Albion Design - unique and creative designs for print and web

Custom designed
holiday cards

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Our work takes time and relies on creativity to showcase our clients. This scene for Falco Construction shows a scene in Central Park that seems real, but was really an invention. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom holiday card.

This view overlooking the New York skyline was created for Falco Construction to commemorate their 50th anniversary. The owner wanted a scene that would be a keepsake, to honor her parents who founded the company.

The next card features a special place at Rockefeller Center.

This view shows an early stage of development of the art when we begin by pasting together many photos into a fantasy view. This is a scene of Rockefeller Center created for Falco Construction. Learn more at CustomCorporateCards.com

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Family Business Custom Art

Quite often our clients have art or photos that they want to have customized into a larger design. In this holiday card for Alma College, the President's son had created some fine art for a card and our assignment was to incorporate this art into a portrait of the the chapel on campus. The final art was very welcoming for the holidays. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom holiday card.

We also did a scene for Alma College on a previous year using art from the young artists. This project was a lot of fun and had a lot of surprises along the way.

The next card features a special place at Albion College.

Here is a rough draft of a winter scene of Wesley Hall at Albion College. This scene shows the freshmen students coming and going to class and was created for the Office of Admission.

The next card features a special place at Albion College.

Albion College Admission Office commissioned these cards to invite new students and to keep in contact with alumni. The original view was summer with many overhead wires, and a fire hydrant. Learn more at CustomCorporateCards.com

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College cards to be remembered

We can help you to develop a commemorative gift that your employees or visitors will want to keep. Contact us for more information about getting custom art for your business!

See the Next slide for other types of gifts.

Portraits of your loved ones are special and more likely to be kept than a photo. We can emphasize a particular person and bring your photo to become art. Contact us for more information about getting custom art for someone special, maybe for yourself! Next slide Michigan Prints.

Michigan Prints and Michigan Mugs are available both in full color and in class black and white. The most popular scene is the Mackinac Bridge. There are many scenes of Michigan, Nature, and Nostalgia available at MichiganPrints.com.

See the Next slide for Sister City gifts.

Porcelain plates can be custom designed for your corporation or Sister City guests.

Learn More by visiting CustomCorporateGifts.com.

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Commemorative Gifts

Southern Michigan Bank and Trust wanted to send a custom holiday card that showed their office and a touch of the holiday season. They wanted a simple design, and they wanted their cards printed on a quality heavy stock. This is a photo of an actual card. These types of cards have a deckle (feathered) edge at the bottom of each card, and on the matching envelopes. See the next slide for the inside of this card.

You can see from this image that this type of card, printed on Strathmore Pastelle stock, has a wonderful texture. It also has a hefty feel to it, and conveys attention a personal touch.

See the next slide for the back of this card.

The backs of our unique cards are a spot where you can place your business logo, a mission statement or a short history. You can also have us print something like a short history on the inside top of your custom cards. These cards are printed on acid free stock for longevity. More cards are displayed in the next mini gallery.

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Custom Greeting Cards

We capture what is unique about your business or community.

Resources:

Samples of our work

CustomCorporateCards.com

CustomCorporateGifts.com

MichiganPrints.com

MichiganMugs.com

Connected Communities
of Mid-Michigan

Sustainable Communities
prototype: AlbionMich.net

How we work

You are a part of the creative process.

You see your work in progress over the web.

If you have a special project - contact us and we will review your project at no charge.

Custom Design Projects

Click images below
to see mini galleries

Albion Design has been creating web sites since 1995. We created this website for Falco Construction Corporation, a woman owned pile driver company in Brooklyn New York. The owner wanted something to showcase the family owned business, the locations they worked, and even their holiday cards over the years. We also provide hosting service and give your business personalized design and maintenance service for your web presence. Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site.

This web site, Claras.com features two Michigan restaurants located in depots with unique decor in Battle Creek and Lansing.

Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site.

This site, Substance Abuse Prevention Services was created for Harry Bonner to update his information to reflect the new name of his business.

Click the arrow at the bottom of this image or here to preview another custom web site.

Encompass Employee Assistance Programs web site, was created by Albion Design. This site offers on-line help to employees of businesses throughout Michigan and beyond. These companies offer counseling and coaching to their employees. The EncompassEAP.com web site offers several contact methods and means of getting support, which helps the both the businesses and staff to deal with the little bumps in life.

See the next slide and visit the Connected Communities of Mid Michigan.

We created web sites over 15 years ago to showcase Albion, and surrounding communities. Over time, these sites brought in many visitors and stay near the top of the search engines in searches for their respective communities. JacksonMich.com information about Jackson Michigan including weather, history, and a portal to local information for Jackson County. In a Google search for Jackson Michigan, this site usually comes up before any of the official Jackson sites.

See the Next slide to see BattleCreekMich.com.

BattleCreekMich.com has photo essays of Battle Creek highlights including the Festival of Lights. This site has featured the annual event "Community Prayer Breakfast" for many years and has archived the information. One of the main benefits of these community pages is the interlinking nature of the web sites for each city. Our plan, since the project started in 1995, is to facilitate regional promotion of the cities along the I-94 corridor in Mid Michigan.

See the Next slide -- MarshallMich.com.

