Personal stationery

We print high-quality personal stationery.

Piccolo Press select the quality of the paper for its suitability for writing upon, and it is second to none. We also print on Conqueror papers.

The galleries below show our comprehensive range of gift stationery, both engraved and letterpress printed, and our range of envelopes.  For those who are looking for a special and lasting present, why not consider our Bookplates, either printed to your custom design or from our off-the-shelf range.

Types of personal stationery

We produce the following types of personal stationery regularly, however, if you have a specific requirement not mentioned here, we will be happy to provide an estimate. Download our Personal Stationery advice sheet here.

Personalised stationery

Personalised stationery is perhaps the closest thing to our skin. It’s a personal medium that we hold close to our hearts. We touch it to feel the texture, perhaps even kiss it if we’re writing to a loved one.

It’s where we write our innermost thoughts, make our most expressive statements and commit our memories to one of the most delicate yet enduring materials – paper.

Charles Dickens once wrote that there was something very comfortable about having plenty of stationery.

And he should know. Dickens brought is characters to life simply by putting his pen to paper, and whether we write epic novels or just shopping lists, every time we put our pen to paper, we create something unique and personal. Sometimes for ourselves and sometimes for our closest friends and family.

At Piccolo Press, our most common request is for personalised notepaper. A simple rectangle of subtle-coloured and textured paper that contains so much depth, feeling and emotion even before it written on.

The act of writing a note is not only rooted in our early years learning to communicate, but also something that exercises our mind as we write. The simple act of putting letters in sequence is compounded with a desire to maintain clarity, to maintain a metered pace. We know we will be judged on the clarity, grammar and punctuation, so much more so than if you rattled out an email or sent a text.

Notepaper, or Notelets

Notepaper, notelets, letterheads, whatever you call it, in real terms, it’s a rectangle of paper, produced in large sheets and cut down to a size suitable for person-to-person communication.

Most commonly it bears the writer’s address centred at the top in a classic typeface. It can bear the writer’s name but without it, can serve as a family product.

Now here’s some food for thought. Do you add your telephone number? In doing so perhaps tells the recipient they can phone you.

At Piccolo Press, we like to think that the practice of writing letters to each other is a dying art, so we says sans phone number is the best way to preserver that not-so-ancient way of expressing ourselves that phones and computers and slowly wrenching from our lives.

Correspondence Cards

Smaller footprint, thicker paper. It’s notepaper for the brevity generation. Actually, it’s not about us writing less and less as time goes by. It’s just for shorter notes. But we couldn’t call them notelet-lets could we, so now we have a longer word for a smaller bit of paper, but hey-ho. It does what it says on the tin – it’s a card for correspondence. I suppose if you think about it in evolutionary terms, they should really be the other way round, correspondence papers and note cards, but you can’t shake the bedrock of generations, so we’ll just leave that piece of printing heritage intact.

Correspondence cards are typically half the size of notelets, and arranged in a landscape format, although it seems perfectly right that this is the case. In this way, your correspondence cards and notelets could match perfectly as they would be the same dimension across the top. (We’ll come back to that notion though in a minute).

So, correspondence cards are for shorter communications, maybe invitations, a quick note, where a full notelet would seem like a waste of paper. A notelet might be stored away to cherish whereas a card might be kept handy for reference and hence requires to be a bit more robust and typically these are of heavy card.

Thank you cards

Now, you could use your correspondence cards to send a ‘thank you’ and people do. But there’s something special about a thank you note that is printed with the words. It marks you out as a person who knows how important ‘thankyous’ are, how touching they are.

And it allows adequate space for you to write your personal comments. They’re normally folded like gift cards and are much more open to personalised designs with graphics or art.

They’re popular after weddings, anniversary or birthday parties to thank everyone, but why stop there. If someone does a good deed and you want to thank them, what better than a personalised note they can keep.

Change of Address

Britons move house on average once every 23 years, but a change of address card doesn’t need to be part of your everyday stationery cabinet. Just get them when you make that move.

For your formal notifications, like banks, mortgage companies, insurance, you’ll probably email fill in one of their forms.

And post office redirections are OK for a couple of months. However, your friends, associates, acquaintances, etc, would benefit from having something written down.  Moving house is also a stressful time, and this is one small way of lightening that pressure.

Printing techniques

We can’t not talk about printing techniques. The very nature of personalised stationery makes classic printing techniques of die stamping, letterpress, foiling and thermography the right choice for that luxury, tactile feel.

Raised print in the case of die stamping and thermography, or the textured imprint of foiling and letterpress carries a luxurious texture that rewards the recipient and adds to the personalised feel.

Paper styles and colour

Paper texture is also very important, particularly with the notepaper, textures are very important in the overall feel of your stationery, and colour is very subtle.

Paper sizing

Today the standard paper sizes of A4, A5, A6 etc comes from the International Organization for Standardization (the z’s are their choice), but that doesn’t mean we have to conform. We do offer these sizes and there’s often a good reason to use them. However, we also offer our own bespoke sizes for custom notepaper and correspondence cards.

In summarising personalised stationery, it’s something we at Piccolo Press take to our own heart, we love printing beautiful stationery, we run our fingers along it too. That’s how we do quality control.

As classic printers, every piece of print is a piece of art, it is produced slowly and lovingly. We something stop and take in the inexplicable artworks we are creating, just like you do.

Envelopes 

Let’s not forget envelopes. In fact, this is where many people start. And why not… It’s where the first impression happens.

Piccolo Press provide envelopes to match the paper inside so once you’ve chosen your envelope, it makes everything easier. And because this is the first thing your recipient sees, it’s sometime easier to visualise.

Most personalised stationery uses standard sizing, or you can choose one of Piccolo Press’s custom sizes which are all matched to compatible notepaper and correspondence cards.

And you can personalise your envelopes just like you do with your other stationery. Piccolo Press can print on the front or back of your envelope, and you can go even further by adding a tissue-lining for that extra touch of privacy and colour coordination.

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