Tag Archive for 'die cut'

French Paper Flight Ephemera

An essential reason French Paper Company stands out in a world of large paper conglomerates is their unique design affair. They’ve had a longstanding relationship with Charles Spencer Anderson Design here in Minneapolis that has fueled and produced arguably some of the most visual ephemera to promote paper in the last decade. And trust us, here at Studio On Fire we see A LOT of promotional materials from paper companies. We were excited to be a part of that legacy with the latest French Paper promotion – a paper “Air Kraft” designed by the crew at CSA Design.

We worked closely with CSA to finalize the production. The sheets are letterpress printed in two colors on French Speckletone Kraft 140lbC. These Air Kraft are actually flight worthy, but you have to be sure to follow the instructions and tape a dime into the nose of the plane for a good glide.

Speckletone Kraft is one of those papers great for designers who fall in love with chipboard, only to realize that actual raw chip does not have color specifications. (In a batch of chipboard stock you may get some gray sheets or some dark brown sheets, it just depends on what went into the pulper) We like to use it especially when matching envelopes are needed.

Published on June 27, 2011 in Letterpress. 9 Comments Tags: 140lb, blue, brown, chipboard, csa design, die, die cut, diecut, flight, fly, french, kraft, Letterpress, minneapolis, minnesota, overprint, plane, raw, red, Speckletone, steel rule.

Winter Xgames Field Guide

We were excited to produce this booklet, designed and illustrated in-house at Target by Aaron Melander. This piece was created for guests of the Target Chalet as a field guide to the 2011 Winter X Games.

To begin the project, we worked closely on the paper selection. It needed to be thick and sturdy in feel yet thin enough to do some 180 degree folds to form the inside cover pocket. For the cover we duplexed two stocks after printing – off white on the outside and brown on the inside. The outside is 78lbC Canaletto Granna Grossa printed in tight register three color letterpress. A tonal pattern printed on French Poptone Hot Fudge 80lbC floods the inside.

One of our favorite commercial shops in town then helped with the interior printing and bindery. The gutt was traditional 4 color offset printed and saddle stitched at Shapco. Since the open edges of the cover are folded to the interior a final trim with the gutt in place was not possible. That meant the gutt pages needed to be stitched separately, trimmed to size, then stitched again into the cover.

Published on April 4, 2011 in Letterpress. 5 Comments Tags: 78lb, 80lb, aaron melander, bindery, blue, book, booklet, brown, canaletto, die cut, duplex, fold, french, gutt, hot fudge, Letterpress, offset, plaid, poptone, red, saddle stitched, score, shapco, stitch, taget, target chalet, winter, woods, xgames.

A Matchbook Made In Heaven

We designed this wedding invitation for the lucky couple that won our giveaway with Martha Stewart. It’s only too fitting that the couple we chose to work with will be jumping fires on their wedding night. Besides complimenting our studio name, their scheduled wedding night activities (get your mind out of the gutter) lends perfectly to the orange and white color palette featured by Martha Stewart.

Juan and Irma will be getting married in Madrid on the 24th of June, the night of “San Juan,” traditionally a night when friends and family gather to build bonfires and leap across them in celebration of the summer solstice. (We did some intense Googling and it appears that in many parts of Spain this is a party night not to be missed). They wanted to keep the invitations informal (reflecting the backyard bbq reception), to the point where it doesn’t even use the word wedding–we had to imply celebration and union strictly through the design.

With fire as a central part of the celebration, a matchbook format for the actual invitation seemed only natural. The whole letterpress printed suite is designed in physical layers, causing the viewer to interact as they unfold the invitation setting the stage for the matchbook sitting in the center of a custom frame. The invitation itself is a two and a half inch by three and a quarter inch matchbook that opens to reveal french folded text weight sheets (spanish on the front, english on the back), an intimate piece meant to directly reflect the fires that will be sparking that night.

The copy inside reads “Celebrating the arrival of the summer solstice (amongst other astronomical events),” so we created custom illustrations based around the sun, the moon and the stars to give the suite a celestial feel.

The wrap features the graphic sun inspired emblem with a smattering of stars making their way to a moon icon on the inside flap.

Several diecut papers and a pop of edge coloring create a custom built A7 size frame surrounding the matchbook invitation for mailing.

Published on February 23, 2011 in Design, Letterpress, packaging and Wedding. 6 Comments Tags: die cut, duplexed, edge color, edge tipping, french fold, invitation, invite, leader, lettra, martha stewart, match, matchbook, orange, pasted, spain, spanish, stapled, stationary, stationery, tonal, Wedding, white, wrap.

