Each year, a few clients come to Lunlux for custom holiday cards. In recent years, we’ve seen a strong trend towards flat cards to accommodate photographs – a format we’re thrilled to work with! These cards can pack a lot of personality, and are typically less expensive than folded greeting cards. As these examples illustrate, we work closely with our clients to create cards suited to their specific photo, tailoring the design to uncommon sizes or drawing inspiration from the snapshot’s theme or color scheme. All the custom holiday cards shown were designed and letterpress-printed in our Loring Park studio, and our crafty customers took care of photo reproduction and mounting. Though we will, with the magic of a glue stick, mount the photos for you.

Because everything we do is custom, we’re adept at catering to unique specifics. Whether you want to incorporate text you’ve written (Mrs. Rasley wrote the charming prose on her and Ron’s star-studded monarch flat), use your favorite font (the snow-flakey card, below left, uses Bernhard Modern, the same font we used years ago on this couple’s wedding stationery), or see your family photo’s colors reflected in our printed work (on the buckslip below with orange wood-type-style lettering, the ink matches the trim on the tot’s jersey), we’re up for the challenge.

All the cards shown here were printed on Strathmore Writing wove-finish bristol cover, which feels very substantial but isn’t too expensive. But we work with a wide variety of stocks, from plush cotton to earthy recycled to vibrant colors. If you’d like to learn more about our custom design and printing services, you can browse our blog archives or visit the custom page of our website. And there’s still a bit of time for holiday or New Year cards this year. Get in touch with Jenni at our studio (our contact page has all the vitals) to schedule a consultation.

One of the best parts of my job is that it affords me the opportunity to meet and work with wonderful people. In a recent week, we printed personal stationery for two new customers who I had great fun working with. The clients and their projects couldn’t have been more different! First we worked on notecards for Tim, a priest turned copywriter who was on the cusp of returning to work in the church again. Though our interactions were relatively brief, it was a treat to talk with him, and we think he’s been converted to a loyal Lunalux fan. His new correspondence cards feature the crest of the Episcopal church, letterpress-printed in black ink on hefty kid-finish cotton cover, trimmed to a generous 5×7 inches (plenty of room for musings spiritual and otherwise). When he picked up the finished product, we were tickled to see him looking so sharp in his new black and white uniform.

Next we moved on to personal stationery for Elle, another new friend of the studio. Elle has been on our mailing list for years, but we just started getting to know her in recent months when she’s come in for Stationery Saturdays. We were delighted when she asked us to create custom thankyou notes for her. While Tim’s crested cards are somewhat sophisticated, this gal needed something colorful and sweet to match her big personality. “Grazie mille” (“thanks a million” Italian-style), her favorite expression of gratitude, is letterpress-printed across the top of these 4.25×5.5 flats, with her name at the bottom. We looked at a few different decorative fonts for this simple design, but settled on Suburban because Elle loved the look of the double-Ls.

Are you dreaming of the perfect personal stationery? We’d love to make something special for you! You can read about other clients we’ve worked with in our blog archives, or click here for some general information about our custom design and printing services.

This weekend, Lunalux hosts another Stationery Saturday. We’ll have the press inked up and ready to roll from 11a.m. to 6p.m. on Saturday March 27, and we’ll be imprinting icon notecards all day long. You can watch for a mini letterpress tutorial as we set your lead type and run your cards through the Heidelberg Windmill, or do a little shopping while we do the dirty work. Clients will have three designs to choose from: black scissors, aqua pointer or red book. The name or phrase of your choice will be set in 18-point Goudy Old Style, and letterpress-printed in dark gray ink. The 4.5×6.25-inch cards are 130# bright white wove-finish bristol cover, and will be paired with matching white A6 square-flap envelopes. As always, it’s just $29 for 10 cards & envelopes. You’ll find more details about Stationery Saturday, and a schedule of upcoming dates, on the Stationery Saturday page.

Have you noticed that the Lunalux blog has been kinda quiet lately? Me too. The main reason: I took several weeks off from work in October because my mom passed away. I come from a great big family, so we all huddled together for a while to take care of each other. There is, indeed, strength in numbers! We all pitched in to help plan the funeral, too. My task: creating programs for the service. Late one night, with one of my brothers peeking over my shoulder, I did my best to create a quiet, beautiful design for my least favorite thing ever. After staring at the computer screen for an hour or two, we discovered a lovely coincidence: the lily of the valley image includes 10 individual flowers, one for each of my mom’s 10 kids. The next afternoon, we (and by “we” I mean 2 brothers, 1 sister and myself – we’re all printers) letterpress-printed the covers with green and gray inks on pearl white 100% cotton Lettra cover; the interior pages were modest photocopies, because there wasn’t time to do every element so fancy. The programs were bound with green double-faced satin ribbon. Extra program covers are doing double-duty as thank-you notes.

It feels a little weird– wrong, even – to blog about something so personal and sad. But I think it would feel even more weird to skip over this monumental project like it never happened. So here it is. And now we’re moving on to other things.

When Mary first visited Lunalux, she had a shop card she’d picked up on a recent trip to France. She loved the classic styling and the blue paper, and asked us design calling cards inspired by her Parisian ephemera. The cards we created for her are letterpress-printed in intense black ink on duplexed cover stock (white on one side, pale blue on the other) – we love the subtle contrast of the paper colors, and the drama of the black ink. We’ve used this fleur de lis motif on wedding stationery recently, and we think it’s equally well suited for classic personal stationery applications.
While Mary’s card has a very traditional feel to it, Yuko wanted something more modern and unusual. She asked us to incorporate her family crest into a simple, sleek composition. The finished card is letterpress-printed with silver ink on a soft black railroad board.