Project: Paper-cut card

So someone I know launched her own studio, which is an amazing feat, and I decided a card is much faster to make than—say, an A3 cutting—because I only had maybe a week or so to work on it. (Even as a full-time bum, one week isn't a lot of time to go from conceptualizing to designing—and endless redrafts, given how quickly I change my mind about things—to buying materials, printing, and cutting (and re-cutting in the event of design or cutting mistakes), to presentation.)

This was the final product I gave:

The envelope was a simple one—Paul Jackson's angled envelope—made with tracing paper. The card design itself, lord that must've been the third of the three completely different designs I was working on.

I started out with a grid of letters ("congratulations") on a seamless pattern (which I took forever to decide on) but halfway through that, I started thinking of a variation of Cirque des Rêves (yes, based on The Night Circus) which had a circular motif and a typeface with beautiful swashes (Giza Pro).

Finally, because it was all getting overwhelming and (needlessly) complicated, I settled on this much simpler design which also meant an easier cutting time.

What I used:

• Typefaces:
  • Hello Script ("Hazel" and "I wish you every success")
  • Moon ("congratulations")
  • Reislust (the last two lines from Robert Crawford's 'Advice' which, fuck me, yes I didn't catch that I'd attributed it to Richard rather than Robert Crawford until I finished cutting and it's too late to reprint and re-cut. Major UGH.)
• Paper: Campap watercolor paper, 300 gsm, 229x305 mm
• Triangle pattern: I took a single triangle from a hand-drawn seamless pattern set then manually pasted it around (using Transform Each to rotate/copy). I thought of using the Symbol Sprayer tool but this was such a small canvas it was actually much faster to manually create the pattern than to spray, then shift/scrunch/size, etc.
• Colorful watercolor background from Freepik.com
• Silhouette: DIY from a photo of Hazel I found in her FB album

Making this card (as well as having 10 more sheets of watercolor paper left in my block) makes me want to do more cutting! So far, I've decided to do another card—this time, one with a quote in a simple pop-up—and two seamless geometric patterns. Will get those printed out at the only print shop I'd go to since I have the time to travel there—he works with a lot of students (from the nearby art school) so he's really patient and comes at really low rates and great advice (plus free throw-ins like cutting and scoring haha)!