New Custom Feminine Business Cards

Here's a new custom feminine business card for all you floral and pink-obsessed paper lovers out there! Customize your own set of modern floral business cards, with your name and contact information. These girly business cards make a perfect impression for branding your personal business, lifestyle brand and/or blog, photography business, and so on. Beautiful pink and white script on the front of the card, and a gorgeous pink flower petal image (photography by Erin McCall) on the back.

Send us your name and contact details, review a proof, and we digitally print the cards and ship to you – it's that easy! Buy a set for yourself or as a gift set for someone special. Makes a great high-end, modern and useful custom gift!

{ DETAILS }

• each order includes 100 business cards customized with your name and your contact details 
• cards measure 3.5" wide by 2" tall (standard size)
• digitally printed in pink ink for your name, white ink for your contact details, a black background, and a floral back/reverse side of the card
• printed on ultra thick 130 lb. cover
• perfect for branding your photography business, lifestyle blog, lifestyle brand, personal brand, stylist business, make-up artist business, etc.

We look forward to printing a set just for you!

Custom Brush Print Letterpress & Digitally Printed Business Cards

My dearest paper lovers, we've just added a new custom calligraphy/brush script business card style to our stable of ready-to-wear (pre-designed) business card options in our Etsy shop. As with our other card designs, you simply send us the name and contact information you would like to use, choose your ink color, and away we go! These cards are available with luxurious letterpress printing, as well as a more affordable digitally-printed version.

We call this design our "brush print" option – since it is technically a brush script, but not an overly flowery or elaborate script. It's simple, modern, and makes a sophisticated statement.

So how does it work? It's easy! Once we have your name and contact details, we put together a digital proof for you to approve or make changes to, and this proof is sent to you via email. Once you are happy with the design and give us your sign-off, the printing begins. For digital cards, turnaround is approximately 1-2 weeks, and the letterpress cards take about 2-3 weeks. We also ship worldwide!

Our series of custom calligraphy and brush script business cards has been very popular with creative professionals from around the globe – from photographers, to interior designers, to make-up artists and stylists. These cards really put the focus on your name; so if you are your own brand (as many freelancers and creatives are!), these cards are perfect for you. Our calligraphy and brush script cards are also great for individuals that don't yet have, or don't plan to have, a specific logo for themselves or their company.

If you are interested in a set of custom brush script letterpress cards or custom brush script digitally-printed cards for yourself or for someone special, or if you have questions about the process, be in touch! We're happy to help!

Custom Brush Script Letterpress Business Cards

Do you love brush script as much as I do? A good, organic brush script is truly one of my favorite things, maybe next to modern calligraphy. I wanted to offer a custom letterpress business card that would suit clients with a shared love of hand-lettering – and so here it is! These cards are perfect for established professionals, but also for those who are just starting out and who maybe don't yet have a logo or set branding, but who want to stand out nonetheless and make a bold statement with their business cards.

What happens when you order these brush script letterpress cards? I will take your name and write it in brush script with sumi ink, and then transfer the artwork digitally to create a custom business card for you, using the contact information you send us. We then send you a proof to approve, and once approved, we create your printing plates and start the letterpress printing!

A set of these cards makes a great holiday gift for that creative person in your life and recent or upcoming grads.

A digital option will also be available soon. Enjoy!

p.s. Happy Halloween! Happy November (what?!)! Be sure to visit again soon for photos and ordering information for our 2014 holiday cards!

Recent Custom Letterpress Business Cards

A few photos of some recently printed custom letterpress business cards for a variety of clients. The top two were designed by Sunlit Letterpress, the bottom two by the clients themselves.

The card at the top was printed on 220 lb. Crane Lettra - and the photo shows the increased thickness and depth of impression that comes with a thicker stock. The bottom card is printed on 80 lb. kraft stock - it is a lighter stock than the Crane Lettra, but it is a bit more rigid and still offers a nice finish for letterpress printing.

For more information on custom letterpress business card printing - designed by us or by you - please contact the studio. We look forward to working with you!

Ready-to-Wear Letterpress Business Cards

Above is a photo of some recent cards that we printed for Taryn - using a design from our Ready-to-Wear Letterpress line.

Cards from the RTW line are pre-designed and sold in set quantities and ink colors that minimize costs. Please download our Ordering Guide (PDF) to view available designs, finishing options, and pricing.

