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Nothing says “I thought about buying you a sweet-ass present, but I changed my mind” like a gift card, and nothing holds a gift card better than our new line of gift card… cards. We probably should have thought through the name a bit more but after saying it that way for so long, it started to get funny and we just couldn't get rid of it.

Gift Card Cards are die-cut on the front to hold, you guessed it, any standard-size gift card (or Visa Prepaid). Each 5x7 card is blank on the inside and comes with a matching envelope for the outside. Get 20% off any combination of 6 cards from the shop! Discount is applied when items are added to the cart.

We are so happy and proud to introduce a new line of cards that has been in the incubator for what feels like forever. We have appropriately titled them "Money Cards". Let me explain why.

What Is It?

A Money Card is a fun new magical way of gifting money to friends and family. The premise is simple, every money card comes equipped with a custom printed transparent film you lay on top of a 20$ bill to help President Jackson get into the spirit of your celebration a little more. 

Each Money Card comes with an envelope, a custom printed transparent film, a cellophane container to hold everything together and a folded card for you to write your personal note inside. All you need to supply is a 20 dollar bill printed in 2004 or after.

The Idea

The Money Card idea has come a long way since first brainstorming a little more than 6 months ago. The above sketch is the first concept drawing we did for it not having any idea how the mechanics of the card would work.

The idea spawned from asking ourselves "Why do we give cards?" One of the overwhelming responses was "as a delivery mechanism for money". After thinking about the vast amount of times we've received cards with money in them, we searched for a clever way to address this correlation of money and cards. How do we make money more fun? How do we change the card to highlight that money is inside it?

I remember when I was in college, people would draw funny faces on dollar bills to make George Washington look silly. I always thought this unexpected drawing of a costume on a President was funny and delightful, albeit illegal, and thought if there was a way to make this happen in card format we could probably generate some pretty funny costumes with maybe even better looking results.

The Mechanics

It may look like simple mechanics, but finding transparency sheets you can print on that don't smudge or look like crap proved difficult. Surmounting alignment issues and getting the perfectly sized celophanes all proved to be timely challenges. When the alignment has to be within a millimeter and nobody is making money-sized celophanes, the entire project became a custom masterpiece.

We decided to focus in on 8 initial designs. We have Diva, Fancy, Hipster, Daddy, Potter, Sheriff, Spidey and Zombie Jacksons all ready to make your money gift a little more fun.

You're a thoughtful and generous person. Also you’re attractive.

Why else would you be buying a greeting card? Sure, technically it's their special day; that doesn't mean you don't deserve some kudos as well. Show how thoughtful you are with this series of Narcissist cards and be showered with praise in return. You're even doing them a favor by picking out the perfect thank-you note. You've earned it.

The Narcissist Card is a series of cards that contain 1 regular card to give, and 1 fully functioning mini thank you card that can be given back to you for being so thoughtful. Each narcissist card comes with two envelopes and two folded cards. You can even save them the trouble by writing your name on the thank you card envelope. Check out the entire series of Narcissist cards right here.

If you don't know, we at 55 Hi's frequent Reddit quite a bit. Nothing like losing 4 hours of your day turning links purple but in one of our recent click binges, we though it would be pretty funny to turn one of our favorite memes into card form. Therefore, we are very excited to be introducing the Deal With It Card.  

When it's your birthday, don't let anybody tell you what to do. If you are at all familiar with the Deal With It Meme (and if not brush up here), it's a handy way of telling people "I do what I want". What better time when it's your birthday and everybody means less than you?!

Feel free to use these in the face of any and all instances involving but not limited to: throwing cake at others, yelling loud noises repeatedly, calling your boss an asshole, not doing what you're supposed to, quitting your job, making wild baseless accusations, dancing like an idiot, cutting others off in traffic, not filling the ice cube tray, leaving the toilet roll empty, texting with the volume all the way up, being late to meetings, not using turn signals, stealing lunch from the office fridge, talking in the bathroom, spreading out on public transportation, not paying rent, and drinking milk straight from the carton.

Father's Day Cards

We also just got done with our newest batch of Father's Day cards! June 21st always hits fast and we now offer free shipping on all card orders. So, don't find yourself in the CVS card section getting slim picking on the way to your parent's house. 

Wow. What a month if I do say so myself. It's interesting, we have released more cards in the last 4 weeks, than we have in the last 2 years and it's been a blast the entire time. This week we released 8 new Chart Cards and 4 new Roses are Red cards. I'm learning a lot about myself, business, and moving forward. I'd like to share a few of those things that I've learned.

Finding Our Voice

I found this blog post a little over a year ago from Emily McDowell where she talks about defining your brand's voice that really stuck with me. For a while in the beginning of 55 Hi's we were making things that were fun and interesting but on the whole, it felt like a collection of unrelated products with semi-conflicting tones. They had similarities like typography, vintage feels, and interesting concepts but on the whole there was no way to know what was coming next. In some ways I found that liberating but in many more I found it very stressful. Without a backbone to build off of, it felt like every product was a new adventure instead of building up a cohesive collection.

