Mill City Holiday Card

This is a card I did for some friends who have a local print shop. It has Santa on the roof of a mill building, feeling a bit exasperated as having that tall of a chimney to climb to deliver his gifts.

Uses red and black, with the white negative space serving as snow, light, and a stand-in for lighter colors. I tried to make it forgiving for the plates to line up as well, so that is why there is a distressed texture on the right. The black prints over the background smokestack to make a third color and convey distance.

It ended up that the press used doesn't do large spaces of black super well, but we liked it because it looks like snow and adds to the effect.

The black plate has two versions – one for Lowell, and one for a more generic "Mill City" to aide in selling to other cities with similar architectural elements.

The back has some light snowflake artwork, with a Francis Turbine in the center, as those powered the mills and were invented in Lowell.