MarshallMich.com has featured and archived many years of the Marshall Home Tour. This site has a historical section with selections of history books from local historian Richard Carver. Another favorite of all the city sites is the guestbook, where residents and visitors can comment about each town. The guestbooks entries are reviewed by an editor before being published.

Next - check out HomerMich.com.

Homer Michigan is also included in the collection of Mid Michigan web sites. HomerMich.com has a photo essay of favorite spots in this community, and has a surprising amount of traffic considering the size of the community. Learn more about the Connected Communities of Mid Michigan project.

Web Design

This brochure was designed for the Albion Community Foundation to facilitate fundraising and build membership for a theatre restoration project. We used photos of architectural elements as part of the design of the brochure, such as the columns.

See the inside of this brochure on the next slide..

Theatre Restoration fundraising brochure

This is the inside of the Bohm Theatre brochure. We used an image of theatre curtains and seats as the margin space, and some of the theatre's original fixtures were featured as highlights. The friends of the Bohm Theatre received hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants to restore this special building.

The next slide depicts another membership brochure project.... the Wilder Creek Conservation Club brochure.

This is the inside of the Wilder Creek Conservation Club brochure. The purpose of this brochure was to increase membership and also to be an introduction to educational groups and corporations. This brochure was made possible through a grant from the Non Profit Alliance in Battle Creek and assisted WCCC in obtaining a very large corporate donation when there was an environmental accident in the area. We worked with the executive committee showing proofs over the internet to be sure that the final printed piece would be special and would not be dated in a year or two. See a pdf (1.8 MB) of the entire WCCC brochure, including the hand drawn maps.

The next slide shows a brochure featuring arts and culture in Albion.

Albion Community Foundation wanted to create a brochure that would highlight the arts in Albion, and point to several other web sites that would have more information. This brochure was also designed to be timeless with no dated information. The cover of the brochure was a montage of many images, include images from a mural that we also helped to design. The day after this brochure was mailed out, the Foundation received quite a few phone calls with compliments on the piece.

See a brochure design that helped to market a children's museum.

Kids 'N' Stuff regularly draws thousands of young people by the bus loads to its location in Albion. The founders of the project had a vision, and in order to share the vision, and to keep it funded, the print materials needed to reflect the fun, the education, and the color of the location. They also needed a custom designed map so people would be able to find "KNS."

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Brochure design

This design was adapted from youth art into a colorful and attractive digital design. A committee chose their favorite youth design from many submitted for a particular theme. We rearranged and recreated the art so that it could be printed in a variety of items, including buttons and t-shirts.

The next graphics project shows a logo design we created to help build membership and support for the restoration of the Bohm Theatre in Albion.

This logo design was created to help build membership and support for the restoration of the Bohm Theatre in Albion. We also designed a brochure for the project, see the mini gallery above this one. We captured the bold glamor of the old theatre, and kept the logo simple so it would look good on a web page and in print. You can see proofs of your work in progress so you can offer input along the way to the final creation. Everything we do is custom.

See an ad design on the Next slide.

This ad design was created to showcase the arts in Albion in a format that had a logical arrangement that itself represented the arts. The titles above each image in the film show up better when printed on glossy paper and they explain where the image at each location.

Graphic Design

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Archives:

Albion Design old site

About the Artist

About Us

Custom Historic Art

Frequently Asked Questions

Overview of Albion Design projects

This Camperdown Elm, located in the back yard of Albion Heritage Bed & Breakfast in Albion, Michigan was painted in all four seasons by Maggie LaNoue

Close this view, and click on other photos to see more custom art, cards and gifts.

What special view would your business like to depict on this year's holiday cards?
Click on images to see the enlarged versions and to read more about each scene.

Custom Art - Custom Cards

As the days begin to get shorter, our thoughts turn to the holidays and holiday greeting cards. We combine many photos into one image, create art from that photo montage and hand painted touches, and show you proofs over the web. If you need artistic cards, or just an update to your web site, contact us.

This custom card was designed by Michigan artist Maggie LaNoue to depict the Cullen Family Carousel that graces the Detroit Riverfront. This art was created by combining dozens of photos, redrawing details of the animal seats, and softening background areas to bring the eye to a focal point on the scene. We "hand painted" snow, brushstroke texture and lights to capture not only the details, but the mystery of the unseen moods. Visit the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy to learn more about how they are working to highlight a very beautiful part of Detroit.

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Another magical scene, this one on the Detroit Riverfront.
Holiday card for the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.
Click on the image to see the scene in more detail.

What story does your organization have to tell?

What special thing would be wonderful to share on your corporate holiday cards? You can show some photos that we can incorporate into your design.
No obligation for a review. We can usually send you a quote same day. We offer early bird discounts for custom holiday cards before it gets cold and too close to the holidays!

As you click through the galleries, your organization or city has a story to tell.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Let us put your story into that picture. We show you proofs and concepts online so you can be a part of the creative process. You will enjoy seeing your organization in a new light.

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You can look for products we offer,
including invitations, holiday cards,
web sites we've designed,
custom art of particular businesses,
Michigan prints
and much more!

Custom designed holiday cards

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How we work

Archives:

What story does your organization have to tell?

Custom designed
holiday cards