Beast Pieces

Letterpress Open House // Black Arts Warm Hearts

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:02:43 +0000

3D Boy Poster

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:38:32 +0000

This print is the result of a collaboration between illustrator/painter/art maker Oliver Jeffers and swissmiss’ Tina Roth Eisenberg. Quirky and fun, this three color poster measures out at 11″ x 14,” printed in our Minneapolis studio on Crane Lettra Flo White 110lb cover stock. Does anybody else think popcorn sounds really good right now?

Available for purchase over on Swiss Miss.

Should I Work for Free?

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:25:07 +0000

If you haven’t had the pleasure of exploring Jessica Hische’s work, you should really go check it out. Her remarkable talent and wit permeates everything she does, a prime example being this poster she designed last year asking the age old question “should i work for free?” Every designer has asked themselves this at some point and Jessica has taken the time to break it down for you in this FIVE color poster she had us letterpress. Printed on Crane Lettra Flo White 110c (one of our house stocks), each 15″ x 25″ print is signed and editioned. Available for purchase in Jessica’s store.

Another side project Jessica produced is inkerlinker, a site dedicated to finding an awesome printer to fit your needs. We’re pretty pumped about the love people have shown us on the site and always enjoy reading the comments people leave. Go ahead and “like” us… you know you want to.

Whimsically Elegant Wedding Invitations

admin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:20:46 +0000

Who can resist a wedding invitation with flamingos? We can’t, that’s for sure. Designer Scott Peiffer created this elegant, yet whimsical, wedding suite we printed for an upcoming Miami wedding. There are a lot of pieces to this system, similar to the suite Scott designed for his own wedding we printed a couple years back, but each card effortlessly coordinates without being matchy-matchy.

All of the cards, along with the belly band, were printed together on one press sheet with two inks on Crane Lettra Pearl White 110c. The pattern on the folder was created by using one tonal ink on Arturo Pale Pink 260gsm. The folder was custom diecut and hand assembled after printing.

Hard Graft Print Collateral

admin — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:38:45 +0000

Hard Graft, it literally means “Hard Work,” and boy does this European company live up to their name. Makers of beautifully designed and handcrafted gadget cases, this duo (one English, one Austrian) has a passion for what they do–and it shows. From designing the products and tracking down the finest italian craftsman (they used to make every single item themselves), to packing each order by hand, they are involved in every aspect of their business. We’re actually surprised they don’t have sheep in their back yard (then again, for all we know, maybe they do). Moral of the story–they care, these are the kind of people we love to work with.

To complement their 100% wool felt and leather goods, they designed noted cards, merchandise cards and labels for us to produce. The note card and angular merchandise cards were printed on 60pt Ahlstrom Blotter, which is what we traditionally recommend for coasters. Though the outcome is beautiful, these items were a challenge to run on press. Whenever you run a flood of color alongside fine type you will constantly have to fight to keep the text crisp while still making the flood of color as solid as possible. This project was especially tricky because the blotter stock is notoriously challenging to run solid areas of color on, there is no avoiding what we call a “salty” result–luckily this was the look they were going for. They were finished with a custom diecut, which helps the cards tuck tightly into felt pockets prior to shipping (see the picture below that Hard Graft was nice enough to send over of the cards in use).

The labels were printed on Strathmore Soft White label stock, receiving a kiss-cut after printing, allowing them to easily peel off the backing sheet.