Posted by Olivia dela Rosa on October 23, 2014
With all the printed materials and designs that we have right now, my eyes get pretty tired seeing the same old thing over and over again. There's nothing new in the market and nothing really stands out anymore. Though I don't find this totally wrong, the lack of inspiration is what frustrates me. A good design not only ignites something in you, it also challenges you to seek out and push the limits. It calls you to try and think of something new until you find the perfect design you need.
After searching endlessly throughout the Web, I found comfort after seeing these letterpress cards. Letterpress is basically a printing process that uses a movable type - reversed and raised letters and images made of metal or wood - which is then inked and impressed upon the paper and often with sort of an indentation from the pressure, creating a debossed effect. Its first use is dated back in the 15th century, used widely in printing books back then but has moved to business cards and wedding invitations later on. If you decide to do it yourself, you might find it labor-intensive but once you see the results you might consider the whole thing worth it.
Scroll through to see our thoroughly selected letterpress cards and discover new designs for your next project. Happy exploring!


Happy Notes from Anthropologie

Alexandra Huckabay by Print&Grain


Roar Projects by Principle Design



Bonjour Letterpress Card via Etsy

Letterpress cards by Colorquarry via Etsy




A Little Bird by Belinda Love Lee


Brad Goreski business cards by Sarah Drake Designs

Bon Voyage notecards by Inhaus Press

Letterpress wedding invitations by Minted

Greeting card by Denotecard via Etsy


Wedding invitation by Print & Promise via Etsy

Pinup Art letterpress card by Ink Pop Studio via Etsy

Wright & Goebel by The Working Assembly


Type Letterpress Desk Calendar by iSkelter

Hooray postcard by Parrott Design Studio via Etsy


Wondrous Co. by Mitch Bartlett




Ten Thousand business cards by The Distillery

2011 Holiday Word Search greeting card via Dolcepress
Enjoying so far? If you'd like to see more design inspirations, go and explore the rest of the site. Who knows, you might also end up getting the printing deal of your life with all the discounts we're offering!
Restaurant branding and design idea's
Square business card design examples
Business card dimensions and paper weight
Electronic business cards with NFC technology
Wikipedia: Letterpress
I just received my wedding invitation cards from Tinyprints and couldn't be happier! Quality is excellent and it took less then a week for them arrive. A+++
Rating: 4 / 5
My holiday cards order was very good with Overnight Prints.
The instructions on their website caused us some confusion, but a call to Overnight Prints cleared it up quickly.
We received the cards a day ahead of schedule. They are glossy, high-quality, and exactly as I wanted them to be.
I will say that some of my colleagues ordered business cards from Overnight Prints, some of them did have some problems with crooked corners, especially, but since i needed this job done QUICK and cheap, i decided to go for Overnight Prints. I will be checking them out for anything not requiring curved corners in the future!
Rating: 5 / 5
Being their customer for several years and never encountered any problems before, the last order was dissapointing. The quality of the photo's was grainy, but they did solve the manner and reprinted my invitation cards free of charge.
Rating: 4 / 5
I don't know how their stores are as I always order online but I never ever been disappointed by these guys. I placed around 7 orders in the last couple of years and except an order where I accidentally ordered the wrong color, everything was top notch. My favorite product is the baby blanket I ordered for my daughter; it was pink with fairies and personalized with her name. She outgrown it today but I can't part with it, it's gorgeous.
TIP: I strongly recommend searching for coupons before ordering as you could end up saving a lot of bucks.
Rating: 5 / 5
Fist time ive tried vistaprint. They seemed to be a good option for photobooks, spend days creating and now i cannot upload. Been on call with their customers support for almost an hour now. I guess they are cheap for a reson.
Rating: 3 / 5