After reading that post, it became apparent to me how much I desired finding our "flowers". I kept saying that word over and over because I felt like, in a case like Rifle Paper Co's, their style can put the brand's wonderfully illustrated flowers on just about any product and it's going to look amazing and feel like Rifle. I really wanted that integrity and consistency but I had no idea what it was. I wanted my flowers.

From there, I spent the next few months trying to pinpoint my 3 adjectives that describe 55 Hi's. I didn't want to force it either. I'm not making a business for fortune. Yes, the ultimate goal is to make enough money to make a living, but more-so for me it's to make a brand I enjoy running that is reciprocal with it's fans and makes everyone happy. 

We brainstormed for a while and eventually ended up landing on Honest, Relatable & Witty with one footnote: that it's conceptually driven. When we brainstorm as a team, the most fun we have is making ourselves laugh. It's where we find almost all the value in an idea and ultimately whether or not it's worth keeping. We also typically seem to grasp onto large themes and then brainstorm around that. For instance, the two series we just released were Chart Cards and Roses are Red cards. Both those ideas started with "I bet there is a funny concept here involving poems/charts". We then brainstorm as many ideas as possible using that framework and keep the best of the bunch. 

Thinking Up New Ideas

Once we started operating this way on a more consistent basis, the whole operation felt way more fun and relatable in so many ways. In the beginning, I designed cards that tried to appeal to as many people as possible at once. I thought it was what people wanted but what ended up happening instead is it appealed to everybody kind of. What's that saying? If you make something nobody hates, nobody will love it.

What I'm learning is, letting your own personality come through the products is what makes the brand and the items interesting. The team I brainstorm ideas with are naturally Honest, Sarcastic and Clever so the whole brand is just an honest extension of the conversations we're already having. 

In fact, one of the most interesting oddities I find happening on a consistent basis is when we brainstorm new ideas, funny things that make it to the final design are things that I put in as a literal joke. I mean, I'm not putting the line in the design for consideration, I'm putting it in as a joke to make my friends laugh and it ends up staying cause the joke actually does that. A good example of this was the herpes copy on the House Cleaning Contract Card. I put that in there during one of the early drafts as a funny little thing thinking nobody would notice and I would get a good laugh out of it and everybody I showed it to specifically pointed that section out as their favorite!

On the flip side of idea making for instance (and I'm going to be extremely candid here for the sake of transparency) one of my personal least favorite posters I ever made is the Stop and Smell the Roses poster. Do you know why? Cause the road to making that poster was forced. I thought at the time, it would really be nice to release something a little more feminine in the shop. What a stupid way to think about making something new if I say so myself. I don't think the poster is bad or looks bad, but I do think it's not true to the brand or something I feel very confident in. To me it feels exactly like what it is - a man trying to make something they think a woman likes. It was made like a business person thinks and that's not honest or clever. 

I think on the whole, these are some things I'm learning about making cards or ideating new products for us as a shop, but we'll see where it takes us for products like posters. I don't think witty and clever will translate quite so well to items we put up on our walls for long periods of time but maybe there is a happy medium involving conceptually driven series that have clever elements in them.

One thing is for sure, we now have a backbone to build off of and everyone knows what they can expect for future goodies from us. We have at least one very very interesting new product coming out that should hit the shop in late May but otherwise we'll just keep trying to make you chuckle. 

We are so happy and eager to announce some new changes to the shop. We have been doing our fair share or tidying up (hopefully you can tell) and in doing so have made some long overdue improvements to shopping on the 55 Hi's store.

There are more changes a-coming (including gifting cards!) but the change just recently pushed to the site is the ability to mix and match cards in any combination to save some moolah. It's all done automatically while you shop (so don't fret!) but it's worth noting the more cards the more you save. In fact, if you can find 12 cards you dig, you can get a whopping 40% off your order. No more being chained to 6-packs of the same card ever again!

At long last, the newest batch of Shot Glass Cards is here! This time around, we did it right, and worked up an entire batch of new designs centered around our most popular concept to date. 

Almost all of these cards are Birthday themed in some fashion or another but we had a lot of fun ideating around other occasions a shot glass might be appropriate. Many didn't rise to the top but one of the favorites was a shot glass for new parents that everyone liked. 

Check out the whole series right here. 

I was so very fortunate to get the opportunity to work with the fine folks over at Wistia (a professional video hosting service you should definitely check out) on a T-Shirt for their annual comapny Ski Trip they do every year. They sent over a video today of the literal unboxing and it made my day. It's so cool making stuff for cool people. I hope the doggie gets one too.