Beast Pieces » contemporary

Patterned Bliss Wedding Invitation

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:46:16 +0000

A simple pattern goes a long way with letterpress printing. This is a design from the bride that uses a contemporary geometric pattern with a refined gray and yellow color palette. It is pressed on Crane Lettra 110lb Cotton stock with a matching Lettra envelope. The pattern even comes across the flap of the envelope. A nifty little details card directs you to the couples web site and replaces lengthy printed information that can clutter up an invitation suite. Connect with the bride Sabrena if you like the design style of this invite and would like her design services . The right pattern produces such beautiful letterpress texture. We’d love to print more like this.

Studio On Fire In Forbes Letterpress Article

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:10:27 +0000

So we got a call from Forbes last month. We did an interview about the resurgence of letterpress and talked about how modern photopolymer plating makes letterpress available to a more contemporary design aesthetic. But a lot of people are stuck with a mental image of letterpress as it came into mainstream design popularity several years back – distressed wood type, over inked artwork and a makeshift quality to the design that comes from using whatever typefaces and elements that happen to be on hand. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hatch Show Print and have been through the Nashville shop several times. But letterpress has a range far beyond that limited aesthetic. Pushing the medium is what our shop focuses on intently. To us, the resurgence of letterpress is this: making letterpress a viable commercial production method for contemporary design.

A few of the details in the article are a little fuzzy as they published my comments and I think she got a bit of a rise out of me. (yes, I realize if you have the patience and an extra hour or two, you can set some type on a curve with metal type, but that is certainly not commercially viable for our shop) The point was that I personally take issue with anyone that would say printing with polymer isn’t real letterpress. Yeah, we use polymer. It’s a means to an end. Different tools make different marks. Maybe we should call our work “civil union printing” rather than “letterpress” so all the ludites can feel better about their craft. :) The bottom line is that photopolymer represents a new range of possibilities for designers and for letterpress. We embrace that wholeheartedly, but still have a deep appreciation for all of those willing to toil over a case of lead type.

Check out the Forbes article here.

Here are some pics of a photopolymer job being set up to print.

Electric Green Edges

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:15:19 +0000

Edge coloring is an amazing addition to a letterpress project. These are a couple thousand cards stacked up, just completed for GS Design in Milwaukee. They designed these for their client Dohmen. The radial dots are a nice contemporary design on the face of the card and the sides are a matching vibrant green. They are printed in two PMS colors on thick 165lb Neenah Solar White.

We can match edges to any printed PMS color. And the effect looks at it’s best on stock 160lb or thicker. It’s taken us a few years of practice to get the edge coloring production process just right, so we are purposefully a bit elusive about exactly how we do this. It has something to do with unicorn tears and hens teeth. ;) The effect is much more subtle when seen as a single business card and always makes people take a closer look.