So I wanted to update this post with the card design the client picked out.  He decided he wanted to use a lime green so blacklights would highlight it when he hands his card out at a dj event (I guess there’s always a blacklight on at all times?)  I actually like it green, don’t you?  Out of all the designs, he actually picked the one I was sure he wouldn’t like because it had so much going on in the background… Well, whatever floats your boat!  This card really does look awesome in print, it has a high uv gloss coating over all the color and it’s just slick and pretty!

——–end of update———-

I haven’t posted any business cards in a while, so I thought I would share my most recent project proofs.  I’m pretty sure these folks went to vistaprint and were not satisfied based on the sample I saw and the whole “we need awesome cards fast” request.  I can’t say this enough, “YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR”.  There is no such thing as “free business cards”, because you pay for the shipping… and then you pay a REAL print shop to make you better ones in about 2 weeks when you get sick of looking at the cards you thought you could design yourself using a crappy flash based design generator.  C’mon people, seriously… quit supporting the corporate internet monsters and go to your LOCAL printer!

Whoa, enough ranting…

Back to the project:  So we know the client likes illustrations and line art (or vector art in designer’s lingo).  I wanted to give him something more than the lame template he picked from vistaprint (bastards)… so i mixed up 3 and 4 vectors from vecteezy, manipulated some of them so the highlights and good parts of the background would “caress” the text (like in #1 & #2 in the proof shown).  I used a rainbow gradient in a rectangle to cover the whole design & set it to “multiply” on the transparency palette.  I got kinda carried away with the different tweaks to each design, hence there being 2 similar in a couple of the choices.  In design #3, I found that vector of the turntable with the record, there was different text on the record, so I thought it would be cool to use the client’s name on the record instead.  A simple tweak to some text– I opened the vector file from vecteezy in illustrator, got rid of the stock text on the record, then put in my own.  I had to convert it to outlines, skew it and do some rotating to make it sit just right.  I only just emailed these proofs yesterday, but I will tell you #1 & #6 are my favorites.

This project was pretty fun for me because I don’t use photoshop for creation as much as i could.  I found some fun brushes on brusheezy.com for wood and made my own boards and posts. I drew the little screws in photoshop too… pretty easy with a gradient fill, then an emboss to make it look sunk into the board.  I used a technique with several steps to burn the logo into the wood, too.  Then I saved those images as tiff files and did the rest in inDesign.  The “Pig Xing” sign is an actual photo from the ranch, so playing on that I drew the sign for the name, phone # & web address using just the rounded corner effect on a rectangle from inDesign.  The background is a 3D rendering I downloaded (can’t remember where from).  I actually designed this business card after I did the elaborate brochure (below).

When I did my brainstorming on what I wanted this brochure to look like, I kept thinking “outdoors” but “clean”.  I think the background image really lends itself to that idea with the blue sky and all… Again, in photoshop I made a separate file for my little screws so I could place them in the layout using inDesign.  (click on the brochure image to see it larger – those screws were so freakin’ easy!)

I wanted all the photos of the hunters to look like they had been posted on a wooden pole with the screws kinda like drying freshly developed photos (old school).  Repetition of the boards at the top for the titles reinforced the theme of the wood, and just to be different, I drew scotch tape (in inDesign) and taped my little “note” in the middle of the brochure.  I probably spent about 3 to 4 hours on this project, and the client was so surprised with the design.  He said he didn’t expect something so unique!

Rack Card - Front & Back

So it’s no secret I do graphics.  It’s also no secret (on my part) that I do graphics for 3 other small print shops in the area.  I don’t feel like we are competitors, we are friends who help each other out and scratch each others’ backs when needed.  I got a call from my friend Deb, who I’ve known since I was 4 years old.  Her daughter and I went thru elementary school together, and we are all in the same Bunco group, too!  Anyway, she needed some help with client supplied artwork that was not print-ready.  It was slightly worse than I expected, it wasn’t just a matter of cloning in some art to make bleeds so they could produce it right.  I had to redesign the rack for several reasons: 1. the supplied file was 4 x 9 and the order was for 4.25 x 11; 2. the photo on the front was sloppily cropped from it’s background obviously with the magic wand tool in photoshop (big rookie move); 3. the backside was typed out in size 6pts font with serifs (a huge no-no when you go that small– I guarantee arial or verdana is easier to read at 6pts than times or goudy); 4. the “layered” photoshop file they supplied was NOT layered, in fact– each file had 3 layers, two copies of the background (the entire artwork flattened & rasterized) and the 3rd layer was a white box (wtf?); last but not least, and certainly the most important, 5. the whole thing was riddled with typos! (wtf to the 8th power!!!)

They were unable to get the person who supplied the files to work on them again (not sure why).  So, in my Mighty Mouse voice… “Here I come to saaaaaaave the daaaaaay!”  I really enjoy working on political stuff now & then, because not only do I learn something about a candidate, I get the feeling of pride that my design is going to be viewed by so many eyes in our area (even if there is no shameless plug for me at the bottom of the ad).  When that solicitor comes to my door with one of those, I can say “hey, I designed that”… and my friend Deb can say, “hey, I printed that”!  Thanks for sharing your work with me guys.

This project is a first in a series with details on how we produce your projects, from start to finish.

