Tag Archive for 'blind'

Page 2 of 2

Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 1

_0001_all_cards_detail

_0005_fabien_card_detail

This is a big post with lots of images so be sure and see Part 2 as well.

We’ve been an online friend with French designer Fabien Barrel for a while. He’s been kind enough to show our press work on his Graphic Exchange website. His site is a finely curated collection of designers and projects from all over the world. Be sure and see it next time you need some graphic inspiration.

Fabien collected three other friends that also wanted letterpress printed business cards. Fabien Barrel designed his card and the card for So Goods. Fred Dauzat designed his card and the card for Limited Press. We letterpress printed these cards together with Continue reading ‘Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 1′

Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2

_0018_negative_from_digital_file

_0009_press_running_paper

This is part two showing the production of business cards on our Heidelberg Windmill. Be sure and see Part 1 showing the finished cards.

We start with a high resolution film negative. The negative is used to expose the plastic plates. The plates are attached to an aluminum base and placed into the press. The press uses air suction to pick up a sheet of paper on the left side and deliver it into the press for printing. The printed sheets are automatically stacked in the delivery pile on the right side of Continue reading ‘Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2′

Hey, Nice Ensemble

You know what they say about too much letterpress – you’ll eventually go blind. That is exactly what happened to our design friends at Spunk Design Machine. They created this stationery system for Ensemble with a beautiful and subtle pattern that we letterpress printed blind (a plate striking the paper with no ink). Imagine, a design for a financial company that is both fun and elegant. Which makes sense for Ensemble because they cater specifically to creatives running small businesses by managing benefits and financial operations.

For the letterhead, the blind pattern runs on the text weight sheet along the top edge of the paper. That pattern also prints in color on the back of the No.10 note card (a flat card sized for a  No. 10 envelope). A pattern like this is a great way to get some color into a letterpress print job without running a big solid color block.  Since this card and the business cards are on the same paper and print the same color, we can run them together. We run a lot of jobs with a this card and a business card on the same press sheet. That gives the client way more bang for their print dollars.

_0002_spunk_ensemble_system_detail_0003_spunk_ensemble_blind_detail

Laurie DeMartino – Letterpress Identity

We love involved custom production projects with other design firms – especially identity systems. The refined work of designer Laurie DeMartino exemplifies the level of production we strive for in our letterpress shop. A keen eye for detailed type and color makes her design work striking. In fact, we believe she has a sixth sense related to finessing details. We worked with her to produce this identity system by matching her attention to detail on press.

_0002_demartino_business_card_front

Some noteworthy things about this system:

We partnered with another vendor to produce the offset floods of color on the letterhead and envelopes. Those big fields of color are next to impossible to hold consistent on letterpress. We can do larger areas of color (we did it on the note card and business card) but there is more variation in letterpress printing than in offset. When that variation is desirable we will print a flood of color on certain stocks. When it is not desirable, we recommend combining letterpress with offset. (Yes, that adds cost.) It is worth noting that we can print a large press sheet and often work in tandem with commercial offset printing.

Business Cards are 5 PMS /1 PMS. We matched the ink printed offset with our letterpress ink.

All the type and small graphics are letterpress printed. Light colored type is a heavy impression with custom mixed varnish. You can see in the letterhead detail and business card detail the show through on the reverse of the sheet.

The envelope is custom converted and has a perforation line across the flap.

_0005_demartino_identity_system