These pieces were inked with 3 color on one side with a tonal varnish on the other. We printed an invitation and map card together on a new favorite sheet – French Poptone Sweet Tooth White 280lb Cover. We like it enough that we are now custom making it to keep on hand as a house sheet. The thickness is about 40 points (.038 inch) which is a matching thickness to Crane Lettra 220lb. The good things are that it is less expensive than a cotton sheet like Lettra and smoother in surface, not as toothy a finish. It takes a great impression and works great for edge coloring as well.

We letterpress printed these 4 x 6 sized cards on French Muscletone Construction Pure White. One of the things we really like about this sheet is that it is a single ply 140lb Cover rather than a pasted, multi ply sheet. Most other commercial papers from other mills achieve a thicker paper by pasting a 2 ply sheet for thicknesses of 130lb and up. That makes the sheets stiff. Since the French sheet is a single ply, it is a bit softer and less rigid – both qualities desirable for letterpress. However, since French is achieving that thickness with a single ply, there is more evident pulp formation within the sheet. This means that the pressure needed to print a solid area of color is significant and results in a “salty” more textured printed appearance. That texture in large inked areas is something we like and embrace in printing with letterpress. HOWEVER, read this disclaimer before you send us art with lots of ink going down.

And letterpress printing isn’t just for small runs. Twenty thousand cards just rolled off the press. But, it is important to understand that for letterpress, each color is a separate pass through the press. This job was able to print both of these cards two-up on a press sheet. Still, these sheets had four separate passes for 3 color /one color. That’s a lil bit of printing.

We letterpress printed them on 110lb Crane Lettra Pearl White and pasted them Spanish to English after printing, making a thick 220lb cover stock. We then trimmed them to size and edge colored everything in a bright pink.

We letterpress printed them with 2 colors – a copper metallic ink and a tonal white ink. We used Wausau Royal Complements Bright White 100lb Cover paper stock. The card press sheets were printed then pasted together with an extra sheet in the middle to produced a triplexed sheet for an extra thick custom 300lb cover stock. They were trimmed and finished with the metallic edge color. These are lux with a definite presence.

We letterpress printed these cards on two sides using Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 165lb cover with red and gray inks. The cards are finished in a matching red edge color.