Tag Archive for 'diecut'

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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.

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.

Squarespace Poster and Business Cards

The simplest looking things can be deceptively complex. This is a tricky little business card and a typographic poster for Squarespace New York. Designed by their Creative Director Tyler Thompson. The design shows restraint, making the logo treatment the hero. And the format is a square card of course.

So why is the business card tricky? It is custom duplexed stock, letterpress printed, laser die cut and edge colored. We custom duplexed Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb Cover up to a 220lb thickness. Then we letterpress printed them several up on a press sheet. A larger press sheet means we can economize the laser cutting by doing more at a time. The laser cutting can leave some scorch marks, so the sheet is masked with a paper tape that peels off after the cutting is complete. Then the sheet is trimmed up into cards and edge colored in black. That 220lb thickness shows off the edge and has a nice smooth surface. The poster is on Crane Lettra 110lb Flo white, pressed in a single PMS blue.

Augmented Reality Drink Coaster

This seems like a good Friday post – drink coasters. And not just any drink coasters, augmented reality drink coasters designed by our friends at Atomic Playpen. These ephemera inspired coasters were sent out to Atomic clients in a metal case. There are four coasters inside, each with a different marker on the back side. The instructions direct you to their anniversary website where you hold up one of the markers to your webcam and enjoy the action. (If you don’t have a coaster from Atomic, you can still print a marker at the site and give it a try.)

We letterpress printed them on 60pt blotter board with very dense black ink coverage so the marker would work properly. The sheet was then die cut into the four coasters. So cheers, we’ll have another round and add it to our beer wall.

Many Fold Farm Letterpress Business Cards

So often, what we do for our clients in the graphic design profession is disconnected from personal passions. This project managed to combine both food and design values. The food our family eats falls into a traditional foods diet, as recommended by the Weston Price Foundation. Which is why we were especially excited when Rebecca and Ross Williams asked us for business cards for their new adventure called Many Fold Farms. Their must-read blog is smartly written and shows a true passion for food and land. I’ve been learning about fine cheese and feeling a bit envious of their farming adventure.

This was both a design and print project for us, which is where our company can truly shine. Not that we don’t love printing the custom work of other designers and collaborating in the production process. We also love owning a design project from concept through production completion.

The design for the logotype merges custom 19th century inspired decorative capitals with slab serifs. We combined typographic texture with a folk inspired pierced tin borders and an inverted round corner die cut. The letterpress printing is on Crane Lettra Ecru (Ivory) 220lb Cover stock  for a thick and soft feel in a nice warm color. We produced two different sizes – an oversized card with farm information and a smaller card with personal contact info.

Chef Business Card – Mini Menu Format

This card designed by 3 Advertising repurposes the folding menu format in miniature as a business card, complete with it’s own mini envelope for presentation.

We custom duplexed Neenah Classic Crest Epic Black 80C together with Neenah Classic Crest Classic Natural White 80C to make a 160lb sheet. Then we letterpress printed silver ink on the black side and gray ink on the natural white side. The cards were die cut with a heavy matrix score for folding such a beefy stock. Neenah Classic Crest Antique Gray 80T paper was printed with transparent white ink and custom converted to the mini envelopes.

Optimistic Letterpress Wine Labels

Happy New Year!

The Optimist is a self-promotional holiday wine bottle designed by Greg Bennett for Siquis. Each year Siquis shows their clients how much they care by designing a custom wine bottle label just for them. The label is always created by a different designer in their creative department. This year’s graphic was designed to play on “is the glass half empty or half full” concept. Obviously, once the recipient rotates the bottle to fill their glass, the glass on the label becomes half full. One of Greg’s many beliefs is that a design is only as good as it’s production. What that means is that you can have a great design but if it is produced poorly, the result will be a mediocre piece at best. That being said, this label was letterpress printed at Studio On Fire ensuring this bottle design is sure to delight even the toughest critics.
We printed on Strathmore Ultimate White Label stock with a kiss cut die for finishing that punched out the tiny glass area and gave the whole label a slight arc to compliment the curve of the bottle.

Dita Eyewear LA Business Cards

These are the brand new cards for Dita Eyewear in Los Angeles. Bryan Crabtree designed them and did a nice post over on his blog too. The blind flourish on the light side and the diamond pattern on the black gives these cards a tonal and elegant look.

We first printed these as two sheets, a natural color and black stock and then pasted the sheets together after printing. This step eliminates show through of the impression when printing a two sided design. We’ve found that the gluing of the sheet after it is printed does flatten back some of the impression, so we start with a heavy impression initially. The lighter color stock is Wausau Compliments Natural White 100lbC and is printed with a blind pass and black ink. The black stock is Wausau Eclipse Black 100lbC and is printed with PMS 8001 silver and black ink. The final thickness is 200lbC, about the thickness of a US dime. After printing and gluing, the cards were die cut to the final shape with angled corners.

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Round Juggling Business Cards

Fuel is a great creative shop in Iowa that sent us this unique business card design for Whatsup Juggling. It is letterpress printed on thick 220lb Crane Lettra cotton paper. The inks are orange, blue and a custom contaminated opaque white. The card was then die cut into 2.5 inch circles. We then tried to juggle them. Business cards are really hard to juggle.

Some production notes: The original intent was to have the white printing be a blind (inkless) impression. However, where those blind areas of text line up to one another from one side of the card to the other, there is a push back on the impression. When there is no ink to even out the visual appearance, legibility can suffer where the impression overlaps from side one to side two. Putting a white ink down contaminated with a bit of silver ink helps even out the look and gives the general appearance of a blind hit. Check out the pics for comparison. Still subtle, but with a hair more contrast than a true blind impression.

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Painted Pretzel Packaging – Kisscut Labels

Yael Miller designed these beautiful labels for a new company called the Painted Pretzel. She is also a contributor at another site we love – thedieline.com And these hand crafted gourmet pretzels are worth the letterpress labels. Here are some details on the production:

We printed an 8.5 x 11 sheet of Strathmore Ultimate White Wove crack and peel label stock. Unlike many kinds of label sheets, this stock takes a great letterpress impression. This sheet was printed with five spot colors and a kiss cut in tight register. (For letterpress, that’s six times through the press) The kiss cut is a die cutting process which is also able to run on the letterpress. The same as die cutting, but care has to be taken to cut only through the label and not through the backer sheet that peels away.

The printing of this sheet was an intensive bit of letterpress. With floods of color and fine type everywhere the ink density had to right on for everything to print crisply. Note how there is a salty look to the color, more so in the brown ink. This is so we didn’t over ink the fine type elsewhere on the brown plate. There is even a good example of a letterpress halftone on the pretzel in the center. Mmmm.

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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’

Fold Only CD Pocket – No Glue Package

This is a CD package we designed and letterpress printed for Erik Brandt with illustrations by Andy DeVore. He put this CD together after spending a year teaching in Hungary. The structure houses both a fold up lyric sheet and a CD. We printed the packaging with two ink colors on 140lb French Poptone. The design keeps cost down because the panels all print on one side only and the fold up design allows for a do-it-yourself assembly. We finished it on our 13 x 18 Windmill with unique shaped die cuts on the flaps.

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