For more information or to order your own set of cards, please contact the studio!

Letterpress Business Cards + Surfboards

Things have been ridiculously busy around the studio as we wrap up our last few projects before closing the studio for a holiday. Above is a photo of some custom business cards we designed and printed for a client that will be using them in his job search. Two benefits of letterpress business cards are that a) people look at them more closely because they are textured, and b) they actually keep them because they look so different from others. We wish Joshua all the best with his search!

Below are some photos of some custom certificates we printed for UWL Surfboards in France. UWL makes a line of custom boards called "Addiction", and with each custom board the buyer receives this certificate that lists the company's quality guarantee, and has spots for the shaper, laminator, board artist, and others to sign their names.

We worked with Thomas (the UWL rep who designed the artwork) in French, which was fun, as I rarely get a chance to use my French anymore. It is pretty cool to be able to work with someone halfway across the globe in another language and print something unique like these certificates:




The certificates were printed on Crane's Pearl Lettra with brown ink, and the kraft envelopes were printed with gold ink.



Along with these photos, we also made a quick video of the printing of this order, which I hope to post here soon (as soon as I figure out how to do that). UWL wanted to see a video of how their order was printed (and the press), and we were happy to oblige.

Back to work! Happy letterpressing!

A Letterpress Gift

© 2008 Sunlit Letterpress

Above are photos of custom letterpress business cards that we designed and printed for a client's father. It was the father's 60th birthday and these cards were given to him as a gift. He is a fan of script fonts, so we used Bickham script with Caslon for the details. The cards were printed in black ink on Crane's Pearl Lettra. You'll see some smudging on some of the contact information details for privacy reasons, though I'd love to be able to show you the cards without it!

Lately we've had a few questions from clients about the re-use of printing plates. If you are ordering business cards or other stationery, and would like to reorder more cards using the exact same design, we can keep and store your printing plates for your next order. Doing so eliminates waste and allows us to reprint your cards in the future without waiting for a new plate to be processed. In some cases, plate wear or breakdown may not allow for storage, so please contact the studio to discuss your options with us.

Our press schedule is now full until late September. If you are thinking about placing an order for custom letterpress stationery or invitations, please let us know a.s.a.p. so we can reserve your place in line for press time.

Happy letterpressing!

Business Cards and Boycotts?

© 2008 Sunlit Letterpress

Happy Easter friends! I hope you had a wonderful day! This Easter my husband and I decided to stay home and have an Easter dinner together just the two of us. Which reminds me, I'd better get that bird in the oven :)

Above you will see photos of some business cards I designed and printed for a local accountant. She wanted something simple, no motifs, no logo - just text. I love projects like this because they are so simple, and you can really take the time to appreciate the simplicity of type. There's no extra fluff or distraction.

So it seems I'm not the only letterpress printer out there with a beef about the Etsy Alchemy program. I am so happy to hear from other printers and crafters/artists that think the Alchemy system is a bit of a joke. So here is what I'm going to suggest - I think we should all undertake a quasi-boycott of the Alchemy program.

What I propose is this: If you are a letterpress printer that sells your work on Etsy, if you decide to participate in Alchemy, you should only submit proposals with realistic bids. i.e. Just because someone only wants to pay $20 for 50 custom-designed business cards, it doesn't mean you have to submit a bid for $20. Submit a bid that incorporates ALL of your REAL costs - design time, plates/typesetting, paper costs, cutting costs, ink costs, ink mixing costs, printing costs, packaging costs, and shipping (and any other costs you might incur based on your own processes).

I mean really - if you submit a bid for $20, not only are you undercharging for your work, you are doing us all a disservice by lowering the perceived value/costs of all of our work - which as you know, is high when compared to digital and offset printing. If you only bid $20, you'll never make up your costs.

Assuming the entire project takes you one full hour to prep and print 50 business cards (it would be more, but just for fun assume 1hr) - you'll only be paid $20 for that hour. This doesn't even take into account any of your materials, let alone the design time.

So, if you're a letterpress printer - then follow suit and only submit realistic bids. Write a post on your own blog about your new realistic approach to Etsy's Alchemy. And don't bid on projects where you can't even breakeven!

Happy letterpressing!