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.
It goes without saying, we like unique paper structures. This Bat Mitzvah invitation, designed here at Studio On Fire features two triangles with a hole punch that clips together making a six pointed star shape. The paper triangles unclip to open and reveal the invitation text. The paper is 110lb Crane Lettra Flo White 100% cotton, letterpress printed in hot pink and die cut into the two triangles. It was mailed in a large square Neenah Eames Furniture, Weave Finish, Pacific Blue envelope printed in one color on the flap.
Those little metal clips are something we get asked about a lot. They are called #2 Petite Fasteners, made by GEM Office Products here in the USA. They have a little point that pierces the paper and holds the sheets together. You can buy them wholesale here. ($7 per box of 100 clips, 10 box minimum) They come in two sizes – the #2 is the bigger one, the #0 is smaller. And no, we do not sell the clips. But if you are in need of some top notch Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah invitations we’d love to hear from you.
Published on
February 8, 2010 in
Design, Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks.
Tags: bar, bar mitzvah, bat, bat mitzvah, clip, Design, eames, Fastener, furniture, GEM, invitation, invitations, invite, Letterpress, lettra, metal, office, Petite, printer, printing, products, structure, unique.
This is a nifty little letterpress card and a7 envelope designed by Duel Purpose in Austin, Texas. It is printed in three colors, the overlapping bold graphics make unique areas of overprinting ink. The stock is 100% cotton 220lb Crane Lettra, with a matching Lettra envelope. Hand written correspondence on these are sure to any leave digital message in the lurch.
Published on
February 4, 2010 in
Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, austin, black, blue, bold, card, cards, correspondence, crane, duel purpose, duelpurpose, graphic, ink, Letterpress, lettra, overprinting, printer, printing, red, stationary, stationery, texas, writing.
For some illustration inspiration and silk screen goodness check out the Heads of State from Philadelphia. They designed these business cards with an insignia that turns the national USA seal on its ear, adding an extra head and replacing the olive branch and arrows with a pencil and x-acto knife. We letterpress printed in black and dark silver on both sides of Crane Lettra 220lb FLo White and edge colored to match the silver – it’s a card thick enough to plant a listening device inside. And maybe we did that too… maybe.
Published on
February 1, 2010 in
Business Cards and Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, Business Cards, crane, edge color, edge coloring, emblem, heads of state, insignia, Letterpress, lettra, national, philadelphia, printing, seal, silk screen, silver.
This is our letterpress poster for the Toys In The Attic show opening at the Soo Visual Arts Center on Dec 4th from 6 to 9PM. The show features both custom toys and toy inspired posters. Proceeds benefit Toys For Tots. Hey, that’s tomorrow night! We hope to see you there.
These beasts are in fact our toys. The graphic beasts are constructed from various press parts and form into a crest that commemorates ten years of printing here at Studio On Fire. The dog latin phrase reads “Iron Beasts Make Great Beauty”. It is printed in fluorescent and dark silver inks on Crane Lettra Flo White 220lbC at 13 x 13 size.
It was ten years ago this month back in 1999 that the first C&P was lowered into the then basement studio. More to come on our own ten year anniversary party soon.
Published on
December 3, 2009 in
Design, Letterpress, News and Posters.
Tags: 220lb, beast, crane, crest, Design, edition, fluorescent, ink, iron, Letterpress, lettra, minneapolis, poster, press parts, print, printer, silver, soo, soo visual arts center, soovac, studio on fire, ten years, toys for tots, toys in the attic, unique.
Jeff at Biklops Design created these note cards and business cards for catering and event planning company Culinaria. We love the simple line work logo and are a little amazed it actually printed. It is one of those “it turned out really cool but was a pain in ass to print” kind of projects. Inking a solid like this with letterpress is one of the more difficult things to print. There is a constant struggle to maintain minimal variation in the color density. With a large solid area the press sheet warps like a ripple potato chip, making feeding the sheets in register a challenge. And keeping the fine line weight of the logo from filling in made for a fun time on press. To help with the filling in on the logo we ended up shortening the exposure of the plate, which still hardens the plate but lessens the amount of base/neck material on the edges of the printed image. So good job on the design Jeff, we can even print your curve ball.
The cards are printed letterpress on 220lb Crane Lettra Flo White 100% cotton stock. The final trimmed cards were finished with a matching light blue edge coloring accent. The text is printed after the solid so it has a sculptural impression. If the text were printed first, the solid blue on the opposite side would flatten the impression down to near nothing.
