DESCRIPTION "Will you be my Valentine?" Card CLIENT Brian Swarthout DATE February 2010 DESIGN CREDITS Art direction: Brian Swarthout and Sean-Michael W. Kvacek Design: Brian Swarthout PRINT CREDITS Brian Swarthout and Sean Kvacek TYPE CREDITS Clarendon Roman and Univers 75 Black

QUANTITY PRODUCED 50 PRODUCTION COST $60 PRODUCTION TIME 4 days DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH Folded card: 5 in × 7 in Open card: 10 in × 7 in Envelope: A7 PRINT METHOD Cards: Silkscreen Envelopes: Inkjet PAPER STOCK Cards: French Pop Tone 100 lb Cover, in red and white Envelopes: French Pop Tone envelopes NUMBER OF COLORS White card: 2/1 Red card: 1/1

Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is here to stay, and as the years go by we continue to fluctuate between the mass produced celebration and the hand-made tokens of love.

The Valentine’s Day cards came about due to a need for a break from a big project. Being that time of year we naturally chose to create a Valentine’s Day card, and set out to do something fun yet functional. After a bit of brainstorming, the idea of making the card an interactive print piece arose — what began as a goofy project to brighten a few lovely ladies holiday turned into something we are both very excited about.

The process of designing and printing the cards went surprisingly smooth. I feel this is because of the recreational nature of the project with no real pressure and very little cost. Having not silkscreened since leaving college nine months ago, this project allowed me to shake off a lot of rust, optimize the workflow of my new (basement) workshop and perfect some printing techniques. We discovered the challenge of precisely double printing light ink on dark stock to increase opacity, something neither of us saw as potential hurdle. Plenty of off-contact and drafting tape was our solution this issue.

And so the tradition continues of asking for valentines, nicely done and aided by USPS, instead or the magical internet.