Carole King, Ph.D. — Embossed Letterpress Business Cards for Educational Psychologist

Embossed pattern is a replica of Carole’s wedding ring

Sometimes being in business brings the nicest surprises. This is a case in point. Carole King, Ph.D. was my best friend in first grade. We were inseparable chums in high school, tooling around town in Lee Wanda Milbradt’s dad’s gigantic Cadillac (with fins half a block long) with all our friends at lunch time, being slightly (in my case, very) dorky, and considering each other the funniest people in the world. Then, for whatever reasons, we went our separate ways after graduation. Fast forward about thirty years to when Victoria Magazine did that article about me and my shop. Carole read it and contacted me and we never looked back. We are back to the old, dear friendship, made so much deeper for our long absence from each others’ lives. We see each other as often as possible and it’s that old familiar feeling. We love each other!

Carole loved reading the article in Victoria, too, and loved knowing that her old friend did letterpress printing. After re-finding each other, it was wonderful of her and her husband Dennis to come to the San Francisco Public Library twenty-year exhibit of my work several years ago. That was a fabulous show, may I just say. And it made her want some letterpress printing of her own. So, of course, she could have her heart’s desire from little ole me! She met my friend Cynthia Wall at that show and the cards I had made for Cynthia had an embossed image of her wedding ring design on them. It just sparked for Carole. She wanted HER wedding ring on HER business card.

The embossing

We got an artist to render a drawing of the design (Carole actually sent her ring IN THE MAIL — I could not believe it) and we made the drawing into an embossing die. This is the second run of cards we have done for Carole (AKA Creeeollee), this time using a pool-aqua colored paper and deep navy blue ink. She wanted the backs to be blank so she could use that space for extra notes or whatever.

Carole recently told me that when she got her new cards she passed them out at a gathering and it’s all anybody wanted to talk about the whole time.

Magical powers of letterpress printing

I have often suspected that my business cards have magical powers for drawing attention to their owners. See?

 

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Carsten Mol: Denmark Photographer’s Breathtaking Business Cards from Studio Z Mendocino

Carsten Mol Photography Business Cards

Danish photographer Carsten Mol found Studio Z Mendocino online and contacted me about a year ago. He wanted to have some really special business cards, and, of course, that is what we do here. We instantly felt a rapport, even though separated by many miles and much water and emailed enthusiastically about what he had in mind, ideas I had for the design and materials, colors, possibilities and his dreams. It was sort of like meeting an old friend I didn’t know yet. Carsten was rebranding and got back to me after several months when his website was completed, as he promised he would.

Edge painting put the icing on the cake

His website was the inspiration for the design we finally landed on. go see: Carsten’s website

The backs are equally yummy

When the cards arrived to Denmark, this is how Carsten started his blog post about them: “Today I got my brand new Business card! And what can I say more than, I just love them!!!! They are small pieces of art.” The nice things he said about working with me almost made me cry! He immediately sent me these wonderful shots he took of them and I feel proud to post them here today.

The first cards we have done for someone in Denmark!

I often say, “I love the modern world!” and, really, I mean it. Never before have we been able to do business in this way, to connect with like-minded people in any corner of the world and relate to each other, feel into others’ lives in this marvelous way, affect each other and even affect each others’ friends and colleagues and, of course, clients, most importantly. It really seems like some sort of miracle, a miracle we take for granted every day, that allows unprecedented communication and relationship to occur regardless of geographical location.

Thank you, Carsten, for reaching across the ocean from Scandinavia to the USA, to California, to Mendocino County, to my little office at Studio Z Mendocino, and to my heart. It’s a beautiful miracle to know you.

 

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Excuse Me While I Gush: Shelley Deneau Photography Letterpress Business Cards with Holographic Foil

Holographic foil shimmers as the light or angle change.

Shelley Deneau, a photographer from Chesapeake, Virginia, found Studio Z Mendocino online, fell in love with a few things she found on this blog, and called me. She already had a logo, which she emailed to me and my brain immediately set to work on what would make it sing even more than it did in its original form, blue and brown inks. Shelley was incredibly eager to play, so when i suggested using a blue-green Holorgraphic foil for the sea gulls and the type of her name, she was intrigued enough to want to know more. I sent her some samples in the mail and she took a deep breath and said, “nnnnnYES!”

She also did not want the cards to be as thick as our usual 600 gram Lettra, so instead we opted for Lettra that’s half as thick, but still has the gorgeous fluff and texture. This was our outcome, and they are so amazing. It’s hard to capture in one shot the “dance” of light as the angle or intensity changes, bringing even more liveliness to the marvelous artwork.

