Tag Archive for 'cover'

Embossing With Letterpress Print Business Cards

Tactile design can use a lot of different production processes. This card is both blind embossed and letterpress printed. Many people incorrectly use the term “emboss” when speaking about letterpress printing. “Emboss” actually refers to a raised area accomplished by use of a two part die with a form and a counter form. Letterpress printing with heavy impression is closer to a “deboss.” A deboss is pushing down into the paper. (remember “d” for down = deboss) Letterpress plates can use ink but embossing and debossing dies do not use ink. They must be used blind, registered to preprinted artwork or used with foil stamping / blocking.

Letterpress equipment can be used for embossing, debossing and letterpress printing, with the correct dies. Unlike embossing and debossing, letterpress plates do not use a form and counter form. A letterpress plate is inked and pressed down into the sheet. See an image below with the polymer plate and its corresponding print and note the difference from the copper embossing die with a white and blue fiberglass counter form that made the circular design embossed on this card. These are two very different types of plates and printing effects, but run on the same Heidelberg windmill press.

Considering each side of the page is an important design consideration with tactile production processes. With letterpress plates, the amount of bruising or “show through” on the back of the print depends on the amount of pressure applied during printing. However, this definition on the reverse side of the sheet is different on embossing dies because there is a counter form that pushes into the sheet.

When an emboss is specified there are a few other considerations we would mention. Smaller sized artwork, say 12 point type and smaller offers very little raised definition. Paper thickness is also a concern. We like really thick stocks for letterpress printing, but when embossing that thickness makes it even more difficult to get good definition in smaller details. This paper was 134lb Crane Cover Flo. White, it is 100% cotton and offers a soft and sculptured impression.

Published on February 16, 2010 in Business Cards, Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks. 0 Comments Tags: 134lb, bay area, block, blocking, Business Cards, CA, California, copper, counter, cover, crane, deboss, Design, emboss, embossing, equipment, fiberglass, flo white, foil, foil stamp, form, Heidelberg, Letterpress, palo alto, print, printer, printing, process, San Francisco, show through, tactile, thickness.

Dohmen Letterpress Stationery System

When a design firm gets all the details right, it’s a beautiful thing to print. These business papers for Dohmen were designed by GS design in Milwaukee, and the details are tight. We just finished printing them and thought it was a design well suited for letterpress. The radial dots under heavy impression create a tactile logo, the custom converted rounded envelope flaps echo the logo shape and the edge coloring is a perfect accent on the business cards and folding note card.

The business cards are Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 165lb Cover. They are 2 color letterpress printed with edges colored to match the logo PMS color. Since this was a single sided business card, some impression show through on the back side was not a concern. However, check out the photo of the back side of the business card and you get a visual on what we’d be looking at if there were printing. Printing on both sides with letterpress is possible. Be aware if if deep impression is used, there will be show through from side to side, even on thick stock like 165lb Cover. We can pull back on impression and minimize show through for two sided cards.

The note cards are Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 130lb C – just a little thinner to help get a nice fold.

The letterhead and envelopes are Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb Text. We like the additional weight of an 80lb vs. a 70lb text weight for letterpress printing. It helps everything feel a bit more substantial and does better job with a heavy impression. And the custom converted envelopes are pretty cool – check out the side flaps – they even follow shape of the rounded seal flap. We freak out about stuff like that – nice.

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Published on August 24, 2009 in Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: 130lb, 165lb, 80lb, business, Business Cards, card, cards, converted, cover, custom, deep, Design, detail, Dohmen, dots, edge color, envelope, envelopes, flaps, GS Design, impression, letterhead, Letterpress, Milwaukee, note card, notecard, paint, printer, printing, radial, show through, stationery, text, unique, wisconsin.

Tone-on-tone white and black inks

We have a lot of requests for blind (inkless) impression with letterpress plates. However, a tonal ink is often something we suggest rather than a truly blind impression. If the stock being printed does not lend itself to deep impression, the artwork needs some legibility or the art work is on both sides of the sheet, a blind hit can be ill advised. The amount of impression needed to clearly read a completely blind hit will create impression show through on the reverse side of the printed piece. One of the ways we get around this is to mix a tonal ink, shown here on both black and white business card samples. By printing a tone, we can lessen the impression and dial up the legibility a bit.

The black stock is 200lb Wausau Eclipse Black. It is letterpress printed with a black and silver ink mix.

The white stock is 220lb Crane Lettra Flo. White. It is letterpress printed with opaque white ink contaminated with 877 silver.

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Published on July 30, 2009 in Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks. 6 Comments Tags: 200lb, 220lb, black, blind, business, Business Cards, cards, cover, crane, eclipse, flo wh, impression, ink, inkless, Letterpress, lettra, opaque, plates, printer, silver, tonal, tone, tone on tone, wausau, white.

AIGA booklet, Student Tours, Chocolate

We’ve been busy with an AIGA student event this last weekend called Portfolio One-On-One. It’s an event for design students to tour studios in the Twin Cities, have their books looked at and attend some short workshops. We had a group through our studio to see the press room and we also did a workshop about “Planning design with specialty production techniques.” Good times.

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We also printed a booklet cover for this AIGA event. We hit the bejesus out of an 80lb cover stock and thought we’d show what the other side looks like. Granted, we don’t run everything this heavy. But a thinner stock with a heavy impression is going to have more show through than a thicker stock with the same impression. On this booklet, nothing was on the reverse side, so it did not matter that the impression was extra hard.

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A note about tours – We have student groups from all over the country take tours of our shop and we are happy to do it. However, none of them have ever sent us a box of chocolate with a thank you note. That is until Brigham Young University. Thanks BYU. And to all the other student groups inquiring about tours – we now expect some edibles! ;-)

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Published on April 27, 2009 in Letterpress and News. 3 Comments Tags: 80lb, AIGA, booklet, cover, heavy, impression, Letterpress, letterpress services, minnesota, one, one on one, portfolio, shop, show, student, Studio, through, tour, tours, twin cities, workshop.

Electric Green Edges

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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.

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Published on April 20, 2009 in Letterpress. 12 Comments Tags: 160lb, 165lb, accent, bright, business, card, color, coloring, contemporary, cover, edge, green, heavy, Letterpress, letterpress services, paint, pantone, paper, pms, printed, printer, printing, stack, stain, stock, thick, typography.

Trajectory: Shapely Cards With A Punch

The folks over at Cue don’t mess around. They designed this seriously good card with a cartouche-like outer shape. We printed a single color letterpress on each side and die cut the cards with a small punch in the center.

When you are printing a business card with letterpress on each side, usually one side is chosen as the “hero side” and gets a bit more impression. When die cutting the hero side also faces up. The side on which the knife enters the paper is more rounded – more noticeable on thick stocks. This card is 100% cotton Crane Cover 179lb Pearl White.

(Completely unrelated: when my angry and nerdy designer side comes out with an insult, I’m likely to call somebody a cartouche-bag.)

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Published on March 24, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 179lb, business card, cotton, cover, crane, cue, design cue, die cut, die cutting, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, pearl white, punch, stock, trajectory.

Conor Lawrence – Rhino Stationery

What could be better than a letterpressed rhino ready to charge? One with wings? Ok, here it is.

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This is a two color letterpress stationery set for artist rep Conor Lawrence designed by Aurora Whittet at Red Organic. The printing is red and silver metallic inks on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White. The cards are on a thick, rhino worthy 165lb cover stock.

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