Tag Archive for 'die cut'

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Woodgrain & Crest Letterpress Wedding

When we posted the Save The Date card by designer Nick Brue a couple months back, we were super excited to see what he had in mind for the design of the actual wedding invitation. Finally, here is his design that just recently left the pressroom:

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This invitation set is housed within a mini custom die cut pocket folder which neatly organizes the various cards. The folder is printed with a tonal custom woodgrain pattern using a clear varnish ink on letterpress with heavy impression. A belly band is fitted to the exterior of the folder with a Continue reading ‘Woodgrain & Crest Letterpress Wedding’

Published on May 8, 2009 in Letterpress and Wedding. 14 Comments Tags: band, belly band, brown, buckle, crest, custom, Design, die cut, diecut, folder, invitation, invite, Letterpress, letterpress printing, mini, minneapolis, minnesota, monogram, nick brue, pocket folder, printing, shield, stationery, tiny, tone on tone, type, typography, Wedding, wedding invitation, woodgrain, wrap.

An Advertising Sleeper Cell

In the spirit of the freemasons, there exists a creative group called Levy 7. Not much is known – they describe themselves as, “a collection of like-minded individuals who, through their awesomeness and grace, elevate the larger group in any and every social and professional endeavor, making us simply the most dynamic advertising sleeper cell/social club in the free world.”

The materials were designed by our friends in DesignWorks at BBDO in New York, a group that bleeds pure design talent. There are business cards, coasters and of course, cigar bands. We letterpress printed the materials in two metallic ink colors. The black paper is ultra thick custom duplexed Black Stonehenge. The white is paper is 179lb Crane Cover, 100% cotton. The cigar band stock was a black text weight from French Paper. After the labels were printed, we applied a remoist glue to the back edge and die cut them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to form my own letterpress sleeper cell fraternity.

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Published on April 1, 2009 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 2 Comments Tags: BBDO, black, Business Cards, cigar band, Design, designworks, die cut, die cutting, duplex, ink, labels, Letterpress, letterpress services, luxury, metallic, new york, paper, printers, printing, remoist, sleeper cell, 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.

A Shaped And Buckled Letterpress Wedding Invite

This uniquely shaped invitation was designed by us at Studio On Fire. It is one of the most interesting die lines we’ve created for wedding invitations – elegant and fun at the same time. It is a simple green one color letterpress on white paper with that same green printing on a green paper for a tone on tone effect. What really gives this invitation set a unique twist is that the cards nest into a four strap belly band enclosure which holds them together. Inside there are three cards: an invite, a map and an RSVP postcard. The four strap enclosure buckles together with slits in the paper and does not require glue or tape. The address area on the enclosure can be written on like an envelope. Once fastened together the invite then mails in a clear bag rather than an envelope.

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Published on March 14, 2009 in Letterpress and Wedding. 6 Comments Tags: belly band, buckled, clear bag, Design, design services, die cut, die line, diecut, enclosure, invitation, invitations, invite, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, shape, shaped, Wedding.

Portsmouth Tea Stationery – Letterpress Identity

An identity system need not have enough colors to choke a horse. Letterpress printing makes the understated shine. This system for Portsmouth Tea Company is magnificently elegant and simple. Just a single color – metallic silver. And premium materials – Crane 100% cotton paper. Notice the custom converted policy style envelope incorporating the shape into the flap. 179lb Crane Cover cardstock for the business cards.

We pride ourselves in planning production closely with design firms. Our friends at HV Anderson in Louisville, Kentucky designed this identity. We think it’s flawless.

Published on February 23, 2009 in Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: business card, cotton, crane, custom converted, die cut, envelope, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, metallic, minneapolis, portsmouth, printing, silver, stationery, two sided.

Art Of The Business Card – Black Paper

When we work with designers on projects we have conversations about “production strategy.” Sometimes letterpress is a good fit for the design intent, sometimes not. And often times we combine other production methods to achieve the effect being sought after. Black business cards present a range of production challenges. Flooding a white paper with black ink doesn’t produce fine detail in small type sizes. Here are two projects featuring different ways to print on black paper by combining letterpress with other processes.

Jamie Wickard Card – Designed by our friends at Westwerk Design

This card was produced on black paper stock: Tonal Black letterpress ink and a gloss black FOIL (side 1) and Silver Letterpress (side 2)

Antitdote X Card – Designed by our friends at Antidote X

This card was produced on cream paper stock custom duplexed to black paper stock. (Black letterpress on the cream side and white ENGRAVING on the black side) Then it was finished with custom die cutting.

To achieve fine white type on a black background Engraving is the most premium (and most costly) printing method. By duplexing a black stock rather than printing black ink and reversing out the white we’ve achieved something letterpress and offset printing would not have done well – notice the fine 3 point serif type! White foil and screen printing can print on black, but not with detail like that. Letterpress printing does not do well printing opaque white on dark colored paper and achieving bright opacity either. Like offset printing, opaque white can be laid down with several passes and achieve a mottled looking white – not a bright white. As a rule for general production: only metallic inks have good opacity on dark stocks.

Of course this all combining of production methods comes at a cost. Which comes to a final point – KNOW YOUR CLIENT BUDGET. Our best production advice is to know what your client wants to spend before finalizing your design. If you have an extravagant design with multiple production steps and your client has only a $300 dollar budget, you’ve just wasted design time on something they can not afford to produce. But if you plan production along side design, you can present your client an option that doesn’t need rounds of compromise. That is what “production strategy” is all about.

