Beast Pieces

Heads of State Business Cards

For some illustration inspiration and silk screen goodness check out the Heads of State from Philadelphia. They designed these business cards with an insignia that turns the national USA seal on its ear, adding an extra head and replacing the olive branch and arrows with a pencil and x-acto knife. We letterpress printed in black and dark silver on both sides of Crane Lettra 220lb FLo White and edge colored to match the silver – it’s a card thick enough to plant a listening device inside. And maybe we did that too… maybe.

Published on February 1, 2010 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: 220lb, Business Cards, crane, edge color, edge coloring, emblem, heads of state, insignia, Letterpress, lettra, national, philadelphia, printing, seal, silk screen, silver.

Bahamas Letterpress Wedding

This massive custom wedding system is exquisitely graphic. It was designed by the groom, Scott Peiffer. More of his design portfolio here. What is especially nice about this invitation set is the uniqueness of each card. Care was taken to bring together lots of different textures and graphics – beautifully combining, flourishes, coral patterns, florals, silhouettes, crests and even a bulldog.

We letterpress printed all the cards on a sheet together in two color on Cordenons Canaletto Grana Grossa Bianco 111lb C . It is a 20% cotton blend stock with a textural finish. The A7 folder is sized to fit inside an A7 envelope. It is letterpress printed in a coral pattern with a tone on tone blue ink and then die cut. The folder stock is a bright color 100lb cover stock from French Paper’s Poptone line. The Save the Date Envelope is also a matching stock color, printed tone on tone.

Published on January 26, 2010 in Letterpress and Wedding. 3 Comments Tags: a7, bahamas, band, blu rasberry, bulldog, canaletto, coral, cotton, crest, Design, destination, envelope, floral, flourish, folder, french paper, graphic, invitations, invite, Letterpress, paper, pattern, scott peiffer, silhouette, stationery, system, tone on tone, Wedding.

Fabien Barral Business Cards & Note Cards

Here is another fantastic project designed by Fabien Barral over at Graphic Exchange. He brought in wonderful organic drips and brush strokes that interpret with a unique sculptural quality under letterpress impression.

We put down a lot of letterpress printing on this sheet. It’s a good way to make a project affordable – - spread the cost over several items all on the same press sheet. The paper stock is Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 165lb Cover. The sheet contains four business cards and three large note cards. We printed a slightly contaminated opaque white ink for the tonal white effect, also a dense black ink. For our white ink, we usually put just a hair of silver in the opaque white to give it a little tone. It also has the benefit of creating a stronger sheen difference between the inked impression and the uncoated paper stock than you would get with a blind (inkless) print.

After printing this project went to live in French customs for a little while. And that should answer another question we get a lot – Yes! we do ship international all the time. Just let us know if you have any specific customs needs for your country.

Published on January 15, 2010 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 165lb, 2010, afforadable, barral, black, brush, business, business card, card, cards, contaminate, decor, Design, drip, fabien barral, graphic exchange, harmonie interieure, ink, interior decoration, Letterpress, neenah, note, notecard, opaque white, organic, press sheet, printer, printing, solar white, texture.

Help Haiti – Calendar for Unicef

01/20/10 – UPDATE TO POST:

Thanks for your support with our calendar fund raiser over the weekend. Because of your support we are sending over $700 to UNICEF.

THANK YOU!

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Dear Design and Printing Friends,

As a father of three young children I can not imagine the reality that is Haiti right now. Our studio would like to help. We are donating 100% of our 2010 letterpress calendar sales starting today to the UNICEF fund for Haiti.

You can buy a calendar on our studio site for $30. We’ll direct all accumulated funds, less your shipping cost to Unicef early next week.

Or you can support UNICEF directly at their site.

Thanks for your consideration,

Ben Levitz

Principal, Studio On Fire

Published on January 15, 2010 in Letterpress, News and Studio On Fire Products. 1 Comment Tags: benefit, calendar, earthquake, effort, haiti, Letterpress, product, relief, unicef.

