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.

Last years card for Baker was a die cut bird ornament as well. The same production specs, but featuring a punch out owl.

Also in the last few months, we worked through the letterpress printing of the new Baker identity on their business cards. And is was quite the undertaking. They have an interesting post about the process of icon development here. Each employee has their own icon and each card has four color ways. With over 60 employees that was a lot of icons and business cards! They are a custom duplexed 200lbC black and white stock in an undersized narrow card format. (1 x 3.5 inches) BAKER is printed in silver on the black side and the white side receives the four different color variations.

BAKER is a Minneapolis based Branding + Design firm specializing in package design. On the web: bkrdsn.com or tweet: @bkrdsn

We talked about the relationship of letterpress and design, did some Q&A, drank some Pabst Blue Ribbon and wrapped up the event with a little coaster project on press. Take a look at the coaster sheet – it’s 60pt Ahlstrom blotter paper. We pre printed a couple colors before people arrived. Then, we had a different color set up on both of our Vandercook presses. Everyone got to pull a couple prints, then we die cut the sheet into the set of four coasters. Lots of paper touching and good times had by all. Thanks Kayd Mustonen for taking some pics to share.

If you aren’t sure what a “meat raffle” is you should really look it up to fully understand the heritage of this design. It’s good to see a fine establishment carry on this noble tradition. Our friends at Fame created this cuss-worthy design for an invitation to party in their brand new office. Sam Soulek did the design and pattern work reminiscent of vintage beer ephemera.

The two oversize cards are printed with metallic gold ink and an orange pms on 60pt blotter board, both front and back. This fantastically pulpy and coaster-like stock gives the artwork a unique texture in addition to the letterpress impression. The cards fit together and mail in a French Paper Brown Speckltone A10 size envelope, also printed with the same gold ink. Note how the envelope design wraps from the face of the envelope and covers the flap on the back side. Since we fold open the pre-converted envelopes to print them, we are able to print the face and the flap at the same time. This invite is hot off the presses and is hitting mailboxes this week.

Such a pulpy stock material is not without problems. The blotter board stock is a wood fiber stock with very little sizing during the papermaking process. That makes printing on this sheet a bit like running a shedding rabbit through the letterpress. With such a raw surface, the fibers from the stock surface build up on the ink rollers like bunches of hair. That means extra wash ups during the run to keep the ink clean and free of hickies on the artwork. This stock also sucks up the ink, so you need good heavy ink density going down, which makes it a balancing act to keep the small type from filling in on the coarse surface. The paper formation produces a very mottled and salty looking texture in the ink coverage. But we think it’s a unique and vintage look that matches this design perfectly.