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 company always relies on Vista Print for most printing jobs but the results are mixed. Last batch of business cards we ordered was off and very disappointing quality. On the upside: they do offer the best prices, and usually get the orders right. Although the last order was disappointing ill order from them again.
Rating: 3 / 5
Overnight Prints rocks when it comes to turnaround times and reliability!
It was Wednesday evening and i needed print material for a Friday evening event. I needed the prints to be ready and delivered to my office on Friday afternoon at the latest. None of the printing companies on this site were able to deliver this quickly, but Overnight Prints.
I did contact 2 local print shops as well - time wise they could schedule my prints to be delivered on time - but the price was 2 times higher compared to Overnight Prints.
Before i placed the order i contacted Overnight Prints over the phone, and they assured me they could meet the delivery time that was mentioned on their website.
After placing the order i read some negative reviews on Yelp about Overnight Prints, which made me very nervous and left me thinking i would seriously regret going with them.
Friday morning the prints were delivered at my office (11:00) and the quality was excellent! Just what i needed: good prints delivered on time.
I rarely use reviews on the web, but Overnight Prints saved my life on this-one. Thank you for that!
Rating: 5 / 5
Im not happy with Cafepress: I ordered a long sleeve tee shirt, but the design was off center. The print is shifted to the left of the shirt instead of centered. Also the fabric is low quality, the shirt already has a hole in the front.
Rating: 2 / 5
We used Overnightprints for our wedding invitation cards. The marriage was planned for a long time. Our initial plan was to celebrate it with a small circle of friends and family. Just 10 days before the wedding we finally decided to trow a huge party - you only marry once! Needless to say it was stressful to change things in the very last moment. We needed our wedding invitation cards FAST, read the review on overnight prints on this site and decided to use them for printing our invites. Everything turned out wonderful for us: The cards were delivered within 24 hours and the quality was wonderful. Overnight prints - for us - is a company you can count on.
Rating: 5 / 5
Inkgarden offers the most flexibility with their design tools. You can actually save your design to complete it later, and their tools allow you to exactly position where the design is located on the product that you create. Adding text is easy, you can use multiple designs, choose if you want to use single or double sided, etc, etc.
Product quality was satisfying, and customer service was helpful.
I will definately use them again.
Rating: 5 / 5