If you follow me just about anywhere on the internet, you're probably aware that I'm heading to Creative South later this week. This will be my first design conference so I'm pumped beyond belief and can't help mentioning it any chance I get. Knowing that I'll be meeting a lot of internet friends and cool creatives there, I wanted to create some brand swag for them to remember me by.

I started by designing some seriously spiffy business cards (more on those soon), but I wanted to make something else with more widespread appeal. I knew people wouldn't be so interested in plastering something with my name all over their possessions, so I chose to make something awesome and channel my brand into this swag in a more subtle way.

More Than a Promo

When you're creating brand swag, it's important to step out of your own shoes for a minute. Forget about your own opinions and consider what would really strike a chord with your audience. What would they find useful or cool?

Personally, I had 4 goals for my brand swag, which you can apply when you're creating a new piece of collateral for your own brand.

Don't ever let anyone tell you print is dead. In this digital age, having something tangible to represent your brand is more important than ever. Designing stunning stationery is one of my absolute favorite facets of brand design. Not only is lovely stationery nice to hold, but it can make some powerful statements about your brand too!

Let's dig into some print terms, my favorite print methods, and what you need to know about them. When it comes to stationery and collateral, the sky is the limit and there are LOTS of variables to consider. So for simplicity's sake, let's limit the discussion here to business cards.

Letterpress, embossing, die cut, foil stamped—any of these sound familiar? You've probably heard of some of these specialty print methods before. I began my design career in the wedding industry, mainly because gorgeously fancy stationery is one of my most favorite things. However, when I shifted my focus to branding that's when I realized just how special it could be.

I know what you're thinking. Yes, these methods can be a bit pricey. But much like a quality logo and brand identity, these techniques do more than get you noticed. The magic of specialty print methods is that they make very powerful statements about your brand, without even showing your product or mentioning your service. So let's do a bit of digging into what makes specialty print methods so special.