2010 Studio On Fire Letterpress Calendar

The Studio On Fire 2010 Calendar is now available on our new web site. This calendar is a decade marker for us. Established the end of 1999, Studio On Fire began letterpress printing in a cold Minnesota basement. Our first press occupied a spot between the boiler and the litter box, and oh, how the studio has since grown. Now seven presses strong with a fully equipped studio space, we celebrate ten years as a bustling design and print studio.

This Tenfold Edition calendar is letterpress printed with four colors on a cotton-blend stock, each month beautifully illustrated by selected designers the world over.

Contributors:
Jan/Jul_ Studio On Fire
Feb/Aug_Cecilie Ellefsen
Mar/Sept_ Brian Gunderson
Apr/Oct_ The Little Friends of Printmaking
May/Nov_ ghostpatrol
Jun/Dec_ Rilla Alexander (Rinzen)

Published on January 7, 2010 in Design, Letterpress, News and Studio On Fire Products. 3 Comments Tags: 2010, Brian Gunderson, brown, calendar, day-glo, Design, easel stand, edition, florescent, ghostpatrol, green, illustration, Letterpress, little friends of printmaking, months, pink, poptone, printing, rinzen, studio on fire, tenfold.

Optimistic Letterpress Wine Labels

Happy New Year!

The Optimist is a self-promotional holiday wine bottle designed by Greg Bennett for Siquis. Each year Siquis shows their clients how much they care by designing a custom wine bottle label just for them. The label is always created by a different designer in their creative department. This year’s graphic was designed to play on “is the glass half empty or half full” concept. Obviously, once the recipient rotates the bottle to fill their glass, the glass on the label becomes half full. One of Greg’s many beliefs is that a design is only as good as it’s production. What that means is that you can have a great design but if it is produced poorly, the result will be a mediocre piece at best. That being said, this label was letterpress printed at Studio On Fire ensuring this bottle design is sure to delight even the toughest critics.
We printed on Strathmore Ultimate White Label stock with a kiss cut die for finishing that punched out the tiny glass area and gave the whole label a slight arc to compliment the curve of the bottle.

Published on January 4, 2010 in Letterpress. 2 Comments Tags: bottle, Design, die cut, die line, diecut, dieline, greg bennett, Holiday, kiss cut, kisscut, label, labels, Letterpress, new year, premium, printed, printing, simple, sisquis, strathmore, wine.

Iron Beast Poster – Toys In The Attic Show

This is our letterpress poster for the Toys In The Attic show opening at the Soo Visual Arts Center on Dec 4th from 6 to 9PM. The show features both custom toys and toy inspired posters. Proceeds benefit Toys For Tots. Hey, that’s tomorrow night! We hope to see you there.

These beasts are in fact our toys. The graphic beasts are constructed from various press parts and form into a crest that commemorates ten years of printing here at Studio On Fire. The dog latin phrase reads “Iron Beasts Make Great Beauty”. It is printed in fluorescent and dark silver inks on Crane Lettra Flo White 220lbC at 13 x 13 size.

It was ten years ago this month back in 1999 that the first C&P was lowered into the then basement studio. More to come on our own ten year anniversary party soon.

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Published on December 3, 2009 in Design, Letterpress, News and Posters. 0 Comments Tags: 220lb, beast, crane, crest, Design, edition, fluorescent, ink, iron, Letterpress, lettra, minneapolis, poster, press parts, print, printer, silver, soo, soo visual arts center, soovac, studio on fire, ten years, toys for tots, toys in the attic, unique.

Reserve Collection Coffee Package Labels

Jeff Holmberg designed these labels for a new line of coffee from Bull Run Roasting Company to be served and sold at their new retail location inside the Rustica Bakery in Minneapolis. Top notch stuff! Bull Run wholesales their coffee into some of the finer restaurants in the metro. This Reserve Collection is the first offering of their coffee at retail and it had to look tasty. The label is customized by rubber stamping the coffee variety and hole punching the bean and weight information. The ripped edge of the label on the kraft bag balances a raw yet refined look. Nice work Jeff.

We letterpress printed in two color on Strathmore Ultimate White label stock. We kiss cut the labels with a steel rule die with several punches to add the coarse perforated edge when ripped and opened. Yum and Buzz.

