Tag Archive for 'minnesota'

AIGA MN Design Camp Event Recap

Yesterday we posted about our involvement printing the materials for AGIA MN’s 2011 Design Camp, but we thought it would be fun to share a peek into the event itself.

Ben (Principal), Selina (Studio Director) and David (Pre-press) were all up north participating as campers and Sam (Designer) was on the committee running the event, so Studio On Fire was well represented over the weekend. We had a booth up at the Friday night Business Expo where people were able to snag a paper airplane and pet assorted samples that we brought to show. Keynote speakers, a networking dinner, a variety of workshops, collaboration lunches and late night bonfires quickly filled the rest of the weekend.

Keynote speakers included Peter Buchanan-Smith (Best Made Company), Jamie Koval (VSA Partners), Michael Osborne (Michael Osborne Design), Jan Wilker (karlssonwilker), and Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols (Jolby), it was great to meet each of them. Special thanks to the dudes from Jolby for stopping by the studio after camp and going with us to grab patio beers- good times.

Enough chatter, on to the pictures! David took some great shots throughout the weekend (on actual film!) and Phong Tran (of dblthink.com and official AIGA MN photographer) was gracious enough to share some of his photos, since we were too busy playing with wild cats to bust out our cameras most of the time.

Published on October 11, 2011 in Completely Unrelated, Letterpress and News. 0 Comments Tags: AIGA, custom, Design, design camp, event, Letterpress, letterpress services, minnesota, MN, nisswa, unique.

Iron Beasts Make Great Beauty

After a brief blogging hiatus we’re back with a project we’ve been bursting to share with you.

Nearly a year ago we worked with Gestalten publishers on this great video piece about our shop and we’ve been featured in some of their past publications–but now they are releasing a title all about Studio On Fire! Needless to say, we’re giddy.

The book features work designed by us, as well as work designed by clients, all of which was produced here in our Minneapolis location. Pictures of our ever expanding workspace also made it in alongside a forward written by our Principal.

Since we couldn’t, in good conscience, let a book about us not include any actual letterpress, all of the covers were letterpress printed at Studio On Fire and shipped off to meet the gutt of the book in the final stages of production. Due to the heavy 100 point thickness of the recycled cover boards, all of the covers were hand fed into our Gietz platen press. They are printed with a day glo ink using deep etch copper plates. We love the contrast of raw and refined created by the bright color next to the gray board.

It’s already shipping in Europe and will be released here in the states in late October. We got our hands on an advance copy, so we thought we’d share a bit of a sneak peek with you.

Published on September 28, 2011 in Letterpress and News. 7 Comments Tags: 100pt, book, book board, cover, cover board, germany, gestalten, gray, green, grey, kraft, minneapolis, minnesota, orange, portfolio, publishing, thick.

French Paper Flight Ephemera

An essential reason French Paper Company stands out in a world of large paper conglomerates is their unique design affair. They’ve had a longstanding relationship with Charles Spencer Anderson Design here in Minneapolis that has fueled and produced arguably some of the most visual ephemera to promote paper in the last decade. And trust us, here at Studio On Fire we see A LOT of promotional materials from paper companies. We were excited to be a part of that legacy with the latest French Paper promotion – a paper “Air Kraft” designed by the crew at CSA Design.

We worked closely with CSA to finalize the production. The sheets are letterpress printed in two colors on French Speckletone Kraft 140lbC. These Air Kraft are actually flight worthy, but you have to be sure to follow the instructions and tape a dime into the nose of the plane for a good glide.

Speckletone Kraft is one of those papers great for designers who fall in love with chipboard, only to realize that actual raw chip does not have color specifications. (In a batch of chipboard stock you may get some gray sheets or some dark brown sheets, it just depends on what went into the pulper) We like to use it especially when matching envelopes are needed.

Published on June 27, 2011 in Letterpress. 9 Comments Tags: 140lb, blue, brown, chipboard, csa design, die, die cut, diecut, flight, fly, french, kraft, Letterpress, minneapolis, minnesota, overprint, plane, raw, red, Speckletone, steel rule.

Godspeed Poster with Bicycle Parts Typography

This poster was designed and letterpress printed here at Studio On Fire for the 2011 Artcrank, a poster show for bike people. The construction of this poster is an assemblage of prints we created with actual bicycle parts. Used bike parts were inked up with a brayer and printed by hand. We printed all kinds of parts: cranks, chains, cables, wheels, handlebars and even a seat. It was well worth the trip to One On One Bike to scavenge suitable parts from their basement bike bone yard. After inking each part individually we had a whole table full of prints to chose and build from. It was amazing how much type and texture come out of each part. These prints were then digitally arranged on top of a pencil sketched layout. The word “Godspeed” seems especially appropriate for cyclists, as a wish for someones safe and prosperous journey. It was plated in photo polymer and printed as a large format 20 x 26 letterpress print in 2 color on 100% cotton Crane Lettra. It can be trimmed and framed at 18 x 24 size.

The prints are available on our site for $30.

Published on April 11, 2011 in Design, Letterpress and Posters. 5 Comments Tags: 20x26, ARTCRANK, bicycle, godspeed, hand print, large format, Letterpress, metallic, minneapolis, minnesota, northeast, one on one, parts, poster, tonal white, type, typography.

Letterpress Open House TONIGHT

Final reminder for our Love Machine Open House Party tonight. Hope to see you soon.

Leaving you with a beautiful thought about machines from Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin:

“Machines challenge certainty so well. They should not be able to move. But they do. They turn, and move, and never cease — there is always an engine going, somewhere — like generations of silver hearts they keep the faith of the world and stoke imagination in its continued and splendid rebellion.” Quote from “Winter’s Tale” by Mark Helprin ©1983

Published on February 11, 2011 in Letterpress and News. 4 Comments Tags: Letterpress, love machine, machine, machines, minneapolis, minnesota, MN, northeast, open house, open studio, party, press, printer, printing, twin cities.

Badges for Bruises Rollergirls Poster

Adam Hoganson designed this subtle and beautiful poster for the Minnesota Rollergirls. We letterpress printed these for the bout that took place this last weekend. The poster is an 18 x 24 three color edition on Wausau Royal Complements Natural 100lbC. A big congrats to our press operator and MN Rollergirl “Lizzy the Axe”. She was a brutally wonderful jammer during the bout. (And she printed the poster on our Heidelberg S cylinder 21 x 28)

A word about letterpress poster image size… We get a lot of designers that are surprised by the cost to print at this size. This is not silk screen printing and comparatively, the costs are nowhere near similar. Printing poster size things with letterpress can be an expensive adventure. One way to keep the cost down is to limit the image area since plating is charged by the square inch. (For example, a single plate at 18 x 24 will run about $250, just in plating costs for EACH color) On this poster even though the paper trim size is 18 x 24 the image area is only 11.5 x 16 making plating costs a bit more reasonable.

See a previous poster we printed for the Rollergirls here.

Published on February 8, 2011 in Letterpress and Posters. 4 Comments Tags: 100lbC, 18 x 24, adam hoganson, complements, edition, Letterpress, minnesota, MN, natural, plate, poster, print, printing cost, rollergirls, royal, wausau.

Love Machine – Letterpress Open House

You are invited to a party! We are loving our machines with plenty of oil and our guests with plenty of other social lubrications. Join us as we celebrate our new office and press room with an open house on Friday, February 11th begining at 4pm. Come and see some letterpress action and talk shop. We’ll have a limited edition project on press as free gift to party guests. Hope to see you here soon.

Published on January 25, 2011 in Letterpress and News. 3 Comments Tags: love machine, minneapolis, minnesota, open house, party, press room, studio on fire.

2011 Letterpress Calendar

The Studio On Fire Letterpress Calendar is a favorite project in our shop for nearly ten years. It’s been worked on by many contributors from all over the world. Each year Studio On Fire puts together a loose theme, color palette and paper choices, then we invite 5 other designers / illustrators to participate. We design 2 months, and each contributor designs 2 months. Its always nice to have a large cross section of stylistic approaches within a little package that sits on your desktop. And this year is no exception. 2011 participants include Studio On Fire Adam Garcia, Brian Gunderson, Jessica Hische, We Make It So, and Aesthetic Apparatus.

This years calendar is a departure from the usual graphic illustration in our previous versions. Our theme this year was “Letter Form Genus”, with many contributors incorporating type and lettering. We’ve not had a distinctly type related theme before, so this was extra fun. Some favorite details you’ll find are: a moustache wearing a monocle, a spider wearing a thong, a monkey skull on a snake skeleton, a hidden giraffe, and bacterial letter forms spelling “grow kindness.”

