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
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
Pretty good price / quality ratio.
They offer you a full range of styles and colors. They will also notify you in case your text or image are inappropriate.
Shipping was terribly slow. They need to work on that.
Rating: 4 / 5
Love the swift delivery! I needed my order delivered fast and I got what I wanted. No further comments. A+!
Rating: 5 / 5
Have used Cafepress many times, and have absolutely nothing but praise for them. I have recently ordered t-shirts in the wrong size, and also got a mug with a hairline crack along the bottom, causing it to leak droplets of water, but within 30 mins of emailing, I received a response.
They even sent out a replacement mug and told me to the keep the old one, and the same for one of the t-shirts I had bought - that's $25 Dollars and a lot of hassle they saved me, even-though i would have happily returned it.
Best service, i definitely recommend!
Rating: 5 / 5
I decided to surprise my wife with a t-shirt with the first picture with us as a couple. The guys from DesignAShirt are very professional and they helped me chose a design that my wife would love. Decent prices and the quality is topnotch, the shirt went through at least 20 washes and it looks great.
Rating: 5 / 5