In Time for the Holidays: Archigrams

Now here’s a holiday gift that’s custom-made with the architecture aficionado in mind:

Archigrams, from Michie Cao.

She launched them with a Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, earning 130 percent above her original goal.

Then she got to work on producing posters of Fallingwater, the Farnsworth House, the Villa Savoye, and other 20th-century masterpieces.

“I spent all my summer in San Francisco,  trying to make the quality of the whole thing very high,” she says. “The poster went through several iterations of color for richness, for something you’d want to display – famous buildings designed by architectural geniuses.”

She printed them digitally on high-quality paper, each one measuring 18 by 24 inches. She also developed a series of cards that she calls print packs – five-inch by seven-inch cards that can be used as either architectural reference material or prints, framed and hung on the walls.

“There was a question of how people would use them, so I asked them to send me photos of how they did,” she says.

What started as a reward for contributors to her Kickstarter campaign – she estimates she fulfilled about 500 orders – has turned into something of an international phenomenon, thanks to the Archigrams website.

“Now I have outside orders that are  new,” she says. “They’re from Europe, Singapore, South America, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Thailand. That’s the cool thing about the Internet – you can connect with people everywhere.”

The price is certainly right. The posters sell for $40 each, the print pack for $30. And they not only look good – they’re also impeccably branded.

“A lot of work went into the prints but also in the packaging and the way it’s delivered,” she says. “I had to think about everything from the beginning to the very end, so it’s an easy gift to give people.”

And just in time for the holidays, at that.

For more information, go to: http://www.archigrams.com

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