Paper Saw Blades

Since pretty much everyone needs a paper saw blade, we figured it was time to deliver. These heavy duty paper blades pop out of our latest promo card to fly through the air as a dangerous incarnation of business cards. You can toss them at pets, logs and trees, use them as coasters or keep them on hand to contact us for your next custom letterpress printing project.

(these are an upgrade from our previous ninja version)

Published on October 19, 2010 in Business Cards, Design and Letterpress. 7 Comments Tags: 200lb, bright white, Business Cards, calling cards, coasters, craftsman, custom, die cut, diecut, dieline, heavy duty, let er rip, Letterpress, orange, paper, printing, red, saw blade, spin, thick, throwing stars, tongue in cheek, toothy, wausau.

Space150 V26 Business Cards

Just launched this last week was the 26th version of the Space150 identity. These guys change up their identity every 150 days. They designed this business card with lots of production love. Here are the production steps:

1. Custom pasted triple layer stock. Black with a white middle, 330lb total weight.

2. Black foil on the logo side

3. Letterpress printed metallic ink on the info side

4. Die cut with little “snake bite” marks

See previous Space150 card versions we’ve printed here and here and here.

Published on September 24, 2010 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: black, business card, Design, die cut, die cutting, duplex, foil, heavy, layer, Letterpress, metallic, minneapolis, paper, ply, snake, space150, stock, thick, three, triple, triplex, v26.

Modern Graphic Type Wedding

This wedding invitation for Andy and Drew is certainly a unique format. It was designed by Drew Hodgson for his wedding in Palm Springs, CA. The bold colors and contemporary shapes make the design both modern and masculine. The invite is actually a folder enclosure that opens to reveal the invitation text on the flap. The folder opens further to Continue reading ‘Modern Graphic Type Wedding’

Published on August 6, 2010 in Wedding. 1 Comment Tags: 110lb, bird, blue, CA, California, crane, custom, die cut, enclosure, envelope, folder, french, gay, graphic, gusset, hummingbird, initials, invitation, invite, Letterpress, lettra, masculine, modern, orange, orange fizz, palm springs, pearl white, pocket, poptone, printing, same sex, save the date, tone, type, typography, Wedding, wrap.

Perfect Pressed Plaid

These over sized plaid pattern business cards were designed by our good friend Mark Saunders for his new solo creative venture PlaidLab. They use some great vibrant colors and the overprinting inks make rich and saturated secondary colors.

We letterpress printed them on heavy 220lb Cover Crane Lettra Pearl White. We usually run smaller custom business card orders two cards up on a small press sheet, so it was easy to provide some variety by including two different patterns. The magenta color is the same on both cards, but a color change from orange to blue on one plate gave the cards even more variety. One thing we did to keep the quality of the type crisp and punchy was to print it as a separate pass. By printing the same color in two passes we could run the large graphic plaid with heavy ink density and light ink density on the type. Mark was shooting for something about the size of an iphone, so the final cards were round corner die cut to an over sized 4.5 x 2.25. See comparison pic alongside a standard 3.5 x 2 inch business card for scale.

Published on August 4, 2010 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 8 Comments Tags: 220lb, blue, bright, business card, colorful, crane, die cut, diecut, iphone, large, Letterpress, lettra, magenta, mark sauders, modern, orange, oversize, pearl white, plaidlab, round corners, rounded, scale.

A Narrow Elegant Business Card

These business cards are elegant and simple with an unusual format. Although the feel of the design is traditional, the 4.25 x 1.25 inch size presents as an untraditional business card size. The client, William and Mary, makes premium gift wrap collections, so the paper crafting of the printing was very important.

These cards were letterpress printed with 2 ink colors on each side. The cards also have a heavy blind letterpress impression graphic on both sides. This blind area overlaps type on the reverse side. To get an even type appearance and a heavy sculptural impression on both sides we printed a 110lb sheet of Crane Lettra Fluorescent White and pasted it together back to back after printing. By duplexing the stock to a thick 220lb weight after printing the impression show through is eliminated. It is a time consuming and more premium production step, worth it for the final look of these cards. The final step was a round corner die cut.

Published on June 30, 2010 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 110lb, 220lb, blind, Business Cards, classic, corner, crane, die cut, diecut, duplex, elegant, flo white, flourescent, glue, heavy, impression, Letterpress, lettra, long, narrow, paste, pasting, potdevin, round, slim, traditional, type, typography, unique size.

Touchpoint – Foil, Letterpress and Laser Cut

These extra fine business cards were designed by Merge Creative and Touchpoint. Once in hand they require a good touching and groping session. They wanted a card with an OMG factor and this is certainly one of the most elaborate cards we’ve put together. The paper stock has a surprising skin-like feel. It is from the Appleton Coated Curious Collection. We custom duplexed the card from two colors. The black side is Skin Black 141lb Cover. That is pasted to Skin White 141lb Cover for a total thickness of 280lb Cover. With that kind of heavy, this card definitely has a thump factor.

