Real Card Studio

Monday, November 23, 2009

Family Christmas Song Book

Holiday Song Book, foil printed cover and perfect bound

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, the holidays are officially here! Recently, Real Card Studio designed and produced the sweetest little song books for Cambridge Street Papers in Chatham, NJ that I'd love to share with you. I'm most excited about this project because it is the first time I've had a project perfect bound (which is the type of glue binding that magazines use). It is so clean and official looking when finished. And what could be more fun for this family, that you can imagine gathers around the piano (and I'm sure a fireplace) to sing Christmas carols together, than their own custom song books?

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Elegantly Modern Menu and Program

Elegant square wedding menu letterpress printed in cocoa + gold inks

Flourished program cover letterpress printed in cocoa brown ink with gold satin knot

A long overdue post of some of the beautiful orders we get from Dana at A Fine Line in Asheville, North Carolina. Her specialty is beautiful wedding stationery for events held at the grand Biltmore Estate.

For the program, we used a Parisian frame around the couples' names, letterpress printed in a rich cocoa ink on handmade Italian cotton paper and finished with a gold satin knot. But my favorite is the menu-- still elegant, with beautiful script, but with a contemporary square layout. I love the varying type sizes to make each line the same length, and to aid readability, the alternating ink colors of each menu item. This type layout would make a beautiful and elegant alternative to the sans-serif layout we typically do on our Cosmopolitan invitation.

Color palette: Gold + Cocoa

Order care of Dana Cochran at A Fine Line in Asheville, NC

Friday, October 9, 2009

Invitation for a Modern Bar Mitzvah in New York

Cosmopolitan invitation in aqua, ivory and brown

Substituted handmade paper to wrap the invite instead of the 2" satin ribbon we normally use on our Cosmopolitan invite

Alternating colors on insert cards inside to coordinate with the cover.

I feel like I start every post off this way, but today I'd like to share one of my favorite invitations we produced this year! I'm partial to this style, the Cosmopolitan, offered in our wedding collection for it's contemporary typesetting and practical functionality. But what I love about it as a business owner is the ease in which people are able to visualize it in their own colors. Some invitations people order exactly as we show it, hopefully because the paper and ink combinations we chose at the design stage were a slam-dunk, but I also think sometimes its because customers can't visualize it other than how it is shown. But this style you'll see me post fairly regularly, and it will be a new, wonderful color scheme each time. People that are drawn to the layout, quickly recognize how easy it is to create a personal look in their own colors to truly make it their own. (Next week, I'm going to show you how an international couple used it for their Hindu wedding!)

Color palette: Cocoa + Aqua

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Color Block Bar Mitzvah Invitation

Charcoal invitation foil printed in blue, yellow, orange and white :: Proper Notice

This is an invitation we worked on over the summer that I've been dying to share with you. I just love how the name stands out in vibrant color against the textured gray background. Its one of the things I love about foil printing, the bold impact of opaque color that you don't get with letterpress or offset printing. With the traditional print methods, there's always an opacity that the paper color and texture influence how sharp the printed color comes out. With foil, all you really have to worry about is contrast, which this invitation delivers.

I am particularly fond of the insert cards and return address that we foil printed in matte gray to match the paper. We could have letterpress printed gray on yellow, blue and orange, but we wouldn't have had the same density of the gray. I just love it!

Color Palette :: blue, orange, yellow + gray

Invitation sold by Ellen at Proper Notice, Roslyn Heights, NY

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Custom Holiday Cards

"Happy Holidays" Eggplant card with satin knot and purple foil printing :: Lettres Stationery

It has been quite too long since my last real post, I do apologize (Kim) for my absence. My excuse, or rather my announcement, is that I am pregnant with my second child, and the first trimester has proven to be very difficult and I had to let a few non-essentials slide. But my energy is coming back and I'm feeling a bit better these days, so I've got some catching up to do!

It's the beginning of holiday season in the retail world. If you're a veteran Christmas or holiday card sender, you know that October is the best time to place your custom orders, because that's when all the deals happen. Real Card Studio is offering free return address printing (about a $250 value) or free photo mounting service through October 31... which is quickly approaching! So here are some favorite holiday cards we created last season to get you motivated!