Tag Archive for 'Heidelberg'

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.

Letterpress Poster Edition for Thinktopia

Thinktopia®, an idea generation company for some of today’s leading brands, commissioned this striking poster from illustrator Federico Jordan. Federico explains “The skull reflects our existence and interior vision: our vanitas.” He created this image for Thinktopia that explores the Shakespearian Yorick, San Jerónimo and mesoamerican skull racks called Tzompantli. There is an article on the back of the poster from Patrick Hanlon at Thinktopia that speaks about branding. (This poster print will serve Thinktopia as a new business tool – a mailing to prospective clients) More companies could learn from this – send out something cool to start a good conversation. We would say that an illustrated letterpress print is guaranteed way to get someones attention.

The 18 x 23 size poster is printed letterpress in four colors on Crane Lettra Pearl White cotton stock in both 110 and 220lb thicknesses on our Heidelberg Cylinder – quite possibly one of the most difficult jobs run in our shop recently. It was difficult because of the amount large areas of solid color, the thickness and size of the stock, and the tight registration. There is no overprinting of any of the colors, so all four color plates lock into each other with little forgiveness for shifts in register created by sheet distortion. Sheet distortion is physical stretching of the paper created under heavy impression. Each pass through the press creates slightly more distortion. So by the time we got to color number four, there was some colorful language as well. The 110lb stock ran pretty well but the 220lb stock is a bear to auto feed – especially five passes through the press.

Published on November 6, 2009 in Letterpress and Posters. 6 Comments Tags: 110lb, 220lb, brand, branding, clients, cotton, crane, custom, cylinder, Design, edition, federico jordan, hanlon, Heidelberg, illustration, illustrator, Letterpress, lettra, mexico, minneapolis, patrick, pearl white, poster, print, printer, printing, Saint Jerome, Shakespeare, sheet distortion, skull, thinktopia, Tzompantli, unique, yorick.

Soundset Letterpress Poster

The Sound Set event is an amazing line up of hip hop happening this Sunday in the Twin Cities, put on by Rhymsayers Entertainment. We just killed this letterpress poster job, 1000 qty 3 color posters in just over a day. This is some fresh geometric pattern and color designed by Adam Garcia – work you should certainly check out further over at The Pressure. And be sure to get a poster if you go to the event.

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.

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Published on May 22, 2009 in News. 4 Comments Tags: 100lbC, 2009, adam garcia, cost, cylinder, font, geometric, Heidelberg, Letterpress, pattern, photo polymer, plate, poptone, poster, powder, rhymesayers, sound set, soundset, spray, the pressure, typography.

Hello Letterpress Operator – Join Our Studio

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Studio On Fire is hiring for a full time Letterpress Operator position becoming available soon. Another of our letterpress gurus is moving onward to grad school. This is a chance to join our unique letterpress team. Other than our insane focus on detail, we are a small and easy going team of designers and artists committed to excellence in print.

You must have BOTH of these TWO requirements for consideration:

1. YOU MUST HAVE SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCE OPERATING HEIDELBERG WINDMILL AND/OR HEIDELBERG CYLINDER PRESSES.

2. YOU MUST HAVE A FINE ARTS DEGREE IN PRINTMAKING OR A SUBSTANTIAL FINE ARTS, CRAFT FOCUSED BACKGROUND.

We care about craft. If you are a crafts person that loves the challenge of highly demanding production projects, this is the job for you. Look through the posts on this blog to see the kind of custom work that is typical of our press room.

We offer attractive compensation, flexible full time hours and health benefits.

To apply, email a description of yourself.

If this is not you, please spread the word to anyone you might know matching this description.

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NOTE: This is a post for experienced persons only. We are not hiring intern or entry level positions. Inquiries outside of the skill requirements of this post will not be contacted.

Published on May 17, 2009 in Letterpress and News. 3 Comments Tags: 10x15, 13x18, cylinder, Heidelberg, hiring, job, K series, ksba, Letterpress, minneapolis, operator, position, printer, printing, Windmill, work.

One Card For Three People

The esteemed fellows at Wilderness in Portland sent us an unusually simple business card for letterpress printing. Rather than load up the card with four telephone numbers, an email, a fax, a twitter, etc – they all simply share the same card. A nice solution for keeping cost down too. Wilderness is the new design trailhead of Aaron James Draplin, John Phemister and David Nakamoto. We can’t wait to see what they do next.

Of course, simple design doesn’t always mean simple production. We printed these on 220lb Pearl White Lettra, 100% cotton. Flooding a dark color like this on letterpress is difficult to lay down and keep consistent over the course of the print run – especially on a stock that has some texture to the surface. When we print a solid like this, we generally go to our Paul Bunyan of Heidelberg Windmill presses – the 13 x 18. Even so, there is still a salty, weathered look to how a stock like this will take a solid coverage on letterpress. But we like it that way, it ain’t offset.

