Custom designed
holiday cards

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Our work takes time and relies on creativity to showcase our clients. This scene for Falco Construction shows a scene in Central Park that seems real, but was really an invention. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom holiday card.

This view overlooking the New York skyline was created for Falco Construction to commemorate their 50th anniversary. The owner wanted a scene that would be a keepsake, to honor her parents who founded the company.

The next card features a special place at Rockefeller Center.

This view shows an early stage of development of the art when we begin by pasting together many photos into a fantasy view. This is a scene of Rockefeller Center created for Falco Construction. Learn more at CustomCorporateCards.com

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Custom Art & Card Bundle

Quite often our clients have art or photos that they want to have customized into a larger design. In this holiday card for Alma College, the President's son had created some fine art for a card and our assignment was to incorporate this art into a portrait of the the chapel on campus. The final art was very welcoming for the holidays. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom holiday card.

We also did a scene for Alma College on a previous year using art from the young artists. This project was a lot of fun and had a lot of surprises along the way.

The next card features a special place at Albion College.

Here is a rough draft of a winter scene of Wesley Hall at Albion College. This scene shows the freshmen students coming and going to class and was created for the Office of Admission.

The next card features a special place at Albion College.

Albion College Admission Office commissioned these cards to invite new students and to keep in contact with alumni. The original view was summer with many overhead wires, and a fire hydrant. Learn more at CustomCorporateCards.com

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Steps to create your custom art and cards

Southern Michigan Bank and Trust wanted to send a custom holiday card that showed their office and a touch of the holiday season. They wanted a simple design, and they wanted their cards printed on a quality heavy stock. This is a photo of an actual card. These types of cards have a deckle (feathered) edge at the bottom of each card, and on the matching envelopes. See the next slide for the inside of this card.

You can see from this image that this type of card, printed on Strathmore Pastelle stock, has a wonderful texture. It also has a hefty feel to it, and conveys attention a personal touch.

See the next slide for the back of this card.

The backs of our unique cards are a spot where you can place your business logo, a mission statement or a short history. You can also have us print something like a short history on the inside top of your custom cards. These cards are printed on acid free stock for longevity. More cards are displayed in the next mini gallery.

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Resources:

Samples of our work

CustomCorporateCards.com

CustomCorporateGifts.com

MichiganPrints.com

MichiganMugs.com

Connected Communities
of Mid-Michigan

Sustainable Communities
prototype: AlbionMich.net

Local Web Marketing Program

To navigate through our galleries, hover over the image and use the arrows to go to the next image. We are the publishers of GeneralGuide.net, quarterly flier that is distributed primarily in Calhoun County Michigan. The General Guide showcases cultural places and events along the I-94 corridor between Battle Creek and Jackson, including Albion, Marshall, and Homer. The primary focus of the Guide is to build bridges between Albion and Marshall by sharing information that welcomes people into each community. here to preview AlbionMich.net, one of the connected communities.

The calendars for the General Guide, albionmich.net/calendar/ Feature events happening in Albion, and includes links to official content, and other area calendars. Please double check before you go to an event! Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site.

The back of the General Guide has listings for businesses and organizations that participate in the Annual Web Marketing Program. Learn how your business can participate by clicking here.

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Contact us about your web site & web marketing

This gallery shows some of clients websites that are rather interesting. We created this web site for Cascarelli's of Albion, a family-owned centennial business in Albion. Interestingly, the sketch of the peanut roasting cart was also done by our principal designer, Maggie LaNoue, decades ago. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site.

This web site, AlbionHeritage.com features the owner's blogging content about things to do in Albion.

We also designed the logo for Albion Heritage, that you can see in more detail below. Albion Heritage is a wonderful place to stay for your next trip to Albion Michigan. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to see more custom art we did for this client.

This custom art of a Camperdown Elm in the backyard of Albion Heritage, was created over a period of one year by taking photos of the peak liveliness of a tree in each season, then recreating that image with paint strokes with a focus on the key aspects.

Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here
to preview another custom art project created for Albion Heritage.

This logo was created by Albion Design for Albion Heritage Bed & Breakfast and was used for coffee cups, coasters, and other items. To see a website created for a restaurant in Battle Creek, click here
to preview another custom art project created for Albion Heritage.

This web site, Claras.com features two Michigan restaurants located in depots with unique decor in Battle Creek.

Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site.

This site, Substance Abuse Prevention Services was created for Harry Bonner to update his information to reflect the new name of his business.

Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site.