I was given the opportunity to design & print the 2010 calendar for The Oak Run History Group.  I love doing stuff with old photos… though I’ve never been much of a “scrap booker”, I felt like these photos deserved something with a little whimsical feel, but with the old fashioned detail old photos look best on (know what i mean?)  We originally had the design with an old fashioned candle burning in the corner with a quill at the bottom, all done in 3d style with gradient meshes, but the need to squeeze more photos warranted it’s removal.   The basic idea, have a notepad of 12 calendar pages mounted to a nice poster that will become a frame-able poster after the calendar is gone.  You’ll follow some of the challenges I faced with this project below…

After about 3 hours in graphics, we have an approved proof the client has approved to print.  The finish size of the poster is 11×17, but notice how the ink “bleeds” off the edge.  You have to include a little extra artwork to be trimmed off to get this finished look.  So we digitally print it on 12 x 18 cardstock, and cut it down to the bleeds at 11 x 17.

Over the bottom portion of the poster for the year will sit the actual calendar itself… So the bottom photos are kind of a surprise at the end of the year.  For the calendar pages we’ll use 12 sheets of 20# white bond paper and we “pad” them with chipboard (recycled cardboard) at the top edge, just like a regular notepad.

The challenges in production:

The regular calendars I have made in the past just get stapled to the poster part, but since this poster was going to remain a keepsake, I didn’t want to damage it with staple holes or any glue.  So, I thought and thought… I need something to attach the chipboard backer to the poster, without causing damage to the front of the poster.  I decided to try my regular label stock, 60# mac-tac (permanent adhesive)… then I perforated a 7 x 2 inch strip vertically so the perforation will fold the strip to 7 x 1 inches.  I attached half of it to the chipboard under the calendar pages, folded it at the perforation, then attached the other half to the back of the poster.  This way, the calendar pad is attached at both sides to the back of the poster, and when the year is gone, the user can break the perforation to remove the chipboard from the poster without any damage to the front of the poster.  See below for more…

Oak Run History's 2010 Calendar with Poster

So I see 3 downsides to this form of bindery:

1. Label stock is not as cheap as staples
2. A portion of the label will remain on the backside of the poster after the calendar is removed
3. There is no attachment to the poster along the 11 inch edge at the top of the calendar pad.

I can’t help but realize that this may not the best way to attach the pad to the poster (darn!)  As of 11/11/09, I will be working on this project… I hope to post it’s progression as it goes!

11/24/09 Update:  So I printed 10 extra calendars for this project and totally wasted only 2 completed calendars to test the sticker bindery method.  I really wanted to test how rough I could be at tearing off the calendar pages one by one while it was hung on the wall, the test was to see if those perforated stickers would hold the pages to the poster thru the entire year.  To my surprise, they really held up well.    I was worried that the perforated sticker would come apart because I folded the sticker on the perforated line and put that fold right on the edge of the poster & chip board backer of the calendar pad.  The first one I tested ripped after the first 4 months were torn off… Then Mom had the idea to just put the perforation about 1/32 of an inch more toward the back of the poster.  It worked better!  Mom’s always right!  When I had the perf right on the edge of the poster, there was a little sticker showing after the pad was removed, and it just looked sloppy.  By putting the perf slightly more toward the back of the poster, it left a clean edge on the face of the poster, and no perforated sticker showed from the front.  (Thanks Mom!)

So I’ve been playing with old photos, and my mom brought by this photo of my late Grandmother (we called her Nana).  Mom rescued this photo from Papa’s wallet and asked me to laminate it so it wouldn’t suffer any more damage.  She said Papa has been carrying this in his wallet since they were just dating (back in the 50’s).  I refused to laminate it because it would cause more harm than good.  Instead, I offered to restore it digitally, print a new one & laminate that so it wouldn’t suffer damage in his wallet.

I’m not a professional at restoring old photos, and I am by no means a scrap-booker.  I can tell you what I did to fix this though.  First, I scanned it at 2400 dpi first, then I opened it in photoshop.  I assessed the damage, and thought “wow, this is over my head”.  I googled “photoshop plugin photo restoration”.  Believe it or not, there are plugins you can download & install into the folders in your Adobe–>Photoshop–>Plugins directory.  It basically has a histogram thingy that allows you to run a bunch of tasks with the click of a button.  I ran one of these plugins, then realized that there was stuff missing to the original, so it was no cloning allowed here!  I found some brushes for hair, played for hours with them until I got it just right.  I didn’t want to mess with too much, but I really wanted to restore the face more than anything.  Besides the hair, I worked on her eyebrows, her lips and her skin.  My Nana was so beautiful in her youth, and she always had beautiful skin.  I will always remember her soft face when ever I gave her a hug, her cheek against mine.  Even when I was a little girl, I remember hugs from Nana.  I wanted to preserve more than just the memory of her beauty, but I felt like if I didn’t leave some age to the photo it might leave out the memory of how many times Papa has looked at this photo and watched it age in his wallet.

When it was all done & over, I would have to estimate I spent over 4 hours on this photo.  The only thing I was not happy with was the filter plugin I used at the beginning gave a more speckled look to the background, if I was doing this project for a client, I would not have used it.  I didn’t fix that because I it did add a little something to the photo that I did like.