Tag Archive for 'impression'

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Hey, Nice Ensemble

You know what they say about too much letterpress – you’ll eventually go blind. That is exactly what happened to our design friends at Spunk Design Machine. They created this stationery system for Ensemble with a beautiful and subtle pattern that we letterpress printed blind (a plate striking the paper with no ink). Imagine, a design for a financial company that is both fun and elegant. Which makes sense for Ensemble because they cater specifically to creatives running small businesses by managing benefits and financial operations.

For the letterhead, the blind pattern runs on the text weight sheet along the top edge of the paper. That pattern also prints in color on the back of the No.10 note card (a flat card sized for a No. 10 envelope). A pattern like this is a great way to get some color into a letterpress print job without running a big solid color block. Since this card and the business cards are on the same paper and print the same color, we can run them together. We run a lot of jobs with a this card and a business card on the same press sheet. That gives the client way more bang for their print dollars.

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Published on March 12, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: blind, business card, Design, ensemble, envelope, impression, letterhead, Letterpress, minneapolis, No. 10, pattern, printing, services, spunk, spunk design machine, stationary, stationery, system, Tea Slip, thick.

Laurie DeMartino – Letterpress Identity

We love involved custom production projects with other design firms – especially identity systems. The refined work of designer Laurie DeMartino exemplifies the level of production we strive for in our letterpress shop. A keen eye for detailed type and color makes her design work striking. In fact, we believe she has a sixth sense related to finessing details. We worked with her to produce this identity system by matching her attention to detail on press.

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Some noteworthy things about this system:

We partnered with another vendor to produce the offset floods of color on the letterhead and envelopes. Those big fields of color are next to impossible to hold consistent on letterpress. We can do larger areas of color (we did it on the note card and business card) but there is more variation in letterpress printing than in offset. When that variation is desirable we will print a flood of color on certain stocks. When it is not desirable, we recommend combining letterpress with offset. (Yes, that adds cost.) It is worth noting that we can print a large press sheet and often work in tandem with commercial offset printing.

Business Cards are 5 PMS /1 PMS. We matched the ink printed offset with our letterpress ink.

All the type and small graphics are letterpress printed. Light colored type is a heavy impression with custom mixed varnish. You can see in the letterhead detail and business card detail the show through on the reverse of the sheet.

The envelope is custom converted and has a perforation line across the flap.

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Published on February 25, 2009 in Letterpress. 3 Comments Tags: blind, Business Cards, commercial, custom, envelope, identity, impression, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, notecard, offset, perforation, printing, stationary, stationery, system, varnish.

Comparing Thick and Thicker Paper

We love thick stocks. It is a friend with benefits. One of the challenges in letterpress printing is working with the “show through” of the impression to the opposite side of the page. When you have a thicker stock it becomes easier to show more impression and have less show through.

These pictures compare 110lb Cover (300gsm) with 220lb Cover (600 gsm) Crane Lettra which is 100% cotton. What you should notice is that they both have a sculptural impression. But the thinner stock on the top does have some show through, while the thicker stock below has even more impression and no showing on the opposite side. That becomes important if you are doing a two sided business card and wish to minimize showing. The depth of impression on letterpress is controled by varying the amount of packing material underneath the sheet being printed. A single sided design is easier to achieve heavy impression because there isn’t as much worry about the back of the paper.