MCA Holiday Card

Communication through physical media

Layout | Typography | Prepress

Client: Montrose Center for Arts
Role: Graphic Designer | Print Designer
Responsibilities: Layout | Typography | Prepress | File Preparation
Authorship: Solo
Year: 2026

Overview

The MCA Holiday Card is a print design project for the Montrose Center for Arts that combines featured artwork, artist information, and organizational messaging into a compact physical piece for the winter holiday season. The card was developed as a flexible layout system capable of accommodating different artwork, orientations, image proportions, and amounts of written content while maintaining a consistent MCA identity. I prepared the final artwork as a print-ready file for outsourced production.

Problem

How can a holiday card communicate the brand personality of the Montrose Center for Arts while functioning as a physical printed object for its audience?

Process

After meeting with the gallery team over the course of several months, the card was developed from a small creative brief, a defined budget, and multiple rounds of revisions. I used InDesign to establish the layout, organize the supplied artwork and written content, and prepare the design for production. A commercial printing company, PsPrint, was used to print, fold, and package the cards, while I was responsible for preparing the final prepress file for handoff. This included organizing the document for production and ensuring the artwork, typography, layout, and file setup were ready for print.

See below for process images of the design and preflighting checks.

Horizontal Card MK1

Horizontal Card MK3

Horizontal Card MK4

Horizontal Card MK9

Vertical Card MK1

Vertical Card MK5

Vertical Card MK7

Vertical Card MK9

InDesign Separations Check for C

InDesign Separations Check for M

InDesign Separations Check for Y

InDesign Separations Check for K

InDesign Package Report| Before; Saw Minion Pro was on Hidden Layer, 2 Embedded Files, RGB Images, Effective ppi Acceptable, No Bleed Required

InDesign Package Report| After; Cleaned up Layers & Renamed, Changed to Linked Files, RGB to CYMK Conversiton, Effective ppi Acceptable

Output Preview; Checked for TAC

Preflight Summary; Metadata Error not Critical

Overprint Check; No Errors

Font Check; No Errors

Checked Effective ppi for Vertical Card; Image not Acceptable. Reached out to Client for Rescanning before Handoff.

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