Christmas Card

Maggie and I decided to go a little nuts with our christmas card this year. The result:

See the back and inside and read about the process after the jump.

The cover is actually comprised of 3 separate photographs. Maggie took the picture of me, I took the picture of Maggie and we both distracted our kitty Archie long enough for him to stay and get the shot.  Maggie expertly spliced them all together then handed them over to me to mess around with.

The font for the title treatment is Akzidenz Grotesk, inspired by the the cover of Meet The Beatles. We went with Columbia records because we both dig us some Bob Dylan and we thought it added a significant retro quality.

In addition to the design elements, theres a lot of photoshop processing done on this photo. I made the highlights more red and green and less blue, while make the darks extra blue and less red and green to give a faded look. I then over layed some paper texture to make it look a little dirty and used.

For the back, I created the design in Illustrator. The font for the track listing and credits is Modern No. 20 by Ed Benguiat, which isn't a period font, but I thought I'd Mad Men it up and use an anachronistic font that looks cool and fits.

The track titles I came up on my own, Maggie let me have free reign and though I could have gone pretty blue with these, I held back as not to offend grandma. Ken Nelson, listed as producer, was a producer for Capitol's country music in the late fifties and early sixties. Roy Orbison was added because I thought it was funny, and Bob Dylan appears because Maggie is a nerd for Bob Dylan.

The same photoshop processing was involved on this back piece, albeit moved around slightly as to not replicate the pattern exactly.

The inside was pretty easy. I just combined alot of elements I had already done, with the new vinyl texture (that was actually really simple to throw together in photoshop. Add Noise to a white canvas, spin blur, then adjust the contrast, BOOM: Vinyl.)

We then got these printed through WHCC.com. Who had them printed and sent to us faster than I could even imagine.

Thanks! I hope everyone who got one enjoyed the card as much as Maggie and I enjoyed making them. Happy Holidays!

Special thanks to Robyn and Bill who let me borrow the guitar!