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Published on December 3, 2009 in Letterpress and labels. 2 Comments Tags: bag, bakery, beloya, brown, bull run, coffee, collection, Design, edge, holmberg, impression, kraft, label, Letterpress, minneapolis, package, packaging, perf, perforated, perforation, punch, reserve, roast, roasting, rubber stamp, Rustica, strathmore, yellow.

Dita Eyewear LA Business Cards

These are the brand new cards for Dita Eyewear in Los Angeles. Bryan Crabtree designed them and did a nice post over on his blog too. The blind flourish on the light side and the diamond pattern on the black gives these cards a tonal and elegant look.

We first printed these as two sheets, a natural color and black stock and then pasted the sheets together after printing. This step eliminates show through of the impression when printing a two sided design. We’ve found that the gluing of the sheet after it is printed does flatten back some of the impression, so we start with a heavy impression initially. The lighter color stock is Wausau Compliments Natural White 100lbC and is printed with a blind pass and black ink. The black stock is Wausau Eclipse Black 100lbC and is printed with PMS 8001 silver and black ink. The final thickness is 200lbC, about the thickness of a US dime. After printing and gluing, the cards were die cut to the final shape with angled corners.

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Published on November 30, 2009 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 4 Comments Tags: 100lbC, 200lbC, angle, black, blind, bryan crabtree, business, Business Cards, California, card, cards, cut, Design, die, die cutting, diecut, duplex, fashion, inkless, LA, Letterpress, los angeles, natural, off white, offwhite, paste, pasted, shape, silver, white.

Six Speed Biz Cards – Crushed AND Burned

Six Speed sent us this design for custom letterpress business cards. They are a specialized events marketing company here in Minneapolis. And what could be a better business card job really – crushing AND burning all on the same press sheet.

The cards were letterpress printed on 200lb Eclipse Black Wausau with silver ink, then the press sheet was laser cut. The laser cutting was used due to the complexity of the cutting die and the size of the print run. Laser cutting does a really nice job, especially on darker stocks were the edge burn is less evident. With lighter colored and white stocks, a mask is sometimes sometimes required to prevent burning marks on the face of the sheet.

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Published on November 24, 2009 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 4 Comments Tags: 200lb, black, burn, Business Cards, custom letterpress, cut, cutting, dark, Design, die, eclipse, ink, laser, laser cutting, laser die, marketing, minneapolis, notches, paper, pattern, performance, press sheet, printing, shape, silver, six speed, thick, wausau.

Culinaria Food and Wine Letterpress Cards

Jeff at Biklops Design created these note cards and business cards for catering and event planning company Culinaria. We love the simple line work logo and are a little amazed it actually printed. It is one of those “it turned out really cool but was a pain in ass to print” kind of projects. Inking a solid like this with letterpress is one of the more difficult things to print. There is a constant struggle to maintain minimal variation in the color density. With a large solid area the press sheet warps like a ripple potato chip, making feeding the sheets in register a challenge. And keeping the fine line weight of the logo from filling in made for a fun time on press. To help with the filling in on the logo we ended up shortening the exposure of the plate, which still hardens the plate but lessens the amount of base/neck material on the edges of the printed image. So good job on the design Jeff, we can even print your curve ball.

The cards are printed letterpress on 220lb Crane Lettra Flo White 100% cotton stock. The final trimmed cards were finished with a matching light blue edge coloring accent. The text is printed after the solid so it has a sculptural impression. If the text were printed first, the solid blue on the opposite side would flatten the impression down to near nothing.

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Published on November 23, 2009 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 4 Comments Tags: 220lb, accent, biklops design, blue, Business Cards, card, color, crane, culinaria, cyan, density, Design, edge, edging, fine, Letterpress, lettra, line, logotype, note card, notecard, painting, photo polymer, plate exposure, solid, tipping.

Rad!

Conrad Lim, a photographer out of LA, had some ideas for an identity and we made it happen. He was pretty darn excited that the letters R-A-D were smack dab in the center of his name so it was pretty clear where we needed to go with it.