Paper Tulips: The Search for the Perfect Color
- Shannon Cyr
- Jun 11
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 27
A one-day design challenge became an unexpected journey through color, paper, and possibility. Step inside the studio to follow the creation of the Purple Tulips card from first prototype to final design.
Studio Note: This post documents an exploration from my design process. The artwork shown represents prototypes and works in progress. Some designs eventually become Mainely Cards. Others remain studio experiments and are never released.
One Day, One Flower
Launching Mainely Cards has required a constant series of tradeoffs. There are far more creative ideas than hours in the day, which means not every idea can be explored as deeply as I'd like.
We are on a timeline to get the shop launched, and I only had time to test one floral design. That gave me a single day to prototype the card and decide whether it deserved a place in the collection. Around here, that's a surprisingly high bar. Before a card makes it into the shop, both Michael and I have to love it.
A Simple Bulb
We knew from the beginning that we wanted a floral card in the Just Because collection. Flowers are remarkably versatile. They can celebrate, comfort, encourage, welcome, thank, or simply brighten someone's day. Few subjects work across as many occasions, ages, and interests.
Choosing the flower was relatively easy. We landed on tulips. Unlike roses, which are strongly associated with romance, or lilies, which are often linked to sympathy, tulips feel more open-ended. Their meaning shifts with their color, making them well suited to a wide range of messages. There's also something appealing about their simplicity. The shape is elegant without feeling fussy, and I love the way tulips bend and stretch toward the light throughout the day.
With the tulip chosen, I started working on a design. By lunchtime, the first prototype was ready for our critique.
Mellow Yellow Paper Tulips
Up first: yellow cardstock. Yellow tulips are a favorite and a welcome sight each spring, making them a natural place to start.
One of my guiding principles when designing is simple: just make the card. I have a tendency to overthink designs if I'm not careful. It's easy to spend hours imagining colors, materials, and possibilities before a single piece of paper is cut. At some point, you have to get out of your head and just make the card. Build something. See what happens. Learn from it and adjust. It's the fastest way to discover whether a design has potential.
I wasn't looking for a finished product. I wanted answers.
Would the image survive the transition from screen to paper?
Could the tulips be broken into little pieces and still remain recognizable?
How much room for error did I have in alignment?
And, perhaps most importantly, did we love it?
The early results were encouraging. The artwork survived the transition from screen to paper. The tulips remained recognizable even when broken into individual pieces, and while aligning the pieces took some care—particularly on the right petal—the process remained manageable. The segmented paper pieces defined the petals, and the negative space held the form together exactly as intended.
In other words, the design worked. The materials? Not so much.
The matte yellow and green cardstock looks far more vibrant in the photo above than they it does in person. On the card, the yellow looks muted, with very little contrast to make the design delight.
That said, the prototype did its job and proved the design worked. Now we just needed find the paper that did it justice. The solution seemed straightforward: make it shiny.
All That Glitters
I swapped the matte yellow petals for glitter cardstock and cut three tulips in different colors: metallic red, hot pink, and royal purple. Putting all three papers on the same card would let me compare them side by side.
Before long, I had another prototype:
The improvement was immediate.
The design survived the transition to glitter cardstock beautifully. The individual pieces felt more substantial, and the reflective surface brought a new level of energy to the flowers. What had felt flat in matte cardstock suddenly felt lively and dimensional.
The sparkling dark green stems and leaves also proved to be a strong choice. No matter how the petal colors changed, the emerald green glitter paper continued to anchor the design.
With the materials working, our attention shifted to the petals. One color stood out for both of us: the purple.
The royal purple tulip struck the right balance. It felt more playful than the red flower without drifting into the artificial sweetness of the hot pink. Most importantly, the rich purple paper retained the simple, recognizable shape that had drawn us to tulips in the first place.
At that point, there was really only one thing left to do: see what the design looks like when all three flowers are purple.