Published on
November 23, 2009 in
Business Cards and Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, accent, biklops design, blue, Business Cards, card, color, crane, culinaria, cyan, density, Design, edge, edging, fine, Letterpress, lettra, line, logotype, note card, notecard, painting, photo polymer, plate exposure, solid, tipping.
Conrad Lim, a photographer out of LA, had some ideas for an identity and we made it happen. He was pretty darn excited that the letters R-A-D were smack dab in the center of his name so it was pretty clear where we needed to go with it.
Published on
November 19, 2009 in
Business Cards, Client Focus, Design and Letterpress.
Tags: business card, camera, card, conrad, heavy, icon, ink, Letterpress, lettra, paper stock, photo, photographer, photography, rad, red, type, typography.
Chris at Echo Creative designed this invite for an exclusive Timberwolves event. Getting court side tickets for the season is a big deal and attracting the right people to get in on the action requires an invite with some presence. This clean and tactile card is much visually different than the usual slick and colorful NBA related material. But its overall size and thick luxury material make their own statement. And, the dimpled basketball pattern just looks great printed letterpress.
The invite is a massive over sized 12 x 19 inch card printed on Crane Lettra 220lb Flo. White paper stock. The card is printed with silver and a light silver tinted opaque white ink and the text area is die cut to remove as a ticket to the event. If this is what basketball is about, I’m in.
Published on
November 9, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, basketball, custom, echo creative, exclusive, flo wh, invitation, invitations, invite, Letterpress, lettra, luxe, luxury, nba, printing, silver, tickets, timberwolves, white ink.
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.
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.
This simple one color wedding invitation was designed by the groom for the couples December wedding in Kyoto, Japan. The head silhouettes have a unique anime / manga style. We also love the modern graphic crest containing the interlocking rings and the matrimony announcement. It’s a bold yet refined design – traditional subject with a modern presentation. Nice work Osamu!
The cards were layed out together on a large 13 x 18 Flo White Crane Lettra 110lbC press sheet. These were printed on our Vandercook Uni III. We letterpress printed two passes of the gold ink for better ink density . Here’s something to keep in mind when running a double pass on a cylinder press – don’t adjust the packing on the press between pass one and two. By adjusting the packing, you also change the circumference of the cylinder, making it very difficult to register the second pass. We like to run two passes of ink metallics to give a little better sheen. Metallic ink, especially on an uncoated cotton stock will never be shiny like a coated stock or approach the mirror finish of a foil stamp, but it is crisp in details and does offer a small amount of shine.
Published on
October 6, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: 1 color, 110lbC, anime, cards, crane, crest, custom, cylinder press, Design, graphic, invitation, invitations, invite, japan, japanese, kyoto, Letterpress, lettra, manga, modern, one color, silhouette, stationery, uni iii, unique, vandercook, Wedding.
Designing your own wedding invitations has to be a designers most challenging project ever. And these are some to be proud of. The groom, Jefferson Perky of Perky Bros., designed these with an elegant typographic flair. They combine textural wood grain photography and letterpress printed type.
We produced these cards together on a 13 x 18 press sheet. The wedding invite was printed along with a save the date card, a thank you card, an accommodations card and a die cut vertical belly band. The stock was 100% cotton 110lbC Pearl White Crane Lettra. The wood grain was digitally printed, then the black type was letterpress printed.
When thinking about doing a letterpress wedding invitation it is important to consider all the cards you need upfront. We ultimately print everything together – saving us time and our clients cost. (Example – if you know you need a thank you card, plan to print it with the main invitation set.)
Published on
September 22, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: 110lb, band, belly band, cotton, crane, custom, Design, die, die cut, digital, groom designed, invitation, Letterpress, lettra, nashville, perky, perky bros, photograph, press sheet, printing, save the date, tennesee, thank you, TN, type, typography, unique, Wedding, wedding invitation, wood grain.
Not every wedding invite is so typographically unique as this one, with wedding birds too! Emily and Emory, the Bride and Groom designed these fun loving cards with display typography built from basic geometric forms overprinting each other. The warm color palette is three spot PMS colors which overlap and create additional letterpress texture. The cards are Crane Lettra Florecent White 110lbC 5 x 5 size – all printed together on a single large press sheet in tight register. They even included a little “eye spy” art print that turned out really sweet as well. The envelope is a metallic Stardream stock printed with silver metallic ink. Check out Emory’s site for even more illustrative work.
Published on
September 4, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: 110lb, crane, Design, emory, geometric, illustration, invasion, invitation, invite, invites, Letterpress, lettra, ocular, ocular invasion, orange, red, stationary, stationery, type, typography, unique, Wedding, yellow.
