For a long time, I didn’t think I needed one. But I do see some illustrators with them, something unassuming and clever on their cards instead of an illustration. A great idea, seeing as one’s style can change over time, having an illustration on a business, or as I like to call them now, studio cards can become dated really quick. It also gets a bit congested, having a bunch of contact info plus an illustration, and so small. If you go with a larger card, like a mini postcard, then why bother with regular postcards? I decided I needed a logo, or my name only, on my card. I’d come up with something I really liked…at first. But like most of my work, if I’m looking at it for too long and it’s too trendy or complicated, I get burned out on it. Keep in mind too, I’ve had other priorities for the past nearly three months: summer vacation, my boys, husband, and all that entails. We had a fun, still more we want to do and the time falls short, but I had no real downtime. So working in bits and pieces, I came up with a cute little way to use the type treatment I’d already designed:

It has cute dotted and dashed lines, stars, texture, the color orange, which I can’t for the life of me figure out why I didn’t use it before. Ooh, and a drop shadow, so it looks like cut paper…But somehow, just looked like I was trying too hard…

So I left it for a couple of days. Boys went back to school today and after I’d sent them off and did my volunteering for an hour, I came back to the drawing table and I started messing around. I came up with this:

I thought, on a square card, this would be really cute! Don’t recognize it? It’s me! Still don’t? Let me help you:

It’s how I sign every email, and have been since I’ve had email (without the flower, of course). The reverse side I’m still working on, but I’d love to know what you think. I wanted the design to make sense from a couple different angles, and I think it does that. I can have it printed or letterpress, I can adapt it to different holidays, and it covers the one or two color requirement, I can put it on any kind of paper with any ink. It describes me without over-detailing, and hopefully won’t get boring or trite for a long while.
Because you know, it’s not easy to pass out 250 cards in a short time! ; )