An unusual Christmas card
An essay…
It is part of my Christmas celebration to gift my list of friends and family my own holiday card. These cards are designed by me and printed professionally. This year’s Christmas card was a little unusual. But not because of the its shape or its format. It was unusual because of the verse and style I picked.
I know Christmas comes every year and I much prefer to design them myself. Each year I want to do something unique or even try something I had been learning. This year however, I was a little stumped. October is usually the month I start thinking about them. This October was no exception. As per my predictable creative process, I had no idea where to start and what to do.
Two years ago, I designed a black card with gold foil with the word joy lettered across. Smartpress printed them and they were gorgeous. The paper is very velvety and soft. It is an experience to touch the paper. See below.
Last year, I designed the cards incorporating the cyanotype photographic method in the process. I colored the image by hand using both colored pencils and markers. See below.
This year? I was not sure what to do.
On Sunday October 6th or October 13th, I visited a church. I can’t remember if it was in their program or in the reading, but they went over Isaiah 59:20 which reads “a redeemer will come”. It is not one of the usual verses that are used for Christmas cards. Not at all.
In what I call a moment of a quirky twist, I imagined the R of redeemer being defined by flourishes. Kind of it being a negative letter. This became an experiment I was not really sure it would work. While designing the flourishes around the R, it occurred to me to make the rest of the verse part of the flourishes too. Again, this was all an experiment.
That night when I finished, I decided to go with it. I waited a few days to see if it was still what I wanted to do. Since nothing else came to me, I contacted Smartpress again to see if they would print them. But not before I scared my dear work study Ashlyn into vectorizing the whole card. She was not a fan. But the good people of Smartpress indicated how to send the files and there was no vectorizing needed. Ashlyn was very happy then.
Below are several shots of the card this year. I really like it. But if I do this again, I think I would print something on the back for those who have had a hard time finding the verse on the front. I will also give a shoot out to Smarpress because when I contacted them about some 22 or 23 cards coming back damaged, they reprinted them and expressed mail them so I could have them on time. Thank you!
See below.
