This is the seventh in my series of posts about all the Christmas Cards I have made from years past. You can review the previous posts by clicking on these links:
- DIY christmas Cards • Mixed Media
- DIY Christmas Cards • Trees as a Theme
- DIY Christmas Cards • Woven Paper Designs
- DIY Christmas Cards • Pierced Designs
- Pop Up Christmas Cards
- Handmade Christmas Cards Through the Years
Thanks to my husband David, we have always been early adopters of technology. We got our first Mac hot off the assembly line in 1984 and have been heavy investors in all things technology since that time. Occasionally a new piece of hardware or software has inspired the annual Christmas Card. This grouping reflects those in which the design is driven by the technology.
1984 • The Imagewriter Card
We got our Mac and were in love with bit-mapped drawing. This card used the new wonders of copy and paste combined with align. Totally new terms and concepts in 1984.
In order to get multiple colors we had to print each color separately, change the ribbon, try to line things up and print again. The printer was an Apple Imagewriter and it was a dot matrix printer. Registry slipped every time. It was extremely time consuming and failure rate was high but it was our first computer generated card. It is also the first card in my string of years - 1984 until today- a handmade card every year!
1988 • Gradient Balls
Fast forward 4 years. Technology was changing in leaps and bounds and you HAD to buy each new computer and each software upgrade because it was an immense improvement over the previous possibilities.
I have always loved spheres (see my posts on balls here) and have done more than one card using the ability of the computer to create Christmas ornaments. This is the first. It combines ribbon (could have used it in my mixed media card series here) with the ability of the computer to create gradations.
1990 • Adobe Illustrator Card
Two years later Adobe had started creating a new type of drawing software and I used the process of designing our Christmas Card as a learning experience. The note inside reads in part, "Our 1990 card is a combination of Marji learning the program and David advising over her shoulder and bailing her out of difficult situations."
This card is an Adobe Illustrator drawing of our house, blanketed in snow with the family (including the cat) standing in the front yard. It is a unique one in the collection.
2006 • Colored Spheres
I was again drawn to the new rendering and printing capabilities of the changing technology and in 2006 created another design based on Christmas tree ornaments. Recipients actually thought this was not a handcrafted card. They were disappointed that I had interrupted the tradition with a purchased design. Not true!
Each side was a series of hand cut balls that nested together in a unique way. I hand cut all of them! But Oh! Hasn't printing come a long way!
Previous Posts of Interest:
- DIY Christmas Cards • Mixed Media
- DIY Christmas Cards • Trees as a Theme
- DIY Christmas Cards • Woven Paper Designs
- DIY Christmas Cards • Pierced Designs
- Pop-Up Christmas Cards
- Handmade Christmas Cards Through the Years
©2011 Ashbee Design, Marji Roy
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