Shelley Deneau Business Cards

The light dances against birds and Shelley’s logotype

Shelley was so easy to work with, and so fun, that it feels like I have a new-found friend back East. I am totally crazy about how these cards came out and so, I understand, is Shelley. Here is what she wrote to me when the parcel arrived: “OMG!!!!! I absolutely love them!  I love the seagulls changing color with the tilt!  You are incredible!  The best! Thank you!  ~Shelley”

Now THAT was a great email to wake up to. Thank YOU Shelley, for entrusting this key piece of your business to us. We love to make you happy! It makes US happy!!

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Bob and Dawn Davis Photography and Design — Letterpress, Die Cut Business Cards from Studio Z Mendocino

Some of the most respected and talented, not to mention insanely good looking and darling, photographers and teachers in the industry, Bob and Dawn Davis had Studio Z Mendocino make up their latest iteration of business cards. The brand and design was already established but we needed to do some modifications on the design to make it really work as a letterpress piece of art — to make it swing and to make it sing…The backs, especially, needed an update, which, between Dawn and me, came out much nore interestingly than what they’d had before. It took a good deal of negotiation and trial and error to get to this place. Sometimes the limitations of letterpress printing are hard to understand, but having worked in this medium for over 35 years, it seems I can spot trouble coming and head it off at the pass. Sometimes it takes massive amounts of creativity to make a design really work, and sometimes it’s a cinch. This already beautiful branding just needed some fine tuning and the WoW factor swung into the stratosphere.

We printed them on super-lux, super-thick 600 gram Cranes Lettra in two colors, a smoky blue and a warm gray, then die cut them outside the front inside rule. Deep impression and beautiful materials and infinite skill and care made everyone so happy about these amazing business cards. Especially the adorably cute and talented couple who gets to pass them out!

See more of their own comments on their blog.

 

 

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Law Offices Opening Announcement — Crisp, Elegant, Not-Quite-Buttondown Marketing with Letterpress Style

Attorney Marc S. Albert opened his law offices in Queens and Long Island, New York, earlier this year to the fanfare of this letterpress printed announcement from Studio Z Mendocino. We used white opaque foil on slate-colored paper, for a gray-flannel-meets-Cary-Grant-chic-meets-Old-World-meets-New-World mailing piece. We mounted the printed piece on a slightly larger backing sheet of black cover stock, giving it an attractive, attention-grabbing frame and more substantial “hand.” For even stronger effect, we printed the back flap of these textured Americana A-7 envelopes in a matching gray ink.

When announcing the opening of a new office, it’s imperative that the announcement’s envelope make people want to open it. So much mail gets tossed before it arrives at the desk of the final recipient, so the “packaging” of an announcement like this needs to look very inviting…like  an invitation, not a bill! The address should be hand written or calligraphed and real stamps should adorn the upper right corner. These measures will insure it will get a closer look than other ordinary bulk mailings.

Be sure to include a business card inside the envelope too, so your contact information gets stored forevermore. This is effective marketing for attorneys at law, understated and beautiful, yet it unabashedly stands out from the crowd. At the same time, an announcement like this should never be flashy or “advertise-y” looking. It must inspire confidence in your abilities and talents, and your attention to detail. And a little creativity showing in it never hurts, reinforcing a message of resourcefulness. A really fabulous business card furthers the effectiveness of the message as well. We recommend letterpress printing on very thick paper (of course) for maximum impact.

Post, and get ready for the phone to ring!

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Photographer Gavin Wade’s “Reverse Letterpress” Business Cards

We’ve been getting questions about “reverse letterpress” lately and I wanted to show you this effect. Usually, images printed by letterpress are made by pressing a raised image (i.e.: type or a polymer plate) down into thick, fluffy paper. The surrounding background, then, is whatever color the paper is. With reverse letterpress, the background is inked and pressed onto the paper, and on the plate or die the type is a void, meaning the paper shows through as the type color on the printed piece, as you can see above. The example here is with the amazing wedding photographer Gavin Wade‘s fabulous oversize business card, the logo designed by Ross Tanner at Flosites: we mixed his new beigey-taupe color scheme as a Pantone color and reversed the plate so that we could ink it up and press it onto 600 gram Cranes Lettra. His chic logotype sticks up out of the background slightly because we have to use pressure to transfer the ink onto the fibrous paper.The effect is a tactile, luxurious take on an ancient technique that brings it all up to the moment.

It’s an interesting turn. The back of the card uses the opposite technique, the usual way letterpress is applied, with the letters pressed down into the paper…so there’s this sort of interactive little surprise when you turn the card over.

