Christmas Cardinals Christmas Card

Christmas Cardinals has a bit of a story behind the design, ever so slightly auto-biographical.  It was 1994 and my (then) partner and I were planning a pretty significant move the following month, in January of 1995.  We were moving from Jersey City to a lovely home in the picturesque Northern New Jersey town of Maplewood.  In addition to this being our Christmas card in 1994, it also functioned as a change of address notification.  So, having two male cardinals gathered around a festively decorated birdhouse seemed like a fitting design. 

I’ve always loved (male) cardinals.  They are stunningly beautiful, as their red feathers are usually in stark contrast to their surroundings.  They are also most impressive song birds.  But probably my favorite reason for loving them so much are some precious childhood memories.  I can remember being in my grandmother’s dining room, where she had a windowsill bird feeder.  Now, from what I can recall, the bird feeder was pretty rigged up, possibly even home-made.  I remember it being some sort of aluminum foil covered metal pan measuring about 8 inches wide and the length of the window ledge.  She would scatter bird seed in the pan, close the window and then the magic would begin.  Within minutes, all sorts of birds would descend on her home-made feeder as we quietly watched on the other side of the glass.  Of course, the brilliant cardinals were my favorite of her daily visitors.

Becoming more comfortable conceptualizing, designing and executing camera ready Christmas card mechanicals allowed me to invest more of myself into each design.  I also added more bells and whistles to this design.  This is a three color offset printed card with the black color raised using thermographic printing.  I also incorporated a Letraset half-tone screen pattern off the black screen to create the gray color of the roof’s shingles as well as the home’s interior.