Sarah (along with being awesome and my friend) is also a fan of letterpress printing.  Not too long ago she and I got together and designed and printed her first set of business cards, which you can see above and below:

Sarah's cards are printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton paper in Ecru in Chocolate Brown and Metallic Copper inks.  It may be a little difficult to see from the photos, but the majority of the printing on the card is brown with her name and the little flourish above the majority of the information printed in copper.  I think the little touches of copper were a very nice and slightly subtle accent to the card, which otherwise would have probably been only one color.  

As a massage therapist, Sarah offers Swedish, Thai, and Ashiatsu Massage, as well as Hot Stone Massage and Aromatherapy treatments.  She is currently working on building up her client base, so she is offering a new client special, referral specials and student discounts.  

I couldn't possibly say enough on this blog about how awesome Sarah is as a massage therapist (and friend).  I go to her personally for all of the bodywork I've had and she is fabulous!  If you live in the Eugene/Springfield area and would like to get a massage, you should contact her by phone or e-mail (listed above on her business card - see photo) or online through her website.  Clicking on the link will take you directly to her site where you can view more information about Sarah, her pricing, and services, as well as book an appointment online.  How cool is that?!?  

Thanks so much Sarah, you are awesome! 

Letterpress Calling Cards: Anton Fraga

I recently printed this set of calling cards for a friend-of-a-friend who is going to be finishing his graduate program at the University of Oregon very soon and wants to start looking for jobs in the area.  Anton studied Spanish and wants to find work where he can use his dual-language skills in a professional business setting.  

For the card designs, Anton really liked the design that I did last October for Chuck Herro's calling cards.  You can find photos of those here.  Anton wanted a clean, simple, but also professional looking design that wasn't too occupation-specific, since he's not quite sure what exactly he'll be doing yet.  We thought that this design with two clean, crisp, classic fonts would be just perfect!  The cards are printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton paper in Bright White in black ink!  

Very professional, if you ask me! 

Beautiful Thank You Notes for a Beautiful Wedding

One of my favorite custom clients, Nataliya, recently had me print these gorgeous thank you notes that she designed.  I first starting working with Nataliya this past fall when she hired me to print her wedding invitations for her November 2008 wedding.  Nataliya creates really beautiful and unique designs.  We enjoyed working together so much, that after I printed her wedding invitations she hired me to print a very awesome set of calling cards for her and her husbands' best man, Sebastian.  If you'd like to see pictures of both the calling cards and Nataliya's wedding invitations you can in the blog post I did here.  

For Nataliya's thank you cards, she wanted something that could be a little more general purpose, so she could use them for other notes and letters rather than for just her wedding thank you notes.  She said that while she loved the way her wedding invitations turned out she wanted to go in a new direction with these cards and I think that what she came up with is beautiful, unique and stunning.  The cards are simple: they are an A7 (5"x7") standard flat card, printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White Paper with matching white Crane Lettra envelopes.  She created a gorgeous leaf motif that we printed in the bottom right corner in dark grey ink along with her and her husband's names.  For the names Nataliya created a mirror effect and we printed part of the names in the dark grey ink and the other part in metallic silver.  Check it out!  

Nataliya was also sweet enough to share some of the photos of her beautiful Costa Rican wedding with me from last November.  She also gave me permission to share them with you.  I thought this was really fun, because often I never get to see photos from people's actual ceremonies since I'm working with them at the very beginning of their wedding planning process.  Nataliya's wedding looks so gorgeous and it seems like they had a wonderful time!  Check those out below: 

Doesn't the whole thing look lovely?  Not to mention that the bride looks absolutely stunning as well.  You'd think that the photos came straight from a magazine.  

Thanks so much again Nataliya!  

InterNich LLC

Shortly after I put up this post about some custom business cards I created back in January for a small web hosting company called Kerplunc, I was contacted by a gentleman named Nich about creating another set of custom letterpress business cards for his company.  Internich LLC is an online media publishing and solutions company that owns and operates several niche web properties that feature unique content and services on the internet.  Internich also provides creative design and development consultation services for small businesses.  They are based in Boston, Massachusetts, but like us, provide their services to global consumers.  

Design-wise, Nich chose a style for his business cards that is pretty similar to the style Matt chose for his business cards for Kerplunc.  Nich wanted the cards to feature his company's two-color logo on one side and his contact information on the other.  Like the Kerplunc cards, we chose to keep the back side of Nich's cards fairly simple, while leaving some blank space in case someone needed somewhere to write down anything extra.  The orange and light blue Internich logo letterpress printed beautifully!  You can see a close-up of the detail and impression at the top of this post.  In the photo below you can see both sides:

The Internich logo is printed in two colors, centered prominently on one side of the card, while the contact information is printed in black on the reverse side in a clean, simple, readable, yet stylish, serif font.  Here is a closer shot of the back side:

Nich's cards were printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton paper in Bright White.  You can just barely see the slight impression of the logo from the front side on the back of the card in this picture.  I love how professional, neat and classy letterpress printed business cards are!  

If you would like more information on our custom letterpress business card printing and design services, please contact me at twinravenspress@gmail.com!  I would be more than happy to give you more information on all of our business and professional printing related services!  

Thanks so much Nich!