The advantage is, you can get your logo color custom mixed and printed on one side, which gives some extra verve to the presentation. It’s a little more expensive to accomplish. With cards this luxe, the impression you leave when you pass them out is incalculable.

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Wedding Photographer Susan Stripling: Ultra Less-Is-More Business Cards and Stationery by Studio Z Mendocino

Susan Stripling is a wedding photographer whose astonishingly beautiful images, skill, inspired imagination and devotion to the craft have landed her in the midst of some of the most amazing nuptials ever. She just had Studio Z Mendocino do her new business cards and stationery. Susan has photographed weddings throughout the US, the Caribbean, South America, Finland, France, and the Bahamas. She’s been published in Inside Weddings, Martha Stewart Weddings, Grace Ormonde Wedding Style, Bride and Bloom, Modern Bride, The Knot, Professional Photographer Magazine, The New York Times Style section, Rangerfinder Magazine, Capture Magazine, Elegant Bride, in Trade Publications for Nikon USA, and Town and Country Weddings. Susan’s teaching career has developed as well; she has been seen at past Digital Wedding Forum conventions, gives private and group workshops throughout the USA, and has spoken at WPPI. Busy Susan, had Infinet Design devise her double-S monogram and we foil stamped it in gold onto her lux stationery wardrobe: business cards on very thickest Cranes Lettra 600 gram cover stock, and script cards in the same ultra-thick paper (think thank you notes, quick messages accompanying samples, etc., etc.) that fit into spectacular Cranes number ten envelopes with rather monumental square flaps. This is the blockbuster envelope we love to stuff:

Here is the script card:

Because it is foiled in a single color, with the monogram/logo on the front of the business card and only the website address on the back, overall costs were kept to a minimum, but the finished pieces carry all the gorgeousness and panache anyone could possibly desire.

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Chevron? Herringbone? Debaun Studio’s Amazing Letterpress Business Cards Shimmer With Debossed Texture

Chicago interior designer Elizabeth Pasquinelli came to Studio Z Mendocino with a strong idea of what she wanted in new business cards for her company Debaun Studio. Her sophisticated design sense made it very easy and fun to incorporate her desire for a chevron or herringbone pattern and the logo she created herself into these gorgeous letterpress cards.

I reworked her herringbone pattern, and, with a die, deeply impressed the pattern into our favorite paper, Cranes 600 gram Lettra. See how sumptuous…

Even though the herringbone design is very deeply impressed on the front, the very thick paper barely shows any impression through to the reverse side, so there is no interference to the contact information.

Having the logo by itself on the front is my favorite way of keeping the branding message very pure and clean. A beautiful typographic layout is key to conveying a subtle but very strong message of attention to detail.

Elizabeth told me the cards exceeded her expectations and I have to admit that, although I knew they were going to be amazing, they did mine too. The actual tactile experience of this much rich texture on a little piece of paper is quite astonishing. This again was a great collaboration with a creative and exceedingly talented client. This is why I keep loving my work so much. Incredible people from far-flung places finding me and working together with me, and then receiving the benefits of our work together. It’s a beautiful big round circle. Every time Elizabeth passes one of these letterpress cards to a prospective client it is a spark that has in it a world of experience and beauty and connection.

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Love By Serena: Letterpress Business Cards With Pearl Foil and Tiffany Blue Edge Painting — Baltimore Photographer Meets Studio Z Mendocino!

I’m hardly even going to say anything about these cards because Serena Severtson made such a complete and articulate blog post about branding as it relates to business cards this morning. I am just going to let that do all the talking: click HERE for her post.

These are photos Serena took of the beautiful letterpress business cards we made for her using her own design, and my suggestions and input about materials and other questions — a great collaboration. Pearl foil gleams up the dove, gray and Tiffany blue inks give the lowdown, and Tiffany blue edges finish them off with elan. They are smashing on super-thick 600 gram Cranes Lettra. Best of all, Serena LOVES them! Go see!

Wonderful to work with the very talented Serena to such a great result!

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Anything-But-Basic Black-on-Black Business Cards for Dallas Photographer, Mike Tseng

Mike Tseng‘s fabulous new black-on-black business cards take “basic black” to a whole new level. Super-thick black museum mount in a slim rectanglular shape provides the foundation for the black gloss foil-stamped swirling background pattern designed by Flosites, and matte charcoal ink for his name. Though everything is subtle, it is also somehow extravagant and ravishing.

Mike says, “Thanks again for the cards, people are blown away when I give it to them!” Well, ahem, I told you that would happen, Mike. Blown away is always the reaction we go for. We love that.

Perfectly yummy…

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