This poster is on 100lb Poptone cover stock from French Paper. It is a 15.5 x 23 size with some big solids going down. With this much ink we have to run the powder spray pretty heavy so the ink doesn’t transfer to the backs of each other. That makes the inside of the press look like a powdered doughnut. The powder spray is actually just a corn starch and works well to avoid offsetting ink transfer. Sucks to clean the press afterward though.

We love doing posters, but be aware that the polymer plating for large sizes can be expensive for small runs. Just the plate cost alone will run about $200 per color. That kills the price for a run of 50 posters with polymer. But 500 to 1000 quantity- now we’re talking. That spreads the plating cost out over more pieces and makes it more reasonable get on press. Not that we aren’t happy to do small runs, but plate cost is what it is regardless of quantity.

This is a follow up to our post about affordable wedding invites. These invites were designed by the bride and groom Stephanie Mead and Doug Kohnen at Docent Creative. Doug did some beautiful illustrations that turned out stunning on press. We letterpress printed and trimmed the cards for them. They are dense black ink on Crane Lettra 110lb Pearl White, 100% cotton. They sent us some photos of how they assembled everything with a tag and ribbon. They even silk screened their own envelopes. So, how do you get a gorgeous wedding invitation for a reasonable price?

We’ve been asked about providing templates for wedding invite press sheets. We’ve shown some images below as an example of  how this invite template was laid out on the press sheet. But really, most any card size configuration can work. This is a 10 x 13 size press sheet, very common to our press room. That size represents great economy as we trim those sheets from even larger parent size sheets. When more cards are required in an invitation set, we can move to a larger press sheet. The point of talking about press sheets is to help people understand the process. When we can print everything together, that saves money. Since letterpress prints only one color at a time, more colors in a design mean more time on press, which means more money. The more we can print at a time, the better the deal.

We typically do not have clients send their projects to us as a press sheet layout, just your production ready design files are perfect. We lay out our own press sheets based on the pieces being printed, so we are sure it will print well on our presses.

So how much does it cost? The short answer is that every invite is different based on the needs of the couple. All of our letterpress work is custom. Prices for a job will vary based on the paper, quantity and number of colors. But as an example we can say that a project like this one color, single sided invite costs  $500 to $600 dollars based on 100-150 quantity. That is among the most reasonable of prices we have seen for this amount of letterpress. This design was supplied to us by the bride and groom. However, if design services are needed, we can do custom design work as well for additional cost.

NOTE: We do not have a price list. All projects are estimated based on the custom needs of our clients. If you need a price for your project please contact us. If you are on a budget, tell us what you have to work with. It helps us to know what a client wants to spend to put together a set of production specifications that will make the project possible to letterpress. (less expensive paper, size and number of cards, etc.) We do have a $300 project minimum.

For an estimate mail us at: numbers_at_studioonfire_dot_com