I’m so unbelievably excited to share a very special project with all of you today – my brand new business cards! After launching the new design back in March, it was definitely time to update my business cards. I’ve always been impressed by the amazing custom work from Samantha and Whitney of Gus & Ruby Letterpress, so I immediately turned to them for help translating the beautiful new logo (by Liz from Linda & Harriett) into an equally beautiful business card. When it comes to my own personal projects, my approach is always to pick a designer whose work I absolutely love and then just let them run with it –and Samantha and Whitney completely knocked it out of the park! I couldn’t be more thrilled with the way they turned out!
From Samantha and Whitney: We took strong inspiration from the watercolor logo designed for Oh So Beautiful Paper by Linda & Harriett. We wanted the card to complement the logo without feeling visually overwhelming or too busy.
Because we can’t achieve the exact same look as watercolor with letterpress printing, we had to be creative as to how we showcased that tonal variation. We opted to print using three different shades of pink to give an ombre/gradient effect and then added a wash of color along the bottom for a pop of interest.
We brainstormed various ways to add the pop of color (from dip dying using vegetable and fruit dyes to pigment dyes), but ultimately decided that actually watercoloring each card by hand was the way to go. We spent hours testing different watercolor mixes and saturations to come up with the perfect palette of paints.
Every card was individually painted with a wash of watercolor on each side prior to being trimmed down, so each card is unique and has a slightly different look/color scheme due to the variation in concentration of the wash.
All pieces were lovingly printed by hand in our Dover, New Hampshire studio and are printed on thick, 220# 100% cotton. As the final finishing touch, Smock foil edged the cards in metallic gold shine foil!
I hope you love these business cards as much as I do!
Design / Letterpress Printing and Watercolor: Gus & Ruby Letterpress
Foil Edging: Smock
Logo Design: Linda & Harriett
Smock and Gus & Ruby Letterpress are members of the Designer Rolodex – you can see more beautiful work from Smock right here and more wonderful custom work from Gus & Ruby Letterpress here!
Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper
