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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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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Alexia and James Letterpress Wedding Invitations — Modern Classics for Mendocino Wedding

Alexia and James got married in Mendocino last month in one of the great celebrations the town has seen. We were so happy to work with them on their invitations, which they wanted to be very luxurious and traditional, but with a modern flair. We kept a very muted palette of cream, cappuccino and chocolate brown, and of course printed everything by letterpress on our thickest, yummiest paper, 600 gram Lettra Pearl White. The motif of a graceful olive branch held it all together beautifully.

Everything about the wedding was so romantic, happy, fun and gorgeous. The whole wedding party went out on the headlands then paraded through the village back to the big white tent at the MacCallum House for dinner and dancing to a totally get-down funk band. Very much fun working with this beautiful couple on their amazing day.

Their folding thank you notes finished the wedding suite and they got lots of extras so they could use them long into their marriage for many purposes…invitations to dinner, thank you notes, quick messages to loved ones, announcements of important events, condolences, congratulations and happy birthday missives. There are still times when a nothing but a hand written note on real paper, with a stamp, in the mailbox, will do. Yes, really. And it’s great to have some beautiful paper to grab when the moment strikes. No more going to the store to look for that perfect message: you make up your own and put it on your own personalized informal, which is what this smaller folding note is called.

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“Getting to Know Me” : New Interview About Me and Letterpress on Chaviano Couture!

I love love love Annette Thurmon’s wedding dress designs. They are sooo dreamy and gorgeous, and I am lucky to say that Annette is also a dreamy and gorgeous client of mine.

I got to work with Annette when I did her business cards a while back, and today she posted an interview with me on her beautiful website: Chaviano Couture.

I hope you will go see her beautiful designs and read my interview!

xo Zida

 

 

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E-Ticket Photography | Black-and-White Ticket to Letterpress Chic | Business Cards and Complete Stationery Wardrobe

Matthew Cotter, an amazing photographer from Southern California’s just got his black, super-thick, foil stamped letterpress business cards AND his complete stationery wardrobe of letterhead, envelopes and buck slips/thank you notes for his E-Ticket Photography business. We printed cards for Matthew and his business partner Patrick Hartson on black Museum Mount for a significant heft in the hand. We foiled his “EP” logo in black, glossy foil, and E-TICKET PHOTOGRAPHY, as well as the back contact information, went on in shimmery silver foil. The cards are the shape of a piece of chewing gum, long rectangles, which is a feature that sets his business cards apart from the crowd.

The black-and-white contrast of these cards against florescent white stationery is breathtaking. We used twenty-eight pound Cranes Crest letterhead paper, which is thicker and snappier than more usual twenty-four pound stock. Again, the logo is in black gloss and the type is in matte black ink. These textural contrasts have a subtle but undeniable impact. The impression that letterpress printing leaves, too, adds one more element to the overall experience.

The final fillip to this zesty package was Buck Slips (shown above), otherwise known as Script Cards. These are 4″ x 9″ note cards that can be used to paperclip notes to scripts (all directors, actors, producers, etc. MUST HAVE THESE) or other things, AND they fit right into the #10 Envelopes so you don’t need a dedicated envelope for your thank you notes. I recommend Script Cards whenever I make business cards for anyone. There is nothing like a hand written thank you note on a scrumptious piece of paper that will impress a client more. We printed their names (each got a clutch of these cards) at the bottom so they can “slash” through the printed name and pen their initials or signature.

The Chicness Factor is as clear as black-and-white. E-Ticket Photography looks great on paper!

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EmmaRose Photography: Drop-To-Your-Knees-Gorgeous New Letterpress Business Cards with Two Ink Colors, Hot Pink Foil & Edge Painting!

EmmaRose Photography, in Nova Scotia, Canada, just got her new letterpress business cards done up by Studio Z Mendocino and is very, very happy about them. I am not even going to say anything in this post, actually, except that I totally LOVED getting to work with Emma Rose. She is a creative geyser and completely fun and adorable and energetic and a great photographer and mom. Sheesh. Here are her own words and her own incredible photographs (taken hours before the big show we got them to her in the nick of time for) of her own spellbinding business cards, designed by her own amazing self:

Hi Zida! I hope you got my voicemail yesterday thanking you from the bottom of my heart for these beautiful little pieces of artwork… I just couldn’t wait to photograph them and share the photos, my blog is up just now! Will send photos asap, hope to work with you again!!! xo Emma.

