Nothing like a box of business cards to make it feel official. Mine arrived last week and I love them. They were designed by the very talented Catherine Brautigam of Lone Shoe Graphics here in Milwaukee. She designed Finder Not Keeper's logo as well. (Talk about a kick ass mark, hers just rocks.)

The typeface on my card is Whitney.  It is a sans serif font, which means that the letters don't have little feet and hands on the ends of them. It was originally designed for the Whitney Museum in New York and is clear and compact.

When considering fonts, I used myfonts.com and typography.com. I would take screenshots of the business name and compare. Also there is a cool bookmarklet called Fount. If you are browsing online, you click on it and it automatically identifies the font size, weight, and style. Very handy!

I knew that a fancy font would get old quickly, just like a chair in a floral fabric. I figured simple and elegant was safest. Below are some of the contenders. In the end, I trusted Catherine to guide me.  

After the design of the card was finalized, we entered into the tough discussion of color and paper. I am such a sucker for nice paper, and knew I wanted something weighty, something too thick to floss with unless you are Michael Strahan.  I selected 280# Speckle-Tone Kraft Cover. You could use these cards as kindling in an emergency. (Don't tell my dad. He's freaky about fire. More about that here.) 

Color wise, I wanted bling, especially after seeing this card from Sugar Paper, with its swanky letterpress printed gold foil. It is hand lettered by Joanna Reynolds and I swear the card could pass as currency in some places it's so rich looking.  Buy it here. 

It is one thing to design a card and another to print it. (So many steps!) Catherine knew of an amazing printer in Minneapolis, which, in case you don't know, is where all the cool kids live. Studio On Fire specializes in letterpress printing with a distinctively tactile presence.  Here is a promo piece that came with my cards. It is shaped like a knife and I used it to cut a piece of cheddar tonight to see if it would hold up. It did. 

The folks at Studio On Fire, and Ben in particular, held my hand a bit regarding the gold foil and the image of the girl in the canoe. In the end, I decided that sacrificing some facial detail for the gleam of gold was worth it. I also sacrificed gold edging which would have put me way out of budget.

The end result is true to me. I felt strongly that the craft paper, flecked and textured looking, represented my love of nature and the elegance and shine of foil made it refined.  That is the image I am trying to project. Can't wait to hand them out!