The scariest thing about Halloween? The holiday season is around the corner. It gets late early this time of year, and you need to get moving on designing and printing cards to send to customers and clients.
highresolution® offers a variety of printing processes and techniques—including digital and sheet fed offset; letterpress; hot stamping, embossing, debossing and die cutting—to create stunning and unique holiday cards that will transcend the transient season to become valued keepsakes. A few of our favorite projects.
Something Special
The uncoated Lettra stock for AMC’s 2014 holiday card for AMC was embossed and debossed, and selected words were hot stamped with gold foil. The envelope was custom made from Lettra stock, but using 90# text weight that started out as flat paper. We positioned a gold foil liner on what would be the interior of the envelope and die cut the sheets in the shape of a #10 policy envelope. Because the opening of a policy envelope is on the side, rather than on top as with a conventional envelope, the recipients were able to slide it out as if the envelope were a sleeve. The turnaround time to produce 1,400 cards with envelopes was three weeks.
Flying High
AgencySacks, whose clients cater to affluent consumers, approached us in 2015 to produce holiday cards for its client NetJets. As NetJets offers individuals and businesses fractional aircraft ownership, the front of the card was die cut in the shape of an airplane window with embossing to create the window frame. The “view” from the window was a glittering Manhattan skyline at night, which was offset printed on the inside of the card and then foil embossed and hot stamped.
The double-thick card was printed on 105# cover weight Stardream Quartz stock that was mounted to a second sheet of the same stock. After an adhesive is applied, the layers are fed through a pressure roller that forces out any bubbles. The turnaround time to produce 21,000 cards and envelopes was 30 days.
Make It Pop
For David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting System, we created 600 3D die-cut cards that were double-mounted and folded by hand. The hand application of the adhesive was carefully done to ensure that the center pop was clean.
The 90# Utopia Premium Silk cover stock was printed in 4-color and Pantone Matching System (PMS) red. The flags on the inside of the card were clear foil stamped and embossed. Production time for the cards, which were accompanied with a metallic silver envelope and a gold self-adhesive seal for an elegant finishing touch, was four weeks.
Magic Carpet
Carini Lang Carpets needed their cards in a hurry—in just a week hurry. This playful card features a 4-color image of carpet swatches labeled with the names of Santa’s reindeer that was digitally printed on 130# matte coated cover. We also provided 2-color printed envelopes for the 500 cards.
When thinking about the message you want your holiday card to convey, remember that the design is as important as the greeting to show your clients and customers your appreciation for their business. Your card will generate goodwill all year long if you create something too beautiful to throw away after the holidays.