Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
I have been asked a few times for advice on marketing for artisans. It’s my belief that business cards can represent our identity, as they are a small and compact version of us and our company. However it is often difficult to express this identity on such a small piece of card.
Recently I was asked to design a card for carpenter, and I found it challenging and fun. My first thoughts where how to express what that man does without a long winded textual explanation. After much research i found myself at Lee Valley woodworking supplies store, a place where the artisan in question buys many of his tools and supplies. My hope was to find something inspirational within this artisans environment, and that I did. I found small pre-cut pieces of wood veneer @ $3 for 100 pieces, and I knew that these would be the perfect medium to represent a carpenter.
The next challenge was to be how i would print onto these veneer pieces whilst keeping true to the artisan in question. He is man with a love of antiques and traditional methods of woodworking. All his products are hand made with little or no machinery used. Luckily over last few weekends I had the chance to participate in letterpress workshops at University of Emily Carr. That was it! I would use the traditional letterpress techniques to print onto these veneer business cards.
And so with a little bit of research, and a small amount of money, I had hand made cards done in just a few hours. Due to the technique each business card was slightly imperfect, and as such unique; again a reflection of the the artisan they represented.
On a side note whilst researching these particular business cards I found the perfect paper for any environmentally minded companies. The example below shows recycled paper, with big chunks of old newspaper visible on the surface.(the letterpress method looks to be used in that case as well to achieve a nice embossed look)
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