Published on February 22, 2009 in Letterpress. 19 Comments Tags: antidote x, black, Business Cards, Design, die cut, duplex, engraved, engraving, foil, foiled, ink, jaime wickard, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, opaque, paper, print, printing, production, silver, strategy, westwerk, white, white ink.

The Devil Is In The Details

Our design friends over at Westwerk have some tremendous attention to detail. Be careful, these images are NSFW. With dense black and custom silver inks printed on heavy 160lb chocolate colored stock, these cards are pretty sexy. That black ink on the dark stock impresses a subtle layer of texture. The silver was toned back with a bit of black mixed in. And the offset printed label wrap with a nice accent color is inset with a die cut and provides the information. Perfect.

Published on February 15, 2009 in Letterpress. 10 Comments Tags: black, brown, Business Cards, custom, details corporate events, die cut, diecut, label, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, pattern, silver, thick, westwerk.

Amma Maternity Stationery – With An Egg

The design team at Imagehaus created a delightful system for Amma Maternity. We printed a simple two color letterpress system with an egg shape die cut for the cards. We ran the solid ink for the business cards on our Heidelberg cylinder press to achieve the pressure and the ink coverage required to print this area. First we printed the chicken, then the egg. Or was it the other way round?

Published on February 10, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: amma maternity, Business Cards, die cut, egg shape, envelope, identity system, imagehaus, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, stationary, stationery.

Capsule Letterpress Folder Invite

This lecture invite folder was designed by our friends at Capsule and letterpress printed in our studio. We were especially excited by the topic. The Duet Lecture this year from Capsule and Winthrop & Weinstine is about designing and owning a cohesive sensory experience. They did a great job with the concept by incorporating the visuals (sight) with letterpress (touch) and an air freshener (smell). The uncohesive twist is that banana actually smells like bubble gum. (No, we don’t do air fresheners. They produced and inserted that one.) One of the things letterpress prints extremely well is type. The type intensive design here made for an exquisite overall texture.

Utilizing the sensory aspects of design is something we particularly embrace in our own studio. The tactility of letterpress strengthens design in a way that sets it apart from other production methods. The sculptural impression is a signature of the process. Having material awareness and knowledge of production is critical to how we approach projects with our clients.

This project was printed 2/1 pms on a larger 13 x 18 press sheet, (We can print up to an 18 x24 sheet) then die cut and converted. We’d love to make letterpress part of your brand. If you need large format and longer runs of letterpress printing contact us for an estimate.

Published on February 8, 2009 in Letterpress and News. 5 Comments Tags: air freshener, capsule, die cut, duet lecture, folder, large format letterpress, large letterpress, Letterpress, letterpress services, weinstine, winthrop.

Coaster Stock Business Card

We designed this identity with mountaineering in mind. Saying “10 Zing Consulting – Helps you reach the top” would have been really lame. So we wrapped that message into the design with the shape. Show it, don’t say it.

We went lo-fi with the production and used a 55pt coaster board with 2 color letterpress. Then the pieces were steel rule die cut. Coaster board works OK for letterpress printing, but isn’t the best if you are looking for a deep impression. The material core is soft and the surface will tend to crack if you drive the plate to deep. It also sucks up the ink and requires heavy ink lay down.

In addition to our design work, our letterpress room prints projects for designers and agencies all over the country. Contact us for an estimate on your project.

Published on February 7, 2009 in Design and Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 10 Zing, 55pt, beer mat, Business Cards, coaster, coaster board, die cut, heavy, Letterpress, letterpress printing, letterpress services, thick.

Space 150 – Letterpress Card Retrospective

It started back in high school art class. I was a junior and there was this senior that sat in the back doing pottery and was always throwing frickin’ balls of clay at my head while I was trying to draw. Fast forward over a decade and both of us have design careers. Me – running my design/letterpress studio and he (Jason Strong, or Bone as some people call him) is a design director over at Space150. He called me up and invited me to be a guest designer on a Space150 identity system version.

Now what you must understand about Space150 is that they redo their entire identity every 150 days. The WHOLE thing – business papers, website, mission statement, etc.

Our studio gladly accepted the assignment to design version 16 with letterpress printing for the full system. Version 16 was such a success that we were invited back to create and letterpress print version 17 as well. They moved off of letterpress for version 18 and almost had a mutiny because everyone became attached to their letterpress business cards. And believe me those new media folks really know how to throw down a mutiny. So version 19, 20, 21 and the current version 22 are all produced by Studio On Fire with letterpress printing, laser cutting, etc. Space 150 has designed 19-22 in house with their own killer designers, Ned Wright and Dan Jenstad.

It is our hope that this set of business cards represents a very different sort of letterpress printing and approach to commercial production. Studio On Fire is not tied to the historical visual baggage of letterpress. We try to take a little vintage and a little modern and mix it together with mad production skills. In the end, these cards land in peoples hand with a sense of wonder – and that is what good design and production is all about. Enjoy…

Please contact us for your next challenging print project. We thrive on working with other creatives to produce award winning design.

Oh, and Jason, just you wait. I’ve got some clay balls saved up for next time we meet. Unless we can settle this like gentleman?

Published on February 5, 2009 in Client Focus, Design and Letterpress. 6 Comments Tags: Design, design services, die cut, laser cut, Letterpress, letterpress services, space150.

City Of Angels Card – Dustin Arnold

Dustin Arnold is one of the most vibrant type artist I’ve come across. His sense of craft and line work are unmatched in modern typography. We were excited to letterpress print this type he designed for City Of Angels Eyewear in LA.

Published on January 30, 2009 in Letterpress. 7 Comments Tags: die cut, dustin arnold, Letterpress, letterpress services, typography.