BattleCreekMich.com has photo essays of Battle Creek highlights including the Festival of Lights. This site has featured the annual event "Community Prayer Breakfast" for many years and has archived the information. One of the main benefits of these community pages is the interlinking nature of the web sites for each city. Our plan, since the project started in 1995, is to facilitate regional promotion of the cities along the I-94 corridor in Mid Michigan.

See the Next slide -- MarshallMich.com.

MarshallMich.com has featured and archived many years of the Marshall Home Tour. This site has a historical section with selections of history books from local historian Richard Carver. Another favorite of all the city sites is the guestbook, where residents and visitors can comment about each town. The guestbooks entries are reviewed by an editor before being published.

Next - check out HomerMich.com.

Homer Michigan is also included in the collection of Mid Michigan web sites. HomerMich.com has a photo essay of favorite spots in this community, and has a surprising amount of traffic considering the size of the community. Learn more about the Connected Communities of Mid Michigan project.

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Free marketing tips for businesses

Our graphic design work

This logo for Albion Heritage was created using a business portrait that we designed for the bed and breakfast earlier. We found some leaves from a special tree in their back yard that we made into dingbats for either side of the location.

The next graphics project shows a logo design we created to help build membership and support for the restoration of the Bohm Theatre in Albion.

This logo design was created to help build membership and support for the restoration of the Bohm Theatre in Albion. We also designed a brochure for the project, see the mini gallery above this one. We captured the bold glamor of the old theatre, and kept the logo simple so it would look good on a web page and in print.

See a before and after logo project on the Next slide.

The Goodrich Club had a nice logo that was designed in 1940. Over the years, different members did their own versions of it, and it was used on a number of items.

One more before and after logo that is fun to see on the Next slide.

We love doing work for family-owned and historic businesses and groups. Quite often they have things that mean a lot to them that are historic. Sometimes they need just a bit of tweaking.

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This brochure was designed for the Albion Community Foundation to facilitate fundraising and build membership for a theatre restoration project. We used photos of architectural elements as part of the design of the brochure, such as the columns.

See the inside of this brochure on the next slide..

This is the inside of the Bohm Theatre brochure. We used an image of theatre curtains and seats as the margin space, and some of the theatre's original fixtures were featured as highlights. The friends of the Bohm Theatre received hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants to restore this special building.

The next slide depicts another membership brochure project.... the Wilder Creek Conservation Club brochure.

This is the inside of the Wilder Creek Conservation Club brochure. The purpose of this brochure was to increase membership and also to be an introduction to educational groups and corporations. This brochure was made possible through a grant from the Non Profit Alliance in Battle Creek and assisted WCCC in obtaining a very large corporate donation when there was an environmental accident in the area. We worked with the executive committee showing proofs over the internet to be sure that the final printed piece would be special and would not be dated in a year or two. See a pdf (1.8 MB) of the entire WCCC brochure, including the hand drawn maps.

The next slide shows a brochure featuring arts and culture in Albion.

Albion Community Foundation wanted to create a brochure that would highlight the arts in Albion, and point to several other web sites that would have more information. This brochure was also designed to be timeless with no dated information. The cover of the brochure was a montage of many images, include images from a mural that we also helped to design. The day after this brochure was mailed out, the Foundation received quite a few phone calls with compliments on the piece.

See a brochure design that helped to market a children's museum.

Kids 'N' Stuff regularly draws thousands of young people by the bus loads to its location in Albion. The founders of the project had a vision, and in order to share the vision, and to keep it funded, the print materials needed to reflect the fun, the education, and the color of the location. They also needed a custom designed map so people would be able to find "KNS."

Close this section on brochure designs.