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Published on April 14, 2009 in Letterpress. 3 Comments Tags: 13 x 18, 220lb, business card, color, cotton, dark, DDC, Draplin, Field Notes, flood, Heidelberg, Letterpress, letterpress services, lettra, Nakamoto, OR, pearl, Phemister, portland, printer, printing, solid, stock, typography, white, Wilderness, Windmill.

Atmosphere Letterpress Poster

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Atmosphere is heading out for their When God Gives You Ugly tour. We just finished a special edition letterpress poster designed by Keith Wiliams. It features a “1950’s Diner Vampire Fight Scene” watercolor painting by Minneapolis native Michael Gaughan. (If you check out Michael’s website, be sure and see the collection of guitar sculptures. But don’t look to long or you might find the Fart Tube Air Matress) Posters will be available from Atmosphere while they tour and also for sale on the Rhymesayers site after the tour, if there are any left. So get out there and support these guys.

From a technical standpoint, this poster was a real challenge to plate and letterpress print. We took the original CMYK image of the watercolor painting and Continue reading ‘Atmosphere Letterpress Poster’

Published on April 8, 2009 in Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks. 9 Comments Tags: 1950's, ant, atmosphere, cylinder, entertainment, fight, format, halftone, Heidelberg, hip hop, image, large, Letterpress, line, micheal gaughan, minneapolis, music, poster, printing, rhymesayers, scene, screen, slug, tour, vampire, when god gives you ugly.

Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2

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This is part two showing the production of business cards on our Heidelberg Windmill. Be sure and see Part 1 showing the finished cards.

We start with a high resolution film negative. The negative is used to expose the plastic plates. The plates are attached to an aluminum base and placed into the press. The press uses air suction to pick up a sheet of paper on the left side and deliver it into the press for printing. The printed sheets are automatically stacked in the delivery pile on the right side of Continue reading ‘Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2′

Published on April 7, 2009 in Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks. 3 Comments Tags: 10 x 15, 10x15, blind, Business Cards, card, fabien barrel, france, fred dauzat, french, graphic exchange, heavy, Heidelberg, impression, ink, Letterpress, letterpress services, limited press, minneapolis, minnesota, paper, press room, printer, printing, so goods, stock, thick, Windmill.

Smashing Alphabets Letterpress Poster

Coming soon to an alphabet near you is a typographic mash up. Once again Spunk Design Machine created a simply amazing poster, this time for Chank. Be sure and check him out as he tours the design community.

And getting smashed comes easy for paper on a letterpress. Hot off our big Heidelberg cylinder press, these are some stylin’ letterpress posters. Printed on a lighter weight 65lb Poptone Cover from French paper and letterpressed in two colors. I’d steal it.

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Published on April 1, 2009 in Letterpress. 5 Comments Tags: chank, cylinder, Design, Heidelberg, ksba, large format, Letterpress, letterpress services, machine, poster, printing, spunk, type, typography.

Roller Coaster, Yeah, Ooh Ooh Ooh

Here’s a tip for getting some letterpress roller coasting love. We take something into our press room from the pitchers mound – a rosin bag. You can get them at your local sporting goods store and they should cost only a few dollars. A rosin bag will change your life when printing on a Heidelberg Windmill. This is one mysterious fine white powder that won’t get you into trouble. As a derivative of pine sap, rosin is valued for it’s friction increasing properties.

The rails on a windmill – or any platen press for that matter – must be clean and oil free. Any lube on your rail track can create ink slurring as the rollers comes into contact with the surface of your form. It can be very slight, but noticeable if you look at your printing under a loupe. We are all about having as crisp and clear a transfer type and image as possible.

After the rails have been cleaned well with alcohol, a few small taps with the rosin bag down the roller rail track will transfer some powder and create additional grip as the roller trucks move over the rail. Don’t use too much, you don’t want it to build up and create little gobbers and bumps. If you have your roller height set correctly, this little bit of extra friction will help your rollers sail over your printing form.

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Published on March 13, 2009 in Printing Tips and Tricks. 0 Comments Tags: 10x15, 13x18, bag, Heidelberg, inking, roller, rosin, slur, slurring, tips, Windmill.

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Lube Gun

Vintage machines live or die depending on our care of their lubrication needs. Certain areas on the Heidelberg Windmill presses have lots small oil points – like the gripper head and the paper feed. It is all to easy to over oil and end up with drips oozing everywhere, not cool when you are trying to keep your paper clean. One of our best friends to assist in this task is the Precision Pen Oiler. It is perfect for getting a small amount of oil right where you need it. And at under ten bucks, a lube job never cost less.

Published on February 21, 2009 in Letterpress. 5 Comments Tags: 10 x 15, 10x15, 13 x 18, 13x18, Heidelberg, Letterpress, lube, lubrication, oil, oiling, precision, press, tips, Windmill.