Paper
Most birthday cards are read once and gone by the weekend. This one is pressed into thick card on an old Heidelberg in Brussels, and it is made to stay on the mantelpiece for as long as anyone lets it.
It is a simple thing: Happy Birthday in dark blue on banana yellow, a cornflower envelope, and nothing printed inside. Most of what makes it good can only be noticed in the hand.
At a glance
- Made by: Le Typographe, Ixelles, Brussels
- Printed: letterpress, dark blue on banana yellow
- Card: 300gsm, folded A6 (10.5 x 15 cm), rounded corners, blank inside
- Envelope: 300gsm cornflower blue C6, cut on the press and glued by hand
- Price: £8, with free UK delivery
- See the card
A workshop named after a beetle
Le Typographe takes its name from a small beetle, Ips typographus, that lives under the bark of spruce trees and carves tunnels that look like lines of writing. It is a fair description of what happens to the paper.
Cédric Chauvelot, who trained in fine arts in Besançon, opened the first workshop in Brussels in 2007 with a single press and cases of lead and wood type. About ten people now work in the Châtelain quarter of Ixelles, among six Heidelberg presses and 800 cases of lead type, and the stationery has had its own corner at Le Bon Marché in Paris since 2015. Everything still goes through the presses one colour at a time, and is finished by hand.
How a letterpress birthday card is made
The presses are Heidelbergs between sixty and eighty years old. The press inks the type, the card is brought firmly against it, and sheet after sheet is stacked and left to dry. Because the card is a heavy 300gsm, it takes the pressure without complaint, and each letter leaves a fine footprint in the surface. Run a thumb over Happy Birthday and you feel it before you have read it.
The envelope gets the same attention. Le Typographe cut each one on a press, glue it by hand and check it by eye before it leaves the workshop. It is as sturdy as the card it carries, and closes with a pointed flap.
The corners of the card are softly rounded. Nobody points it out, but it is the reason the card feels finished rather than cut.
Yellow, blue, and no joke to explain
Banana yellow with dark blue lettering reads from across a room, which is what a card on a mantelpiece is for. It does not mention an age, has no joke to explain and leaves no glitter on the table, so it works as well for a father as for a friend, a colleague or a godchild.
If it is going to be kept, a drawer or a shelf will look after the yellow better than a sunny windowsill.
What to write inside a birthday card
The card is blank inside, with room for a proper note rather than a printed verse. Three sentences is usually right: one true, specific thing about the person or their year, and your name written out in full.
Happy birthday. You are still the first person I ring with good news.
Happy birthday. Lunch is on me, and the table is already booked.
Many happy returns. Here is to a year with more of the good bits and fewer of the forms.
If it is late, do not apologise. Write "Happy birthday for Tuesday" and it reads as remembered rather than forgotten. There are more lines, for birthdays and everything else, in what to write in a card when you do not know what to write.
Sending it
The card goes free in the UK on its own, by Royal Mail 2nd Class, posted from Edinburgh within one working day. Most people will want to write it themselves, so it is worth ordering to your own address a week or so before the birthday.
In its C6 envelope it posts as an ordinary letter, so once it is written a standard stamp is all it needs.
If it is going with a present, it sits well beside a RO-BIKI pocket notebook: £15 for the two, and both go free. For a birthday that falls in December, there is a short Christmas list as well.
It is also the sort of card worth keeping two of in a drawer. The next birthday you remember the night before is then already half dealt with.
Questions
What is a letterpress birthday card?
A card printed by pressing inked type into heavy paper, so the letters sit slightly below the surface and can be felt as well as seen. Le Typographe's mini letterpress cards come from the same Brussels workshop.
What size is the card?
It is a folded A6 card, 10.5 by 15 cm, in a C6 envelope measuring 11.4 by 15.8 cm.
Is it blank inside?
Yes. The greeting is on the front only, so the inside is left for your own words.
Can I post it with a normal stamp?
Yes. It goes through Royal Mail as a standard letter, so a first or second class stamp is enough.
Is it a good birthday card for a man?
Yes. There is no age, slogan or joke on it, and the yellow and blue suit anyone, at any age.