Archive for the 'Business Cards' Category

Two-Toned Edgecoloring

We recently produced this stationery suite designed by Together We Create for the Massachusetts based film company Mystic Artists. The design called for two-toned edgecoloring–a production first for our studio–with two edges colored bright teal and the remaining two sporting a nearly-flourescent red. The outcome is fairly stunning, if we do say so ourselves.

The business cards were printed on Crane Lettra Flo White 90C custom duplexed after printing to make a 180lb thickness. Letterhead was printed on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80T with a coordinating 70T pre-converted square flap #10 envelope.

Published on October 23, 2012 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 5 Comments Tags: 180C, 70T, 80T, 90C, crane lettra, custom duplex, edge coloring, edge painting, envelope, flo white, neenah classic crest solar white, stationery, two color, two toned edge color, two toned edge coloring.

Beautiful Blind Impression

Based out of San Francisco, Passing Notes designed this beautiful stationery system for Muhs Home, an online store retailing elegant home furnishings and accessories. Refined typography utilized two inks alongside chic illustrations. Since the illustrations were printed with no ink, what is referred to as a blind impression, we used a thick Crane Lettra Flo White 220 lb cover stock, allowing us to really go deep with the impression while reducing show through.

Other projects we have produced for Passing Notes include this Aphro Chic system and Patti Schmidt business card.

Published on September 11, 2012 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: 220c, blind, blind impression, business card, crane, crane lettra, custom letterpress, flo white, letterpress printing, muhs home, note card, passing notes, pattern, stationery.

Finessence Photography Identity and Stationery

A husband and wife photography team, Finessence Photography had just adopted a new moniker and was looking for a fresh look when they approached us to handle their rebrand and produce their print collateral. While we spend a lot of time (happily) printing for other designers, it’s always a treat for us to act as the design firm behind a project that hits our pressroom.

For the business cards we created a custom stock, duplexing Crane Lettra Flo White 110C and Beckett Concept Mohagany 130C. The rich mahogany stock was a great way for us to counterbalance the ultra-feminine flourish filled “F” we created for the main logo with something a little more masculine. A custom brown ink was mixed to match the mahogany stock for the crisp letterpress printed type sandwiched between two bands of a sculptural teal pattern. We were also able to use one of our favorite finishing techniques, giving the slightly undersized cards a splash of teal edge coloring.

After completing the business cards we proceeded to create a photo folio and gift certificate to round out their set of presentation materials. The structure of the photo folio is a call back to the flimsy paper sleeves drugstore prints used to come in, but this version is a bit fancier. A custom steel rule die line was created, which included an interior diecut to hold the business card, letterpress printed with two inks, hand assembled and kept closed with a velcro closure.

We’re also pretty proud to say this system was a winner in the 2010 FPO Awards.

Published on July 26, 2012 in Business Cards, Design and Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 130c, beckett, bright white, brown, champagne, concept, crane lettra, custom duplex, custom letterpress, Design, duplex, edge coloring, finessence photography, finishing, flo white, Letterpress, mahogany, mohawk, photo folio, photography business cards, studio on fire design, teal, tonal, velcro closure.

Nara Business Cards

More and more clients are starting to request split fountain printing, where we put two ink colors on the same roller to acheive a gradient. Craig Duffney, a longtime friend of Studio On Fire, designed these cards for Nara, a web personalization tool. In this instance, the pink to purple split fountain is a direct callback to the gradient background of the Nara website. After two passes through the press and duplexing back to themselves, the cards were finished with a custom rounded corner diecut.

Letterpress printed on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 200C.

Published on July 20, 2012 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 3 Comments Tags: 200c, classic crest, craig duffney, custom business cards, die cut, gradient, letterpress printing, nara, neenah, round corners, solar white, split fountain.

Beautifully Patterned Business Cards

These beautifully patterned, slightly oversized, cards for Julie Dasher Rugs were created by Minneapolis designer Laurie DeMartino. With a common brown and yellow footer on each card, each rug inspired pattern features a different color from Julie’s brand identity. The reverse of each card shares a common pattern with the front, but is printed using a tonal varnish, allowing the contact information along the bottom to spring forward as the focal point.

