Business cards are a staple for many letterpress printers, and we’re no exception. Given the dearth of good design when looking at the overall spectrum of business cards, I always enjoy working unique elements into these jobs. I printed this card last year when I was a partner at Cultural Operations with my friends Justin and Brian (now at Pencil + Paper and Cultural Operations, respectively). Our client had a limited budget, so we designed a simple card with some unique voice in two colorways. The edge drilling serves as a defacto arrow, leading the eye into the card, reinforced in the center of the card by a custom bracket—a subtle duplication of the same idea, once physically (in the shaping of the left hand side), once in print. Interesting about this piece too, is its illustration of a letterpress flood:printing large solids like these via letterpress is extremely difficult and, even when printed to perfection, will always show a bit of spotchiness or graininess. There are of course tips and tricks to getting the most out of a letterpress flood, but this graininess is inherent to the process, and gives character to the overall tone of a piece.