Sublimio is a multidisciplinary design studio in Italy. They designed these cards for an engaging visual and tactile design experience.
We printed a larger message card and business cards. The message card is very subtle with a blind impression only on 110lb Crane Lettra stock. The business cards use blind impression on one side and black on the other, completed with black edge coloring. They are on 220lb Crane Lettra.
“Show Through” is a term we use to describe heavy impression from printing one side of the paper bruising the sheet and showing small distortions on the reverse side. Show through is an important consideration when a design will be letterpress printed. The double thick 220 lb Lettra is great for a project that is a two sided design because it offers virtually no show through. Note that “virtually” is a key word here. If a heavy impression is desired, there will be some show through. Generally the thicker the paper, the more minimal the show through. But even with a thick stock, impression can knock back the impression from a previously printed side affecting its appearance. In the case of this business card we printed the flood of blind pattern first with heavier impression, then the black text side of the card with a bit less impression. Balancing this impression on a two sided design depends on the nature of artwork being printed. Talk with us early in the design process to work through these production decisions.
Published on
March 2, 2010 in
Business Cards and Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, blind, Business Cards, crane, Design, formula, impression, IT, italy, letter press, Letterpress, lettra, printer, printing, show through, sublimio, subtle, unique.
Jeff Holmberg designed these labels for a new line of coffee from Bull Run Roasting Company to be served and sold at their new retail location inside the Rustica Bakery in Minneapolis. Top notch stuff! Bull Run wholesales their coffee into some of the finer restaurants in the metro. This Reserve Collection is the first offering of their coffee at retail and it had to look tasty. The label is customized by rubber stamping the coffee variety and hole punching the bean and weight information. The ripped edge of the label on the kraft bag balances a raw yet refined look. Nice work Jeff.
We letterpress printed in two color on Strathmore Ultimate White label stock. We kiss cut the labels with a steel rule die with several punches to add the coarse perforated edge when ripped and opened. Yum and Buzz.
Published on
December 3, 2009 in
Letterpress and labels.
Tags: bag, bakery, beloya, brown, bull run, coffee, collection, Design, edge, holmberg, impression, kraft, label, Letterpress, minneapolis, package, packaging, perf, perforated, perforation, punch, reserve, roast, roasting, rubber stamp, Rustica, strathmore, yellow.
These cards were designed by Reddoor Creative in LA. Finely designed and printed business cards speak volumes about a business or an individual – and there are no half measures here. These cards are letterpress printed 2 pms colors each side plus a blind hit. The paper is custom duplexed Fluorescent White 268lb 100% cotton Crane Cover Kid Finish. We’d say they have a “thump factor”.
Duplex means pasting two sheets of paper back to back. In this case, we had the sheets pasted AFTER they were printed. We started with a press sheet for the front of the cards and another press sheet for the back of the cards, each sheet being at 134lb Cover weight. What this accomplishes is deep impression on both sides of the card with out show through from a heavy letterpress impression. Custom duplex pasting a sheet is the best way to achieve that heavy impression both sides and get a nice thick card with the artwork on both sides looking top notch. After pasting the press sheets together they were trimmed to size and edges were colored to match the printed pms. Coloring the edge of paper that thick really makes the most of the edge coloring effect.
I think I want to buy a house from this guy.
Published on
August 25, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: 134lb, 268lb, back to back, both sides, business, California, cards, coloring, crane, deep, Design, duplex, duplexed, duplexing, edge, edge coloring, heavy, impression, LA, Letterpress, letterpress business cards, los angeles, luxury, painting, pasted, pasting, printer, printing, reddoor, reddoor creative, tipping, trimmed, typography.
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.
Published on
August 24, 2009 in
Letterpress.
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.
The fresh New Media firm, FRWD, from the other side of the city sent us their cards to get printed recently. They were designed by Justin Mckinley. Color choices and high-design sensibility really make these ones pop extra hard. Another prime application of edge coloring in a very tasteful way.
Published on
August 18, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, black, Business Cards, crane lettra, edge color, edge tipping, flo white, FRWD, impression, Letterpress, letterpress services, logo, minneapolis, two logos, yellow.
