I completed my bachelor’s degree at Santa Clara University in 2014, and chose to design my own graduation card to use as invitations for my family’s celebration. We had some lovely cream-colored card stock left over from another project, so I opted to use that. A trip to the local stationery store helped me find envelopes I liked, and then I began the design of the card itself.

SCU’s main colors are red and gold, so I used them for a clean border around both the outside and inside panels. I also included the official seal of the school faded into the background like a watermark.

At that time, I used the font Cagliostro for all of my freelance business’s branding needs, so I used that here as well. All of the text is also in SCU red, to further align my design with the university’s visual identity.

The last major design feature is my graduation portrait, which I still believe is one of the better pictures of me even to this day. I printed a test of the portrait on the stock I’d selected to make sure the colors looked correct, then added it to my design file and made some small adjustments to improve printability.

The graduation card design was well received by our guests, and several people asked if I’d had them done professionally. Technically, they were correct, since I’ve been working as a freelance designer since 2012!