It’s not everyday, or even every month, that you can do business with a company or individual where you can say you were overjoyed to be their client. You can be in love your new laptop or you can be completed satisfied with a particular pizza joint but it’s a rare occasion to be so much a part of the process that you become friends with the owner.

After first seeing an interesting printing style called letterpress on an art and design blog, I got it into my head that I wanted to have a set of business cards made in that style. At the same time, I was talking to a complete stranger on a forum about his upstart letterpress printing company. They had not even gotten the press yet but were going to be up and running in no time. I knew it would take me forever to design what I want (I had zero experience with Illustrator, the program I needed to use to design it) so I took his email and got started on the design process.

Many iterations, a page orientation change, and many hours bumbling though Illustrator, I had my design (you can see the iterative process here):

All through the design process, I had Preston Grubbs, co-founder of Fresh Impressions printing, on my Google Talk application, talking me through the design, making suggestions, and teaching me about the process. He was helpful, friendly, and a complete professional. We chatted at long length about paper weight, ink color, design elements, and the process in general. I had never met him before, never talked on the phone, but I was already convinced that I would be completely satisfied by the end of the process.

The check was sent, cleared, and cashed, the paper ordered, the plate created, and pictures to ease my anxiety about the whole thing. Finally everything was complete and I had a tracking number. Here’s where Preston and his partner really started to shine.

When the cards showed up, they weren’t really what I expected. I was new to the process so I may have been confused but I wanted to talk to them about the final product. Preston told me explicitly “BE HONEST” when I told my opinion so I typed out an email detailing my issues. Here was the response:

I talked with my ‘business partner’ and we both agreed that we would be more than happy to reprint them. Unfortunately, last night we did a little more printing and we were able to fine tune the press even more. It turns out we were using our roller gauge incorrectly so we were putting down too much ink, therefore creating an inconsistent ink density as well as impression.

If you would like, I will express you some of the samples we printed last night on various stocks to show the quality we have reached now. We will not be able to reprint on 220lb because it is so much more expensive, but hopefully we will be able to do the pearl 110lb now or we also have access to some really amazing handmade paper that receives a beautiful impression. I can send all of this to you today if you would like me to and you can choose what you want your reprint printed on.

Again, I apologize for you not being happy with it and hopefully this doesn’t affect our relationship and you will accept our offer.

I was honest, he was honest and nothing beats complete honesty in a business relationship.

I kept some of the original cards on the thick stock and had a new set of cards printed on the thinner (but, in my opinion, easier to manage) paper stock. They were printed quickly and shipped out as promised. When they showed up, I was totally impressed:

In the end, I’m helping Preston get the attention of someone who might be able to help him rise to great heights in this printing endeavor… though there is no doubt in my mind that he could do it on his own. These cards are unique, tactile, and each one feels like a work of art. Preston’s passion for what he does shines through in every communication and especially in the product itself. I would never hesitate to recommend his services to anyone.

Thank you, Fresh Impressions, for your unmatched service and truly “needs-to-be-seen” product.

Amazing work… this iPhone photo looks like it was from 1932:

My last business card ordeal was such a cluster that I’m not even going to link back to that post. Besides, it seems to be getting an inordinate amount of p0rn spam comments and I’d rather NOT help those garner any more attention.

I digress…

I also need a business card and have not been giving this important piece of a business that relies on word-of-mouth enough attention. I was pondering new designs when I came across an artist who does letterpress artwork. I posted his work on a forum I frequent and got offered an excellent deal on letter pressed business cards. I immediately went to work on the design and came up with this:

I was digging it but the printer said that each extra color was an extra plate and would cost more. The printing was already more than I wanted to spend so I went with all-black:

I was really enjoying the design and loved the “old design for new techology” meme. I liked it so much, I posted it on the forum where I met the printer. It didn’t meet with quite the same approval as it had in my brain. Here’s what was said (verbatim):

My eyes are drawn all over the card and can’t find any focus. The font/italics aren’t very good and seem amateurish.

I like the card, but it makes you look like a lion tamer or animal trainer not a tech guy. Maybe have him using the chair and a whip on a PC? That is if you are going to stick with the original idea… And the accents that are on the corners, I would change it to one continuous border, have it just on the top and bottom make it look a little busy.

it’s just hard on the eyes. One more thing… you do look like a lion tamer. My suggestion is to go with the motion of the wheel and not try to reinvent it.

As for the 1920’s circus theme.. It can be done, however I think you missed the mark. To me, frilly script fonts, and borders don’t say “circus” to me. I’m also not making the connection between circus and technology. I’ll also add that your message “Josh Can Help” also does not fit with a circus style theme.

Ouch! I was convinced that no-one really understood where I was coming from with the design but I knew that these people had piles more experience than I do and there was very little that they were liking about it.

I was taking it personally and that is the worst way to try and learn anything. So I read and re-read everything and came up with a few more toned-down versions. For the record, I still like the first one the best.

These look cleaner and more toned down but, in my opinion, they were starting to lose character. I realized that the “look” I was going for was, more or less, only in my head.

Well, the wolves liked these much better…

If “Josh Can Help” is your company name, it should be the most important element on the card, and your tag line should be secondary. I’m still not feeling the overall style / idea, but I figured I’d point that out.

The simple ones are an improvement. I agree with the above poster, the company name should stand out the most. I’d also make the tamer bigger since there is so much room in the middle.

Try Vertical. Take the logo, or graphic, put in on top of the card with the ornate corners top and bottom. then imprint the rest below the graphic. seriously, try vertical. see how it looks.

Hmmmm…. then, a little more encouragement (the only reason I didn’t scrap this and start over):

I think that most people on this board don’t quite get letterpress printing… I personally like the approach you’re taking, talking high tech with low tech works for me…. and the lion tamer graphic works too. Letterpress with the right stock is a really nice tactile thing… and a classic serif font is a must for it. Sans serif with letterpress would be a waste of the extra money for print. You might as well print them thermographic instead if you go that way. The only change I would suggest is to have the graphic in the top half of the card and all the text below it. The script font was ok, but not great, given the context you’re aiming at for the design, you likely wouldn’t have seen a single word in-line in a script in a sentence, a true italic, yes, but not a script. Now if you were to take the card vertical and do one word per line stacked and larger with tighter leading, some caps as well, then it would work. I hope this helps.

With this new information, an idea to rotate it to vertical, and a few kind words, I came up with this:

I was REALLY liking this, much more than my original design, and it was very “letterpressy.” The forums went wild!

That one looks very good. I like the changed orientation and the subtle ornate borders. I would work on the font for Josh Can Help. Something a bit more exciting and antique.

my thoughts exactly. looking much better!

I was thinking about a different font as well and also wanted the text to be aligned on both sides (justified). It also needed to be in a vector format (Illustrator). I was scared to work in Illustrator (I’ve opened it five times since I bought it) but I found a few tutorials that helped and came up with the final version minus decorative elements:

The dimensions are a bit off and it’s not perfectly centered but the font, leading (space between lines), tracking (space between letters), and text are all finished.

What do you think?

Edit: final design getting printed: