Tag Archive for 'lettra'

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Away We Go – Lots Of Letterpress Ink

This invitation designed by the groom Tyler Thiessen at Neuhaus Design and illustrated by bride Jessie Turner makes their wedding invitation into a fresh art print. It is nice to see a wedding invitation that is illustration centric versus type heavy. They put all the text on the web. You can check out the couples wedding website here.

The illustration is simple with just a little overprinting of  bright red and light blue inks. Most of the artwork knocks out, requiring very tight register. (like the blue dotted lines on the hot air ballon.) It is printed on Crane Lettra Flo. White 110lbC The card is like a small poster and folds up to a 5.5 x 5.5 square.

We won’t mince words, this was a hard invitation to print with letterpress. Registration was tight, and the paper does stretch with heavy impression over a solid graphic area. Plus, large areas of solid color are not ideal for letterpress. Letterpress is definitely not like screen printing these kind of solid colors. Most letterpress equipment will not be able to handle this kind of press work. We printed this one on a Heidelberg Cylinder that has the impressional strength to lay down some pressure. Chances are if you send an invitation our way with a lot of ink going down you will get an email with our handy disclaimer that goes something like this. Once all this is understood we can move to press. And as you can see, we DO print areas of solid color and it can turn out very beautiful. Just realize there WILL be variation within the job that is inherent to printing this type of work with letterpress.

Blind (inkless) Letterpress Business Card

These cards, designed by Jacob Ward have a heavy blind (inkless) letterpress impression on one side and black ink on the other. A blind hit needs a substantial amount of impression since it is relying only on the change in paper surface without any ink color to define the graphic. The large type size really pops on this card. If you have a good monitor and click through the pics below, you can see that even on a 220lb cotton stock there can be small amount of impression show through on the reverse side.

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.

200 Year Calendar

This wonderfully typographic calendar is the work of Sonner, Vallée u. Partner in Munich, Germany. It is a true information architecture project, letterpress printed on thick cotton paper. Check out their online portfolio for some crisp and polished typographic excellence.

We printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White 220lb (600gsm) cotton stock in two colors -with deep impression text you can’t help but touch. The sheet is a large 420 x 297 mm.

Sublimio Unique Design Formula Cards

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.

Bat Mitzvah Letterpress Invitation Star With Clips

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.

Jeremy Gardner Stationery

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.

Heads of State Business Cards

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.

Iron Beast Poster – Toys In The Attic Show

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.

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Culinaria Food and Wine Letterpress Cards

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.

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Rad!

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.

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Timberwolves Basketball Invitation

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.

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