Last night we had a rockin’ time showing off our studio space and letterpress shop to Minnesota AIGA members. A big thanks to Minnesota’s AIGA chapter for giving us the opportunity.
We talked about the relationship of letterpress and design, did some Q&A, drank some Pabst Blue Ribbon and wrapped up the event with a little coaster project on press. Take a look at the coaster sheet – it’s 60pt Ahlstrom blotter paper. We pre printed a couple colors before people arrived. Then, we had a different color set up on both of our Vandercook presses. Everyone got to pull a couple prints, then we die cut the sheet into the set of four coasters. Lots of paper touching and good times had by all. Thanks Kayd Mustonen for taking some pics to share.
Published on
July 31, 2009 in
Design, Letterpress and News.
Tags: 60pt, ahlstrom, AIGA, blotter, board, coaster, coasters, demo, Design, impression, Letterpress, minnesota, MN, pressroom, printer, printing, Studio, studio on fire, thick, tour, type, typography, vandercook, workshop.
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.
Published on
July 30, 2009 in
Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks.
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.
We designed and letterpress printed this poster for the Sweet Hair poster show featuring 37 Minneapolis artists. All prints are hair-inspired, handmade and created just for this show. A portion of proceeds benefits Locks of Love. It hangs at the Art Minion Gallery in Northeast Minneapolis until mid July. If you love hair, check out the Sweet Hair site.
Our 18 x 26 poster is a single color printed on 220lb Crane Lettra Pearl White. The type intertwines with a .30 point stroke that flows throughout the poster, making a nice deep impression on the cotton stock. The quote is a Chinese proverb that reads “You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent their making a nest in your hair.” If there are any left when the show comes down at Art Minion, we’ll sell them on our site.
Published on
June 30, 2009 in
Completely Unrelated, Design, Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks.
Tags: 220lb, art minion, birds of sadness, chinese, deep, Design, edition, hair, hand lettering, impression, Letterpress, lettra, line, locks of love, poster, printer, printing, proverb, sweet hair, thick, thin, type, typography.
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.
Published on
June 24, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, blind, blue, business, cards, circle, contaminated, cotton, crane, Design, die cut, diecut, double, double sided, Fuel, fuel inc, impression, ink, inkless, iowa, juggling, Letterpress, letterpress business cards, lettra, orange, round, thick, two sided, unique, whatsup, white.
Space 150 changes their identity every 150 days. And with an identity process and look all their own, today marks the 23rd version of the Space 150 brand. This is a business card project we’ve managed the letterpress print production on for several versions now. Designed by Ned Wright at Space 150, this simple looking card still combines 4 production processes. Can you spot all four? Here they are:
250gsm Black Stonehenge sheet – FOIL STAMPED with gloss black foil.
22 pt White blotter sheet – LETTERPRESS PRINTED with silver ink.
After printing, these sheets are DUPLEX pasted back to back for zero impression show through.
After trimming the cards to size, they are EDGE COLORED in black for a clean look on the edge.
We print these cards for around 70 people. For a large studio, value comes with quantity. It would be fiscally improbable for an individual to produce a design like this on a small run of cards. (If you have to ask, “How much?”… )
Published on
June 5, 2009 in
Completely Unrelated and Letterpress.
Tags: black, blotter, business, Business Cards, cards, Design, duplex, edge color, edge coloring, edge painting, foil, foil stamped, impression, ink, Letterpress, minneapolis, ned wright, printing, silver, space150, stonehenge, typography, unique.
I’m back after a helluva week with some crazy virus. I miss writing this thing!
This is a sweet little business card designed by Andrew Young at Exclamation 101. The information wraps the card from front to back. We letterpress printed them on a thick two ply black museum board. Weight wise, it is about 200lbC which gives virtually no show through. We really like the finish on this sheet too. The impression takes with a nice crisp bite and the black is very dense compared to commercial papers. The metallic silver ink offers great opacity on the black stock.
Published on
May 15, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: 2ply museum, andrew young, black, board, business card, exclamation 101, heavy, impression, ink, Letterpress, silver, thick, two sided.
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.
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.
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! ;-)
Published on
April 27, 2009 in
Letterpress and News.
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.
