It is almost February and we 're finally adding some new posts for the new year.  We're in the thick of the wedding invitation season and juggling meetings, designing and emailing.  We have a bit of time this weekend so we'll work backwards and add some studio updates to the blog over the next few days! To start, here is a picture of some of our stationery in a shop in Japan.  I love the way they display the cards sideways...

Our friends over at Martha Stewart Weddings recently asked if we could send pictures of our note card printing process for their blog The Brides Guide.  It was fun to photograph the process and we thought we'd post the pictures here so visitors can see how we produce our stationery.

The stack of finished cards.

We're always trying to develop stationery that appeals to men (or that will appeal to women who are shopping for gifts for men).  Don't guys have to send thank you notes too?  We've given everyone we know more stationery than they probably know what to do with, but we think these cards would be nice for all the guys who do not have sets of Sesame Letterpress note cards yet!  (Available online at Sesame Letterpress Stationery Sets)(photos by Jen Causey)

We love old books and essays on the etiquette of letter writing. Here is one of our favorite quotes:"To be a really good correspondent is truly an art, perhaps first of all a gift, to be cultivated and developed. One may in spite of every effort still fall short of that goal, but it is always possible to give pleasure by a simple written note or letter, couched in good English and written on stationery that is not only correct but indicative of personal taste."

Being stationers, we think everyone should have a nice box of personal stationery on hand and if the box itself is pretty, we're more inspired to use the cards inside!

We have a library of hundreds of images we pull from when designing stationery. We're finally compiling them into one catalog or "specimen book" (to use a proper printer's term) so clients can view our collection to select an image for their own stationery. It is always fun to see what people choose to print on their personal note cards.  These are some of our favorite designs.

Collaborating with couples to design and print wedding stationery is one of the best aspects of our job.  It is fun to meet a bride and groom to be (often along with their families) and learn about their wedding, their style and tastes and to experience the excitement that comes with planning a wedding. The Save the Date announcements are especially fun to design and print as they tend to be less formal than the invitation suite and often hint at the personal style and day to day interests of the couple.  We love this bookmark announcement as it functions well as a Save the Date card, and is useful as well.  Hopefully this will encourage people to continue to read actual books!

We designed another small set of plates for West Elm for the 2011 holiday season.  We think they would be especially great gifts if given with a stack of homemade cookies!

We've finally finished our new 2012 calendar after six months of thinking about it.  We couldn't decide on a size or format (large poster, 4 seasonal cards, a notebook style calendar...).  We finally settled upon a mini calendar printed on a pretty newsprint.  The small size requires less commitment as far as wall space goes, which is good if you have a small space (or already many things on your wall, like we do). We also added a "resolutions" page as we unfortunately tend to forget our resolutions by the time October rolls around.  Then we just had to decide on colors and images...