Production went something like this… The black stock is hot foil stamped in a clear gloss foil and a mirror finish metallic silver. The white stock is letterpress printed in metallic silver ink. Then the black and white sheets are pasted together in register into a heavy duplex sheet. Those sheets are covered with a protective mask on both sides. The masked sheets are laser cut into the custom shaped business cards and the protective mask is removed.

This was an update to the look and feel of the orange Touchpoint business cards printed over a year ago. Those were on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 165lb. The production of them was elaborate as well. Those cards were offset printed with and orange solid, foil stamped in clear and metallic silver, letterpress printed in silver, masked and laser cut to final size.

Published on June 28, 2010 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 5 Comments Tags: 141lb, 165lb, 280lb, 877, argo wiggins, black, business, Business Cards, card, cards, classic crest, clear, custom, cutting, die cut, diecut, duplex, duplexed, foil, ink, laser, lasercut, Letterpress, Merge Creative, metallic, neenah, offset, orange, rubber, silver, skin, solar white, Touchpoint, white.

Taiga – Douglas Quin Letterpress LP

Fathom, the recent release LP from Taiga records, is a subtle and textural object of beauty and a sensory experience. The drawings were perfectly suited for letterpress and translated crisply to the printed edition. This is the description from Taiga:

“Douglas Quin’s Fathom brings together four extended underwater soundscapes—two each from the Arctic and Antarctic. The recordings have been gathered over a period of 15 years, capturing an extraordinary palette of sonic voices, events, spaces, and textures. To the human ear, these soundscapes are haunting and otherworldly; yet they are very much of this world—out of earreach. The tracks are minimally edited and are his first field recordings to be archived in vinyl. Included with the release is a sealed envelope containing an insert with specific locations, animals, and other elements heard, giving listeners the option to absorb sound with or without association. The envelope is printed with liner notes and comments from Dutch journalist and music critic René van Peer. Mastered by James Plotkin, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin-vinyl, Fathom comes packaged in custom letterpressed materials and is presented as a limited edition of 1000.”

There was clear, white, and black vinyl versions released. Only the black is still available.

The packaging is pressed in gray and a tonal white ink. We letterpress printed the outer sleeve on a custom duplexed stock – gray on the interior, white on the exterior. We were able to print on a preconverted inner envelope which accompanies the vinyl and containing the insert.

Published on June 17, 2010 in Letterpress and packaging. 2 Comments Tags: black, converted, cougar, die cut, diecut, douglas quin, drawing, duplex, envelope, fathom, field, gray, Letterpress, LP, minneapolis, music, print, printed, printer, printing, record, recordings, records, sleeve, sound, soundscape, taiga, texture, tonal.

Luxury Bath Salt Labels – Rain Soaps

We designed and letterpress printed bath salt labels for Connecticut based Rain Soaps. This salt is hand harvested (by monks in France) and uniquely presented in its natural state in an apothecary-style sealed glass jar.

We ran the three labels together on a small press sheet. The paper is a crack and peel Strathmore Soft White label stock. It is printed in one color and kiss cut to final size. Ahh, I’m more relaxed just looking at them.

Published on June 8, 2010 in Design, labels and Letterpress. 7 Comments Tags: bath salt, bottle, circle, Connecticut, crack, CT, die, die cut, france, french, jar, kiss cut, kisscut, label, Letterpress, minnesota, MN, peel, print, printed, printer, rain soap, soft white, stock, strathmore.

Vista Caballo Letterpress Stationery

Vista Caballo is a ranch retreat with a special connection to horses in Dove Creek, Colorado. We worked with Thinktopia to design this stationery system for the client. They already had a logo design and needed stationery developed using the existing mark.

One of the things often overlooked in design is the choice of materials. This is something we strive for in our own design work. Material selection can be a central component for building the look and feel of a brand. In this stationery system we use a variety of brown toned papers to compliment the tactility of the letterpress printing and echo the desert landscape of the location. Kind of like making a color palette, instead we made a material palette. Each piece is printed with the same brown PMS color.

Letterhead is French Paper Speckletone Kraft, Envelope is French Paper Speckletone Chocolate, Business cards and Note cards are Crane Lettra Pearl White 220lb, Labels are Strathmore Soft White crack and peel stock, Journal covers are Fibermark Suedetex Tan 25pt with Smart Genesis Husk 70lbT gutt.

Richness of materials makes this stationery unique.