Beast Pieces

Thinner, yet sculptural.

A new product we’ve been asking for (for several years) has finally arrived. Crane Lettra is now available as a 90lb cover stock that is thick, but not so thick, and good for duplexing.

Being the paper nerds that we are, we busted out our calipers to compare the thickness of duplexed Lettra stocks. Our 220lb Lettra stock calipers at .039″ (40pt) and the new 180lb cover stock calipers at .031″ (30pt), roughly a 25% reduction. Available in fluorescent white, pearl white and ecru, we’ve added this to our list of preferred house stocks.

Our first project to hit press with this new stock was for director Nathaniel Freeman. Letterpress printed with a navy ink and a custom varnish, the 90lb pearl white stock was duplexed after printing–concealing the impression show through in the center of the card. The finished product features a nice sculptural impression, but with slightly less bulk to the card.

Published on May 3, 2012 in Business Cards, Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks. 1 Comment Tags: 220c, 80lb, business card, crane lettra, custom duplex, custom letterpress, duplex, freeman, Letterpress, lettra, pearl white.

Sundae & Wiener Poster Pair

With warmer weather starting to slide in, we designed this pair of prints to celebrate summer’s tastiest treats. Featuring wieners (tube steaks, anyone?) and ice cream sundaes, these were printed with three inks on French Poptone Whipped Cream 140C.

Sorry, we can’t split the set, only sold as a combo meal. Available in our shop.

Published on April 20, 2012 in Design, Posters and Studio On Fire Products. 2 Comments Tags: 140c, Design, french poptone, ice cream, Letterpress, posters, prints, shop, store, sundaes, three inks, whipped cream, wieners.

Kate Arends Wedding Roundup

We’ve had the pleasure of printing several wedding suites designed by local Minneapolis creative Kate Arends. A full-time designer over at Cue, Kate also freelances and does a beautiful job curating her blog Wit + Delight.

Sized to fit in preexisting #10 envelope, the first suite is printed with three inks on Neenah Classic Crest Natural white 165C with a flash of metallic gold edge coloring. No checkboxes in sight, the RSVP is cleverly designed as one card perforated down the middle–allowing the guest to respond with a hearty “YES” response card or use the alternate “Regretfully Decline” postcard.

We love the bold graphic nature, humorous wording and great use of an inline font on this second suite. Printed on French Poptone Sweet Tooth 140C, the invitation card scores twice to z-fold into the envelope. Though the cards use only black ink, the fluorescent green envelope, Mohawk’s BridteHue in UltraLime, adds a punch of color.

Update // See Jon and Alecia’s entire wedding over on 100 Layer Cake.

Lastly, there’s a wedding suite and save the date Kate designed for an Australian bride out of Adelaide. Filled with elegant typographic lockups and textured backgrounds, this was printed with gold ink on French Poptone Whipped Cream 140C .

Published on April 18, 2012 in Letterpress and Wedding. 4 Comments Tags: 140c, 165c, classic crest, custom letterpress, custom wedding design, edge color, french, french poptone, gold, green envelope, kate arends, letterpress printing, natural white, neenah classic crest, sweet tooth, wedding suite, whipped cream.

Black Arts Apparel

For those of you who might not know, printing has a pretty shady past. At one point it was considered the work of Satan (how else could you explain being able to reproduce the Bible so easily?), which is how the profession earned the nickname the “Black Arts.” In full disclosure, there are some who claim this moniker came about because printers were often covered with black ink. Could be, but we like to believe the story with a bit more mystery behind it.

Enter the newest addition to the Studio On Fire shop: our homage to the black arts. Silver ink on a 100% cotton black tee shirt, this is a perfect purchase for anyone wanting rock a little bit of printing history. Buy it here.

Published on April 13, 2012 in Design, Letterpress and Studio On Fire Products. 0 Comments Tags: black arts, illustration, printing history, products, shop, silver ink, store, tee shirt.

Linotype: The Film

We are proud to be teaming up with AIGA Minnesota and the University of St. Thomas to bring a screening of Linotype: The Film to the Twin Cities. April 13th, 7pm, St. Thomas campus. Be there. Details available over on the AIGA MN website.

“Linotype: The Film” Official Trailer from Linotype: The Film on Vimeo.

Published on April 6, 2012 in Completely Unrelated and News. 3 Comments Tags: AIGA, aiga mn, custom printing, film, Letterpress, linotype, linotype: the film, metal type, minneapolis.

The Smallest Business Cards Ever

Designed by Calgary based design studio Wax, these cards for a small business bookkeeper are quite possibly the smallest thing we’ve ever produced. Measuring out at a compact 1″ x .6,” the cards were so petit we were unable to trim these down using our paper cutter (there simply wasn’t anywhere to hold onto them) so a custom made 8up die was used. Printed on Crane Lettra Flo White 220c with one ink on both sides.

We photographed them with some firecrackers we had laying around the studio (what? don’t you have firecrackers on your desk?) to give you a better sense of their size.

Published on March 9, 2012 in Business Cards. 6 Comments Tags: 220c, business card, crane lettra, custom diecut, diecut, flo white, letterpess, small, Wax.

See Jane Blog Business Cards

Jane, from the family/design/lifestyle blog See Jane Blog, approached us to design and produce some fresh cards for her before she headed off to the annual Alt Summit blogger conference in January. Jane was great to work with, she had a few ideas and elements she wanted included but really lets us run and create something that would look great letterpress printed. Some of our favorite features include the custom diecut (designed to accentuate her signature asterisk) and the thin linework pattern (referencing back to her patterned blog header).