Hi Folks! Yes, I’ve been in blogging hiatus, but I’m back! I have been biting my nails in anticipation of this blog… thinking of how I will make these photos, when I would be able to blog about this event… my new business cards have arrived! Just in time for this year’s biggest wedding trade show in Halifax, Brides 2011, at the World Trade & Convention Centre. I think this is my 7th year at the show and I’ve got a completely new booth this year, one I’ve been planning all year…

OK, back to the business cards… I have to admit first of all that I’ve become a tiny bit obsessed with the work of Zida Borcich… she’s the owner one of the blogs I watch and more importantly a letterpress and design studio, Studio Z, in Mendocino California. “You watch a letterpress blog?” you say to yourself? It might sound a bit crazy, but I’m drawn to all kinds of art, and Zida’s work is so much more than printing, it’s ART. After I came across her website and blog I just HAD to have her do some cards for me. It’s been a journey, with my thrifty, controlling and perfectionist sides battling with the sides of me that want extravagant top-of-the-line things, and the sides of me that want to encourage other artists and allow them to do their work in the best, freest way possible. There was inner conflict, let me tell you! In the end I did the basic design and Zida lovingly tweaked it for me, gave me her opinion (thank goodness), and was one of those people I wished lived down the street so I could run in and hug her for this amazing art-on-paper that is the end result! Who knew you could do such lovely things with a sheet of paper. I can’t believe it’s just paper!

I hope you can see in the photos the texture of the paper, though, and how the two gray inks are pressed into it and how the pink O is pressed even deeper and coated in a foil so that it shimmers in the light like a jewel… *sigh* My heart was beating as I opened the box yesterday… just look at the pink painted edges, the thickness of the paper! Stunning work Zida, thank you so much for your patience with my questions, indecision and do-it-yourself attitude, haha! These are real show-stoppers!

xo Emma.

Wait: I said I wasn’t going to say anything but really, I must. Which is: we printed them on our favorite Cranes Lettra 600 gsm, super-luxurious, super-thick paper, on both sides, in two gray inks and this hot pink metallic foil. Then edge painted them in the same hot pink. They are so very very extra-ordinary! As you can obviously see.

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Ana Pettus | Extraordinary | Black-on-Black | Laminated | Black-Edge-Painted | Letterpress | Business Cards | Studio Z Mendocino

Dallas style vixen, Ana Pettus is launching her new line of perfumes, candles, bags and other chic pleasures very soon. To hit the ground running (in her Rodarte stilettos), Ana chose Studio Z Mendocino to design and letterpress print her intensely fabulous business cards and stationery. 
Because Ana’s colors are BLACK and WHITE, we wanted to use a dense, super-dark black paper, but it was not thick enough to suit our taste. We often use black Museum Mount for our two-sided business cards, but it has a slight charcoal cast to it and won’t take white foil to save our souls. In order to get all the elements Ana wanted, we ended up laminating two pieces of our intense-black-but-not-so-thick paper, with a piece of chipboard between them. This created a very thick and luxurious card but with a bit of brown chipboard showing along the sandwiched edge. To remedy this we edge painted the 2.5″ square cards in matte black. The snake-y AP logo, which Ana brought to us already done, was foiled in glossy black, and her name, all in lower case, super bold letters, was put on in opaque white foil. The backs feature a block of white typography.

The extraordinary results are causing a stir wherever the peripatetic Ana finds herself handing them out: Dallas, Paris, New York, Rio, or some island you never heard of. Turning heads is something the irrepressible Brazilian is quite used to. You can find her in the society pages dressed in Balmain or Dolce & Gabbana, or giving interior design advice and where-to-find-it tips on her website. Next: Ana’s Stationery Wardrobe. YUM!

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Chung Li Photography Square Letterpress Business Cards on Cranes Lettra = Urban Sophistication in Two Dimensions + One

We like to say that Letterpress printing brings the third dimension to a two dimensional medium. The addition of depth, texture, that subtle shadow around every letter and image, gives Letterpress work its signature appeal and gorgeousness. Chung Li is a Bay Area photographer whose tag line, “Urban Sophistication,” says it all about his beautiful work. Chung came to me because he specifically wanted that texture and the super thick paper that you can only get with Letterpress because the only type of press it will run through is a platen press like our Heidelbergs. He came to me with most of his logo in place already but had me fine tune it.

Working with Chung was a pleasure: every detail considered and reconsidered: our two skill sets working together toward what you see here. His new studio is just finished and his website looks totally amazing. This is the power of branding combined with the skill of a master artist/businessman. A place for everything and everything in its place. Above you see the back of the card, which is as sleek and exciting as the front.

All photos by Chung Li.

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PrivaSicuro: Business Cards for “Your Personal CFO” Worth Their Weight In Gold (and Silver!)

Anne Latour of PrivaSicuro Wealth Management, Your Perosonal CFO wanted a new logo, a business card and stationery that looked and felt opulent. The logo she had was not “it” at all, so I took over, as I love to do, and made what you see above, opulence worth its weight in gold and silver. We used super heavy black Museum Mount, foiled the logo in silver and the tag line in gold. It is like holding a small treasure in your hand.On the back: contact information. This keeps the logo pure and bigger all by itself on the front of the cards. Silver foil works well on black paper for readability.

Industrial strength business cards for a financial wizard.

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What to Give Your Favorite Photographer for Christmas or Hanukkah: A Gift Certificate for Letterpress Business Cards from Studio Z!

What to Give Your Favorite Photographer for Christmas or Hanukkah: A Gift Certificate for Letterpress Business Cards from Studio Z!.

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