Next Keith invents a logo for our Deer Dash delivery service giving a polite nod to the logo for Door Dash, the inspiration for our card concept this year.
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The Rat is a cartoon Keith made back in his railroad days. It found it’s way on a lot of the art he made for his employers. This imaginary little rodent moved in with us when Keith retired and became a favorite pet of the grandkids, and started bombing our Christmas card. This is what Keith devised for him this year. You can read more about The Rat, a highly mischievous and narcissistic creature, on the Christmas Card page of our website.
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Still in Phase 3, I snapped pictures of some of Keith’s sketchbook doodles. Except for The Rat (bottom center), these are all conceptual drawings for the deer Santa is hauling in the bed of the pickup truck.
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This is the final iteration of the truck bed deer. I think we could make a card out of this - a take on the” see no evil/hear no evil/speak no evil” monkeys. Ah, I should write that down on our idea list. These little guys are so cute!
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Keith uploaded and placed his final drawings of the center deer with the sign, the Deer Dash logo, the mouse and his mailbox. He also fit all the extra deer in the back of the truck, made the struts for the snow skis, added a little blank yellow license plate, and gave me a Rudolph nose. We also suffered over different captions which were funny but too long. We finally came up with one we both liked. Then Keith added the text and deemed the card completed. This point is also my deadline to get all the labels made, stuck on the envelopes, and alphabetized. I also need to have them stamped and the return addresses written on them. But we are still not ready for the printer! I need to make two files of about 100 cards each and enter people’s names on the little yellow license plate on each card. It takes awhile, but I love this part.
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We have a few different high-quality printers we use, and always pick the one with the shortest lead time (which can consume up to a week). Lucky us! One of them can turn the cards in one day. I always document the job for them and deliver the files on a thumb drive. It’s the “out to dinner” milestone once the card is delivered to the printer.
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Keith has a small group of people for whom he does a remarque of The Rat on the back of their card - mostly railroad friends. A remarque is a personal message or image hand-drawn by the artist. It’s usually drawn in the margins of a print, or sometimes directly on the design itself. This makes each remarque a little original, one-of-a-kind piece of art.
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Over breakfast, Keith critiques my different ideas for a hand-written message on the back of the card. I don’t see why we write anything since we put a caption at the bottom, but I defer to him since he is the captain of this project and I am the shipmate. He liked this little poem:
No wrapped gift
don’t make this hard
no fine wine
it’s just the card
Once the cards are all signed, we alphabetize them, just like we did with the envelopes earlier. This makes stuffing and sealing the envelopes go smoothly. Christmas carols are on high volume and we get a second wind with the Post Office on the horizon. At last, we find ourselves on route to deliver our cargo. We order pizza on the way home and sing carols in the car. The cards are DONE. There you go. You should be able to make your own Christmas cards now.
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