Making Sure Everything Lines Up: Register Printing
If there's any doubt we're fully in the digital era, just look to graphic design. It amazes me how many designers think the whole concept of graphic design is tied to the history of the computer. Designing for the screen, on a screen, is a relatively straightforward...
When Do I Send Out Wedding Invitations?
When do I send out wedding invitations? This has to be one of the most common questions I hear as a stationer. That's why I created this timeline for sending save-the-dates, invitations, and thank you notes as well as when to set your RSVP deadline....
On Being Brave
You might know James Victore, or at least who he is. If you do, you have an opinion of him. There was a time when I waited for each new installment of Burning Questions. Then it trailed off. I got busy. I dug into the trenches of the business and I stopped paying...
Working With Out of State Wedding Vendors
One of the questions we get most often is about working with out of state wedding vendors. We're based in central Florida - a great area to live, but it's not known for luxury weddings. Because of this, most of our clients are based out-of-state (or at the south end...
Going All The Way to The Edges | Edge-Painted Stationery
You want people to take the time to engage with the stationery they receive from you. Whether it's a wedding invitation, a business card, or a handwritten note, you give it to them hoping it gives them an opportunity to slow down for a second and reflect on the love...
Why I Choose to Make The Outrageous
I've been a fan of Seth Godin's pretty much as long as I can remember. He's one of the most consistent minds in art and commerce....
Perfect Letterpress Printing
I was talking shop with a fellow pressman a few weeks ago when he mentioned he was thinking about writing a blog post about how perfection is possible in letterpress printing. I thought this was a horrible idea. Let me start by saying this: no production process can...
Thank You Notes For Your Wedding
Planning a wedding can be a whirlwind. There are so many things to consider and make decisions about that you might not have even known existed before getting engaged. It can easily be overwhelming and you can feel like there are things slipping through the cracks....
Business Cards Take Shape
I remember the very first time I order business cards from Moo.com. They were their tiny little mini cards. I used a few different photos Tina Sargeant had taken of me for my career as a jazz bass player. I was so proud of those things! They were different than...
Music Mondays | The Formative Five No. 5
Music Mondays: because life’s better with a soundtrack. I recommend hitting play before reading further. I wanted to take the next few Music Mondays to address a few of the albums that have made a deep impact on me. I'm calling them the Formative Five - each one hit...
A Pirate Ship in Your Mailbox
I spend a lot of time thinking about how people open mail. With the amount of wedding invitations I do, I'm constantly interested in ways I can make a guest's experience at her mailbox more interesting and engaging. Add conversion to that and you've got the makings of...
Making Sure RSVPs from Foreign Guests Find Their Way To Your Doorstep
So, your guestlist includes super awesome friends from all over the world - you're so intercontinental! One of the great things about weddings is how they bring people together. A roommate you haven’t seen in a year and a half. Your cousin in Stuttgart. Friends and...
Making More Time to Serve My Clients
A few months ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a concept called the artisan trap. It was immediately familiar to me, the idea that those of us who craft custom products for clients find ourselves constantly switching between business mode and crafting mode. That...
On the Future of Print
"Print is dead" is dead. Sure, the newspaper industry is still in turmoil and it likely won't be long before those presses stop running. But the very concept of ideas permanently fixed onto substrates to be consumed by your audience is proving itself larger than the...
A Few Lessons From Laser Cutting Invitations
I try to learn as much as I can from every situation. Sometimes it takes some digging and extrapolation. Sometimes it hits me like a ton of bricks. I worked with the Schulman family for a while to hone in on the design of their son's bar mitzvah invitation. The key...
Music Mondays | Eldar
Music Mondays: because life’s better with a soundtrack. In the last year, I've had to adjust priorities to make room for growth at A Fine Press. One of the things that got cut was gigging. I'm a jazz bassist and, while I've never made a substantial portion of my...
Have you thought about….
...how the average person opens their mail? ...how a right-handed person accepts your business card when you hand it to her? ...a left-handed person? ...how many gatekeepers your portfolio mailer might have to go through before it gets in the decision-maker's hands...
Case Study – Agricultural Business Cards
Being a part of a close-knit group of entrepreneurs, tech employees and creatives in a coworking space comes with daily challenges and often unexpected rewards. Most of them are the kinds of things you’d expect - moments of serendipity contrasted with times of...
What Happens When…?
Letterpress printing is an imperfect art. There are reasons the commercial printing industry ditched these machines in favor of offset - and now digital - presses. They have issues with register and ink coverage and gradients. Frankly, it's these challenges that...
This Changes The Game for Photographers and Designers
Maybe it was the fact that I had just left my last day job - thrust into the world of funemployment/entrepreneurship - that I completely missed the launch of Palette. While I missed something pretty cool then, I'm really excited to see what looks like an even better...
"We're abdicating so much of what we are learning and retaining not to our own memories, but to the memories of our devices." (tweet this) "People often see the end result; they don't see the struggle that goes into it." I've always been enamoured with the idea of...