Is a holiday card like all others? Surely not. Especially when each card is hand crafted with care and love as a designer seeks to learn something new, a technique that snatches him or her from their usual element, forcing them to improvise and go with the flow. Such is the case of Brent Couchman, designer and illustrator at Fossil:
For one of our projects we had done a series of woodcut inspired prints to use on different Fossil products. It was my first time working with the technique and it was fun to get away from the computer and learn something new. It was also relatively simple so I thought it could work well for our holiday cards. Previously, I had used a single color but I thought it would be fun to try printing with two colors. The actual carving was pretty easy and probably took about 2 hours. The trickiest part was to carve it so that each block would line up correctly for printing. I used the dining room as a production area and just printed an hour at a time for a few days until we had it all done.
The rubber doesn’t hold a great amount of detail which I learned early on while we were printing. Smaller lines, like the type, didnt seem to hold up as well as I had wanted but it also gave it an overall rougher feel which we were OK with. Based on suggestions from friends I think I’ll try using linocut blocks next time to get a little bit more detail in there.
We sure hope Brent continues experimenting and having fun. May we suggest a valentine?
Editor of FPO and co-founder of UnderConsideration LLC.
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FPO (For Print Only), is a division of UnderConsideration, celebrating the reality that print is not dead by showcasing the most compelling printed projects.
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UnderConsideration is a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives, and content while taking on limited client work. Run by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit in Bloomington, IN. More…
blogs we publish
Brand New / Displaying opinions and focusing solely on corporate and brand identity work.
Art of the Menu / Cataloguing the underrated creativity of menus from around the world.
Quipsologies / Chronicling the most curious, creative, and notable projects, stories, and events of the graphic design industry on a daily basis.
products we sell
Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work.
Brand New Conference videos / Individual, downloadable videos of every presentation since 2010.
Prints / A variety of posters, the majority from our AIforGA series.
Other / Various one-off products.
events we organize
Brand New Conference / A two-day event on corporate and brand identity with some of today's most active and influential practitioners from around the world.
Brand Nieuwe Conference / Ditto but in Amsterdam.
Austin Initiative for Graphic Awesomeness / A speaker series in Austin, TX, featuring some of the graphic design industry's most awesome people.
also
Favorite Things we've Made / In our capacity as graphic designers.
Projects we've Concluded / Long- and short-lived efforts.
UCllc News / Updates on what's going at the corporate level of UnderConsideration.
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