Design + Print: Lettra business cards

We’ve been printing wedding invitations on Lettra, a paper created for letterpress printing, for a while now – brides love the luxurious feel of the paper, and it really shows off the tactile quality of letterpress printing. More recently, we’ve been printing business cards on this soft, 100% cotton card stock. The first card we printed on Lettra was for Suzy & Kent, who’ve been friends of the studio since we created wedding invitations for the daughter in 2002. This winter, Suzy asked us to create calling cards with their contact information in Minnesota and at their new vacation home. The cards are letterpress-printed in black and bright blue.

Most recently, we designed and letterpress-printed business cards for Nissa, a massage therapist and esthetician. Working with her existing logo, we created elegant, balanced business card in black and bright pink. Though you can’t see it in the picture at the left (do to click on that image for a larger view), there’s more information printed on the back of the card – Lettra is thick enough that a moderate impression on one side won’t result in unsightly show-through on the reverse.

Lunalux wins letterhead design conest

Lunalux has been recognized for excellent design work in Mohawk Paper’s quarterly Strathmore Letterhead Contest. Late last year, we submitted samples of the Post- stationery suite, and we’ve been deemed the gold prize winner for the 4th quarter of 2007. And the awards keep coming! We also were awarded the year-end grand prize, which is selected from the four quarterly gold prize winners. We get a little cash, a nice commemorative plaque, and a bit of promotion on the Mohawk website. And if you find the Mohawk press release that announces our award, you can read the nice things that Mohawk’s Senior Vice President of Communications says about us, such as “This unique identity system was chosen for its rich design aesthetic and compelling use of fine letterpress printing … the result is rich, tactile and crisp.”

The Post- identity system (which I wrote about last February) was a great project to work on, and I’m incredibly pleased and proud to have our work recognized. Katie & Lois from Post- came to Lunalux when they were in the early stages of business, still working on prototypes of their tony totes for fashionable moms on the go. It was important to them to develop a stationery suite that conveyed a strong sense of style and a commitment to quality – and I do believe we delivered! They had very clear and strong opinions about what they wanted, and they pushed me to do my best work.

I never expected to win, in fact it was an honor just to be nominated! I’d like to thank The Academy, and all the people who made this possible, including my Momma and Poppa, Jesus, my go-to guy Nick, and of course my dear Mark, without whose technical and emotional support I wouldn’t be blogging today. And most of all, John for his excellence in printing. Word up!

Make Room business cards

When Stephanie Rasley started her venture as a professional organizer, she wanted eye-catching business cards to promote her new business, Make Room. From the very start, her number-one desire was to have cards printed on colored stock, to make them stand out in the crowd. She loved the stationery we’d create for Stephanie Colgan, so we worked with geometric pattern that recalled open boxes. We letterpress-printed the graphic with transparent ink on periwinkle felt-finish cover, creating a tone-on-tone effect, and printed her vitals in rich black ink over it. We also supplied the graphic to her web developer, so her website matches the cards.

I guess I design websites too!

Back in March, I helped photographer Stephanie Colgan with new letterhead, business cards and mailing labels. After working with another designer on graphic elements of the package, including a type treatment for her business name and a few funky geometric patterns, Stephanie came to Lunalux to have everything put together. We refined the color palette and type choices, and developed layouts for the finished printed pieces. Both she and I were thrilled with the results: asymmetrical, fresh and clean, letterpress-printed on high-quality papers from Strathmore and Cranes.

More recently, Stephanie asked me to work with her on the design for her new website. She loved the way I worked with type and compositions on her business stationery, and wanted me to bring a similar feel to her online portfolio. Though I warned her that I’m by no means a “website designer”, we spent a couple mornings at my computer playing with the same elements that we’d used on her business stationery, creating page layouts that her website developer could translate into live internet pages. I was nervous about whether the developer would be able to work with the Illustrator files we created, but the page is now live, and it turned out pretty cool! See for yourself at colganphotography.com

I was pleased to see that my skills as a graphic designer enabled me to help a client with such a project. The web developer incorporated elements that I would not have imagined or been able to achieve, like the “motion” of the logo as the pages load, and the blurry effect on the type as you roll your cursor over the navigation in the lower left corner. It was exciting to work outside of my comfort zone and in a totally different medium.

« Previous Page