As the days grow shorter and the nights cooler, it is time for businesses to begin their planning for holiday greetings.  With the increased cost of postage, some businesses plan to trim their holiday lists, some decide to maximize the impression that their card makes, by having a custom designed card.  The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy has for the past two years hired Michigan artist Maggie LaNoue, (AlbionDesign.com) to create a special holiday card.  The Conservancy wished to feature scenes of the newly renovated RiverWalk area, the path between Belle Isle Bridge, and the Ambassador Bridge.  Pat Vintevoghel, the executive assistant to Fay Alexander Nelson, President and CEO of the Conservancy, found LaNoue on the Internet after doing a search for “Michigan Line Art” and “Custom Corporate cards.”

In 2005, LaNoue drew a scene that was similar to the Conservancy’s logo, showing the Detroit skyline, and the two bridges.  The response to the art cards was so favorable, that in 2006, LaNoue was again commissioned to design the Conservancy’s cards, this time depicting the new lighthouse in Tri-Centennial State Park as the focal point for the design. 

Each design is created beginning with a photograph, or combination of photos, that LaNoue uses as a starting point for an art design. She uses her G5 Dual 2 GHz Mac desktop computer, and Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create artistic designs that she shows to her clients in stages over the internet.  The art for Detroit had over 90 layers at one point, that LaNoue customized to get the exact look that the client preferred.  The art file on the computer was over 150 MB, which is a very large file that an ordinary computer cannot process. 

But LaNoue did not always do art with computers over the internet.  She has been working full time as an artist, supporting her family since 1981.  At that time she was a waitress at Cascarelli’s tavern, and had some line art published in the Albion Recorder.  Her pizza customers began to ask her to draw their homes, then she began to draw businesses and offer custom cards.  She used pencil to do rough sketches, then transferred the art to mat boards to do the design with technical pens and India ink.

Over the past 26 years, she has drawn hundreds of businesses and homes, and has saved large format negatives and scans of all of the art.  She copyrights the art so that she can offer custom greeting cards to her clients.  She can add snow to a summer scene, or color to black and white art, using her computer these days.

Albion Design clients for custom cards are often family owned businesses.  LaNoue has done designs for Dawn Food Products, Inc. over the past twelve years.  Her most recent custom card for Dawn involved LaNoue hiring a small airplane to fly over the new Dawn world headquarters, which is in the location that was formerly Jacobsen stores’ headquarters.  Ron Jones, the CEO of Dawn at that time, asked LaNoue to use some artistic license to make the lake beside Dawn look especially like a lake, and not a parking lot, and asked her to add small sail boats spread out in the water, as the sun sparkled over the water.  “No problem” said LaNoue. 

Dawn’s holiday cards over the years also included a number of characters that were engaged in holiday activities outside their locations, and these characters aged as the cards appeared in series.  The designs were very detailed in some ways, and somewhat primitive in other ways, a bit like Grandma Moses would do if she were designing art for corporate clients on a Mac computer today.  The ideas for these cards were usually provided by Jone’s exec assistant, Bev Lambkin. 

Maggie has also done birthday cards for Felpausch Food Centers that were hand signed by the CEO, Tom Feldpausch. Felpausch would send the custom cards featuring three of the Felpausch stores to all 3,000 employees on their birthday each year.  These special touches tend to make the cards “kept and remembered, and generate good feelings towards the sender of the card,” says LaNoue. 

Felpausch Cards 1986	Felpausch cards 2005

LaNoue’s other clients in recent years include Southern Michigan Bank and Trust, and A.M. Todd, that manufactures mint extracts used for toothpastes and mouthwashes. Both of these clients were also repeat customers, over decades.  LaNoue enjoys taking special care of her custom clients, in much the same way that she learned when she was a waitress.  “The customer is always right,” she quipped.  “I might not see how the card or design will turn out when I start, but as it evolves it takes on a life of its own and we enjoy working on the concepts together.  The customer enjoys receiving something that is not mass created.  It is almost like a gift to the recipient.”
 
Learn more about custom cards, and Maggie’s art at one of Maggie’s web sites:

www.AlbionDesign.com
www.CustomCorporateCards.com
www.MichiganCards.com