today i love: letterpress

Designers like me, well, we've long been obsessed with letterpress. In recent years though, seemingly all of a sudden, letterpress has been this huge trend flooding etsy and card shops and the invitation design world. (No complaints here).

If you aren't familiar, letterpress consists of impressing designs into heavier weight card-stock in order to create a more textured and high quality look. The options are endless when it comes to what you can letterpress and what colors you want to incorporate into a design. Regardless though, the end result is gorgeous, and while you can go the extra mile like any other design project, you can also totally stick to a reasonable budget. These are some letterpress designs that have been inspiring me lately:

This gorgeous hand-drawn arrow poster by SycamoreStreetPress would look adorable sitting in an office space or even in a kids bedroom.

Simple and customizable seems to be a good direction card designs are heading, I love this individual greeting card by weheartpaper.

Then comes graphic designers dream... clique yet trendy and inventive poster designs. This series of poster designs by granjagrafica I fell in love with... how can you not?

If anyone does state-inspired letterpress posters well, it's this etsy shop. Paperparasolpress has the most beautiful, colorful posters for each US state for such a reasonable price. I'm ready to get my hands on a California one already.

Of course I have to throw in a little plug for my new job and the cutest little letterpress company. Running out of Los Angeles, Underwood Letterpress created it's own niche by merging vintage postage with creative, custom designed invitations. Check out their Etsy and buy some gorgeous vintage postage, or visit their website for their beautiful portfolio.