Production wise, these were printed on Crane Lettra Flo White 110lb cover stock that was custom duplexed to a 220lb weight after printing. With two inks, a blind impression and a custom diecut, the presssheet for these cards ran through the press a total of four times.

You can also read about these in a lovely post over on Jane’s blog.

Published on March 8, 2012 in Business Cards and Design. 1 Comment Tags: 220lb, alt summit, Business Cards, crane lettra, custom diecut, custom duplex, custom letterpress, Design, die cut, flo white, Letterpress, minneapolis, studio on fire design.

Duct Tape and Glitter Business Cards

Today’s post is brought to you by the color pink! Rubine Red, to be exact. Created by the fellas over at Duct Tape and Glitter, these cards used almost every production process we offer, printing with three ink colors (one of them a flood) along with a blind impression, custom duplexing after printing and finished with a swipe of edge coloring.

Despite the multiple processes these went through, we were able to keep an eye on the cost by printing the fronts and backs up on the same presssheet. By setting up the sheet this way colors that were common to both sides (like the Rubine Red) only had to be setup on press once, rather than once for the front and then again for the back.

After printing we duplexed the presssheet back to itself which created a hefty 220lb sheet and also allowed us to conceal any impression show through (impression area from the front the shows on the back of the sheet) in the middle of the card.

Published on March 7, 2012 in Business Cards. 0 Comments Tags: blind, custom duplex, custom letterpress, edge color, flood, neenah classic crest, rubine red, solar white 220c.

AIGA Minnesota Design Show Call for Entries

We are very involved with the Minnesota chapter of AIGA and always try to enter their annual Design Show that comes around each spring. Last year we were honored to win the “People’s Choice” award (voted on by those who attended the show) for our Golden Rule Poster. As per tradition, the winner of the People’s Choice is asked to design the show materials for the following year–we gladly accepted the job.

Under direction of the AIGA MN Design Show committee we were challenged to make an interactive object in lieu of the usual poster. Charles Youel jumped into the project as writer and after several meetings, sketches and cups of coffee, we came up with an idea to send a pair of cards with punchouts that could be used to actually build something on your desk. We had to go through multiple rounds of prototyping to adjust the construction and functionality of the die, but we couldn’t be happier with the end result.

The set of cards (everyone receives two, for a total of 16 punchout pieces) were letterpress printed with two inks on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Eggshell 100c, custom duplexed after printing to make 200c. To achieve the our final product, every card was trimmed down and run through the press two more times after printing to diecut with two custom dies–one used to create the slits and one to cut the shapes. A custom envelope was also designed and produced before the whole set was sent over to Shapco for insertion and mailing.

Be sure to check out the hash tag #designshow on Twitter as people tweet their creations and enter AIGA MN’s 2012 Design Show–online entry opens March 5th!

Published on March 2, 2012 in Design and Invitations (non wedding). 2 Comments Tags: after printing, AIGA, aiga mn, blue, custom duplex, custom letterpress, Design, design show, diecut, Eggshell, green, lettepress, minneapolis, neenah, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Eggshell, overprinting, solar white.

When Designers Wed

Local Mpls designers Ross Bruggink and Jessica Keintz were married last year and we were pumped to print their invites that utilized beautiful eclectic typography.

An arrow theme, which we have a hunch is based on the bride’s wrapping arrow engagement ring, runs throughout this two color suite. Printed on Crane Lettra Fluorescent White 110C stock, the cards custom duplexed after printing, allowing us to run a heavy impression on the flood of pattern without completely killing the delicate type on the opposite side of the card.

Can’t get enough? They also created one of the coolest wedding websites we’ve seen.

additional photography provided by Ross and Jess.

Published on March 1, 2012 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 220c, crane, crane lettra, custom duplexed after printing, custom letterpress, designers, duplex, flo white, gray, lettra, minneapolis, printing, two color, yellow.

Brooklyn Wedding Invitations

This wedding suite, designed by the bride and groom, shows that you can have playful invitations while keeping the aesthetic classy. The main invitation was mailed with an accompanying information card–cleverly designed with a perforation line, allowing the attached RSVP card to be removed and returned. With many brides shying away from complicated wedding systems, it’s a practical way cut down on the number of pieces recipients will pull out of the envelope. Additional tags and cards printed on the same press sheet were used at the actual event

Printed with two inks, antique brown and a bright zip of yellow, on Crane Lettra Pearl White 110C (one of our house stocks).

Additional photography courtesy of Oh, Darling! Photography.

Published on February 29, 2012 in Letterpress and Wedding. 2 Comments Tags: 110c, crane, crane lettra, custom letterpress, invitation, Letterpress, lettra, pearl white, perf, perforation line, two color, Wedding, yellow.

Pivot Interiors Calendar

Using the format we designed for our Studio On Fire calendars, the marketing team over at Pivot Interiors designed this 2012 calendar in celebration of their expansion into southern California. Created as a tribute to California architecture, this was used as a gift for their clients and was a great way for them to showcase their ties to the architectural and design communities. The beautifully detailed illustrations required us to keep a critical eye on the registration while on press and we’re thrilled with how tight the prints came out.

The interior pages and outer wrap were printed together on one press sheet using four inks on Mohawk Via Vellum Bright White 100C. The stand was printed with one ink on a custom duplexed paper made of Mohawk Via Vellum Bright Wht 100C and Mohawk Loop Vellum Thai Gold 100C before being diecut and hand assembled.