Letterpress printed on French Poptone Whipped Cream 140C, custom duplexed after printing to make 280C.

Published on July 9, 2012 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 4 Comments Tags: 100c, 200c, custom duplex after printing, custom letterpress, french paper, french poptone, Letterpress, poptone, tonal varnish, varnish, whipped cream.

Ilumini Photography Arts Business Card

Utilizing their existing logo, we designed and produced these cards for Ilumini Photography Arts, a wedding and fine art photographer based out of Hawaii. After creating a type lockup for the contact information we designed a custom diecut that would elegantly frame the ornate “I” logo.

Letterpress printed with metallic silver ink on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110C and a tonal varnish on the Wausau Royal Complements Eclipse Black 100C, these stocks were duplexed after printing before receiving the final diecut.

Published on June 19, 2012 in Business Cards, Design and Letterpress. 5 Comments Tags: classic crest, custom letterpress, diecut, duplex, eclipse black, letterpress printing, silver, solar white, tonal, varnish, wausau.

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. 2 Comments Tags: 220c, 80lb, business card, crane lettra, custom duplex, custom letterpress, duplex, freeman, Letterpress, lettra, pearl white.

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. 1 Comment Tags: blind, custom duplex, custom letterpress, edge color, flood, neenah classic crest, rubine red, solar white 220c.

Howler Business Cards

Designed by Priest + Grace for Howler magazine, these oversize business cards are an amazing example of what a good design and a little tonal ink can do. Howler magazine is a quarterly publication for soccer enthusiasts in North America, so it only made sense for these cards to reference the size and color of actual penalty cards used in soccer.

There are several production techniques we used to successfully produce these cards. First, instead of printing all of the information blind we used a tonal ink color (a red ink on the red, yellow on the yellow). When something is printed blind it relies solely on good lighting conditions to be legible. Our solution is to print using a tonal ink, which creates just enough contrast between the artwork and the paper to make your contact information visible. Secondly, these cards were printed with fronts and backs up on the same sheet, duplexing the sheet after printing. This allowed us to run a heavy impression on press but then conceal the impression show through by duplexing the sheet back to itself.

The red cards are printed on Mohawk Via Scarlet Vellum 80C (duplexed to make 160C) and the yellow cards are on French Poptone Lemon Drop 100C (duplexed to make 200C).

Published on December 9, 2011 in Business Cards. 1 Comment Tags: custom, custom duplex, diecut, duplex, duplex after, french, lemon drop, Letterpress, minneapolis, mohawk via, red, round corners, scarlet, soccer, tonal ink, tonal varnish, yellow.

Olli Salumeria Business Cards

Yael Miller, from Miller Creative, designed these gorgeous business cards for Olli Salumeria, a salumeria that makes dry-cured salumi in Virginia. Though the outcome is, dare we say stunning, these cards posed several production challenges along the way.

As a general rule, we don’t suggest using letterpress when the design uses floods of color and require clients to agree to our Solid Areas Disclaimer before we will proceed with their job. To achieve a nice solid coverage of color we had to run the ink heavy across the card, thankfully we had added some additional stroke weight to the artwork in the pre-press stage so the line work would not fill in on press. Another trick we used was lightly wetting the sheet before running- this cuts down on the appearance of saltiness and variation across the color.

Flood aside, take a look at that red. Yael refers to it as “Ferrari red,” and we can’t say that we disagree. The design actually specified a Pantone GOE color, which is not a Pantone book we match to, but since we custom mix all of our colors we were able to match a swatch that was mailed in for reference. We took one of our base red inks and pumped it up with a hit of fluorescent red to really get the color to pop.

These cards are printed on Crane Lettra 110lb cover that we custom duplexed after printing to make 220lb. By duplexing after printing we were able to run the flood without completely flattening the text on the other side of the card (not to mention we love any excuse to make a business card thicker). A custom diecut, shaped to reference a ticket or label, finished off the cards in an unexpected, yet refined way.

This project can also be found on FPO, DesignWorkLife, and Miller Creative.