Did you ever wish you had the perfect place to keep your bespoke engraved stationery from Mrs. Collins? You can commission her to design, and have built, a personalized, custom-fitted presentation box to hold all of your stationery.
Collins begins by laying out all of the pieces the bespoke case will contain. Such as letter sheet, note card, envelope, outer envelope, calling card. She then draws little, thumbnail sketches for all of the components to be constructed. Thumbnails are quick idea sketches, sometimes performed randomly on scraps of paper, pieces of the mail she has just opened, and back in the day, on a cocktail napkin where on many a brilliant idea got its start.
Once all initial details are agreed upon by the client and Mrs. Collins, a “dummy” (prototype, maquette, or scale model) is made. All of this is performed by hand. The final images in this post are of the maquette at its first stage. Eventually, further details will be added such as miniatures of closure devices and items intended for use in each compartment and portfolio.
This first, simple maquette was built by Mrs Collins with white corrugate cardboard, text-weight paper, masking tape, Exacto-knife, two kinds of rulers and two kinds of glue.
The second version of the maquette shows the addition of pale blue paper strips indicating where fancy ribbon will be. The ribbon will serve as tabs and pulls to open the box, lift the portfolios, and lift the stacks of envelopes going in the two bottom compartment.
Once approved, book cloth is chosen for the exterior and marble paper for the interior compartments and portfolios. The actual fitted case will be made entirely by hand. Such as the one pictured below which was custom fitted to a client’s engraved stationery a while ago. This two-tier case accommodates envelopes on the bottom and note cards on the top tier. NOTE: The cards are triple-bordered in three shades of blue.