Purple Power
Yes. This was the card. Everything finally felt in balance. The shape worked. The materials worked. The colors worked. Both Michael and I arrived at the same conclusion almost instantaneously: this is the one.
I should have stopped here. We were done. The roadmap called for one floral design and we had it. Mission accomplished.
But the purple tulips fooled me. They made the design look effortless, which is a very dangerous thing for an artist to believe.
So I kept going.
Tulips Everywhere
Before long, the studio table was covered in paper tulips.
Dark Red Tulips
The first challenger. This one felt like a safe bet. Red tulips are everywhere, and the color had already performed well in the earlier prototype.
Unfortunately, the more we looked at the card, the more we saw a rose. The tulip shape was still there, but the color carried its own expectations. The red paper wasn't wrong, but it introduced an unintended illusion. If the design is encouraging people to see something other than what you meant to create, it's not doing its job.
No to red.
Hot Pink Tulips
Going in, I thought this paper had potential. The hot pink carried some of the same playful energy I liked in the purple flower, but without the drama of the red.
Yeah. It overshot the mark. Somewhere between a flower and a candy store. Cheerful? Yes. Tulip? Debatable. The hot pink felt a little artificial, almost bubble-gum-like. Fun, but not the direction I wanted to pursue.
No to hot pink.
Dusty Pink Tulips
After hot pink, a softer pink seemed worth exploring. The theory was simple: keep the playful feeling while dialing back the intensity. I really wanted this color to work.
Much to my disappointment, the muted pink and dark green glitter paper never found common ground. Rather than working together, the two colors pulled focus in different directions. The pink just couldn't hold my attention, my eye kept returning to the leaves. The balance that worked so well in the purple version disappeared.
I briefly considered cutting a lighter green stem and leaves before remembering I was supposed to be finishing a launch collection, not starting a new design.
No to light pink (with dark green glitter paper).
Blue Tulips
At this point, blue seemed entirely reasonable. It's adjacent to purple on the color wheel, carries some of the same playful energy, and has become one of the colors I use most often in my work. Blueberries, whales, waves, and even the occasional lobster have all worn some variation of this paper successfully. So why not tulips?
Hmm. The design looked like a garden club logo contest winner. The tulips remained recognizable, but the flower lost some of the natural quality that made the purple version so appealing.
No to blue tulips.
Black Tulips
Okay, this is where I fell further down the tulip-shaped rabbit hole.
I love black-and-white designs. The Wicked Grateful card is one of my favorites, and the Black & White Butterfly sympathy card had already proven that a limited palette could create something elegant and memorable.
Before long, I wasn't just evaluating a tulip card. I was imagining a black-and-white card in every collection. Then a black-and-white collection within the collection. At the time, this seemed entirely reasonable.
So, I made the card.
Nope. The flower disappeared and a graphic design showed up in its place. Bold? Yes. Dramatic? Definitely. A universal tulip card? Not so much.
The One
By the end of the day, we had the answer. Some of the alternatives were attractive. A few were surprisingly interesting. They all turned out to be nice cards, but none created the same reaction as the purple tulips.
Turns out it was purple all along. I just needed an entire day of prototyping to prove it.
The finished design became Royal Purple Tulips, part of the Mainely Cards Just Because collection.
The Best Part
Five of the prototype cards from this design session met our quality standards for donation and were donated to Wicked Good Cards.
That's one of my favorite studio practices. Even after a prototype has answered its design questions, its story isn't necessarily over. Some go on to become donated cards, giving the work a second purpose beyond the design process.
View donated tulips cards →
The Card That Made the Collection
Featuring three paper tulips crafted from shimmering purple and emerald green cardstock, our Purple Tulips card offers a thoughtful way to celebrate, encourage, comfort, or simply let someone know they're on your mind.
Shop the Royal Purple Tulips card →
What began as a one-day design challenge ultimately produced Royal Purple Tulips, the Golden Copy for every handcrafted card that followed, and five prototype cards that were donated to Wicked Good Cards. Not too shabby for a day in the studio.
Mainely Yours,
Shannon
