Sometimes, self-promotion pieces can be the hardest designs to work on. Why? Because designers, as a general rule, tend to be their own worst critics and nothing is ever good enough. Or, we change our minds so many times that it makes the design process nearly impossible to complete. So when the designs for the two pieces you see above came together smoothly, I considered it a minor miracle.

What you're looking at are two examples of self-promotion designs, one in the form of this year's holiday card and the other in a delicious new letterpress business card. The holiday card was digitally printed on Curious Collection's Ice Silver Metallic. The business cards were printed in one color on Neenah's 160# Wild, an especially yummy paper, by yours truly at a workshop hosted by We Are 1976.

Learning how to actually do letterpress was an eye-opening experience. The amount of energy, time and labor that goes into each piece of paper produced is amazing! I certainly have a new respect for letterpress printers (and I only did one color!)