Corporate Holiday cards for Stanmore Contractors near London This holiday card project was done from afar and combined new art we created just for this view, plus work from photos from our client, past work we had done, photos of the London skyline, the Dartford Crossing from the south side of the Thames, Google Earth and Google Street view. Our client wanted to showcase the various types of work that they do, and the people who do the work. They wanted us to capture their signature Audi company cars, and their style sheet thoughout the card design. We brainstormed together by email to make the imaginary scene, based on a true story, come alive. We were able to get the job done early enough to ship the cards overseas in time for mailing from their home office. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to see another contractor holiday card, this one for a New York client. Holiday Greeting cards for Falco Construction Corporation We created our first holiday card for Falco Corporation in 1999. This year was an exciting assignment, to portray their biggest construction project to date, right next to the Manhattan Bridge in New York. We also created Falco Construction's website. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to see an earlier holiday card created for Falco. Our work takes time and relies on creativity to showcase our clients. This scene for Falco Construction shows a scene in Central Park that seems real, but was really an invention. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to see the 50th anniversary Falco Construction holiday card. This view overlooking the New York skyline was created for Falco Construction to commemorate their 50th anniversary. The owner wanted a scene that would be a keepsake, to honor her parents who founded the company. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to see another fun holiday card project. The cards we created for Falco Construction in 2001 took on a patriotic note because of the events in New York and America that year. We customized the back of the card (shown at right) to explain why their logo of the skyline of New York would not change, even though the skyline itself did. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to see the Falco card from 2000 or just click the X or the art to go back to the rest of this page. The year 2000 shows a simpler time than just one year later in New York. For the Falco cards, a recurring theme has been the holiday decorations and the building of a snowman. To see yet an earlier holiday card project for Falco Construction click here. Falco's 1999 Holiday Card The The earliest card in the Falco series is also interesting! The 1998 Falco Corporation holiday card created by Albion Design. Thank you for visiting this series of cards. If you are interested in developing cards for your family business or corporation, please contact us! Click on the art or on the X to close this window. Front of card 2012 This scene is the beautiful new Remick Heritage Center for performing arts. Each year we also include drawings by the president's children who are budding artists. We had their drawings of the manger scene, and Santa with his reindeer. We used our Photoshop skills to get the right angle of the building, at the right time of day and right time of year, then added the crowd arriving. None of those items were in any of the photos as shown. So we like to work with our clients to make the view that they envision. You can see more cards of Alma and other clients at CustomCorporateCards.com You can see the inside of this card and the back of this card by clicking here! We are showing some actual scans of cards so you can see the texture of the Strathmore Pastelle Cover Stock that we print many of our cards on. We work with you to develop a custom greeting for your cards. The back of this card is also interesting! We are showing some actual scans of cards so you can see the texture of the Strathmore Pastelle Cover Stock that we print many of our cards on. We work with you to develop a custom greeting for your cards. The back of this card is also interesting! This is the back of the same card showing the youth artists and credits to all artists. When people order custom cards, they often like to customize not only the front of the card, and the message inside, but also the backs of the cards, and even the inside top flap. Our clients usually come back for more custom cards from year to year due to the response they get from the recipients of the cards. You can see more cards of Alma and other clients at CustomCorporateCards.com or Close to see the rest of this page. Stanmore Contractors in Erith, England custom holiday cards tell about the special touches of their work and people. Click on art to read the story.

Your holiday cards tell a story.

We like to work for businesses that have been around for a while, for people who do their work because they love it. There is usually a story or two in there, some history, some family members who have some things to contribute. There are usually some special little things, things that might be represented by a photo, a story or a sketch.

It's fun is to discover what means the most to the people who own the business - why they are there. We like to craft a design - a web site, or some art, to bring out the beauty so the rest of the world can see it. We might add flourishes to our designs, a blue print, some leaves, a little dog, just something to let the eyes rest on.

What is the purpose of your communication? We might reflect on the reasons why your business wants a web site, is it to get sales? Or is it perhaps to honor the underlying mission of what you do? Is it to provide hospitality to those visiting your community? Is it to build and to carry on a family business - to honor those who are no longer there? Perhaps it is to provide the means for other businesses and entreprenuers to grow. From these things, sales do grow.

We start our work from the inside out, and we do fuss a little bit on the details. People tend to come back after they hear the thank you's and compliments on their cards or web designs. Your ideas start the ball rolling; you are really the creator of your cards, or your web site. You just give us enough to get going, and some feedback as we create. You'll see your vision take form, and we will be sure everything works well and prints well and that your schedule is met also. We care about little things that you might not even know about, like search engine optimization, backups, and that tiny image in the address bar of your browser, and smooth navigation for your site. This does take some time, but it is a labor of love.

As you click on the galleries in the sidebars, you will see a small sampling of the work that we have done since our early days of business. When we started our business full time, we worked with ink pens, oil paints and rubber cement. We were early adapters to the web, creating web sites in 1995. We are still learning too. It makes us feel really good when your business looks good on the web or in print. We look forward to hearing what it is that you would like to create.

New from Albion Design: See holiday cards of community renovations
and business growth - Revitalization Dreams.

Contact us for more information about
a custom art / card project.
Contact us about your web presence.

This custom card was designed by Michigan artist Maggie LaNoue to depict the Cullen Family Carousel that graces the Detroit Riverfront. This art was created by combining dozens of photos, redrawing details of the animal seats, and softening background areas to bring the eye to a focal point on the scene. We "hand painted" snow, brushstroke texture and lights to capture not only the details, but the mystery of the unseen moods. Visit the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy to see more of this series of custom holiday cards created by Maggie. Close this pop up image. Detroit RiverFront Conservancy holiday cards