The calendar is printed all together on a large 26 x 20 size press sheet. It is trimmed down into 12 months on 3.25 x 5 inch cards. This year, the paper for the months and the outer wrap was a light brown Wausau Winter Wheat 100lb Cover. We design the tri fold outer wrap using bits and pieces of each months design, all mashed together and printed in a long strip.

The stand was a custom duplexed paper made from dark grey Fibermark Eviva Stone 100lbC and copper Stardream 111lbC paper stocks. Our easel stand design has a clever fold-out angled leg that reveals the inner metallic paper color. The grey stock is letterpress printed in one color metallic silver.

These are now available on our studio site.

We’ve been doing this calendar for almost ten years now and have been fortunate to have some really great people involved. See a couple previous years here: 2010 Calendar, 2009 Calendar, 2008 Calendar.

Published on December 8, 2010 in Design, Letterpress, News, packaging and Studio On Fire Products. 5 Comments Tags: adam garcia, aesthetic apparatus, calendar, copper, custom, Design, desktop, die, dieline, easel, eviva, fibermark, hische, illustratioin, illustrator, jessica, Letterpress, metallic, minneapolis, minnesota, MN, packaging, print, product, silver, stand, stardream, wausau, we make it so.

Letterpress at AIGA MN Design Camp Workshop

This post is a recap of the fun we had this last weekend leading a press free, hand style letterpress workshop at AIGA Minnesota Design Camp. We were located in the wine cellar at Grandview Lodge in Nisswa, Minnesota. Over 300 designers attend this event annually. We did three sessions of this 1.5 hour long workshop with over 120 total attendees.

The process was about putting down lots of ink quickly, creating textures, layers and happenstance in the layout and printing. No press required, no two prints alike.

Studio On Fire brought in lots of good stuff:

10 large cases of our woodtype collection (about 400lbs of type, mostly Hamilton faces)

Tape and cardboard (served as the bed of the press, tape held type in rough position)

A wadded up paper towel was the “printing press” (used with hands to burnish the back of the sheets)

Several dozen CSA images supplied on photopolymer plates (permission of CSA archives)

Wood grain background textures (blasted with a powerwasher, then relief carved)

Lots of good ol’ French Paper to print on (poptone sweet tooth and many many remnants)

Ink and brayers (oil based inks and soft rubber rollers)

It was a fluid process and a good chance for everyone to step away from the computer. A huge thanks AIGA Minnesota for having us and to the AIGA volunteers that supplied a steady stream of nature wash solvent to clean up and redistribute the wood type and images. And thanks to Phong Tran for his photo contributions.

If you would like Studio On Fire to do a workshop with your group, let’s talk. Please do contact us for more information.

Published on October 9, 2010 in Letterpress, News, Posters and Printing Tips and Tricks. 2 Comments Tags: AIGA, brayers, cases, CSA, design camp, french paper, grandview lodge, hand, hand style, hands on, images, ink, layers, Letterpress, making, minneapolis, minnesota, nature wash, nisswa, paper, photopolymer, polymer plate, poster, powerwash, press, print, printing, printmaking, solvent, studio on fire, tactile, texture, wine cellar, wood, woodgrain, workshop.

50 Years Letterpress Invitations

We think getting letterpress printing is even better than a gold watch. It is a great production option for special corporate occasions too, not just weddings. This invitation to celebrate Dunhams 50 years in business was designed by Riley Hayes Advertising. The type driven design is accented with a matching bright red matching edge color.

These pieces were inked with 3 color on one side with a tonal varnish on the other. We printed an invitation and map card together on a new favorite sheet – French Poptone Sweet Tooth White 280lb Cover. We like it enough that we are now custom making it to keep on hand as a house sheet. The thickness is about 40 points (.038 inch) which is a matching thickness to Crane Lettra 220lb. The good things are that it is less expensive than a cotton sheet like Lettra and smoother in surface, not as toothy a finish. It takes a great impression and works great for edge coloring as well.

Published on September 17, 2010 in Invitations (non wedding) and Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: 220lb, 280lb, 50 years, anniversary, brushing, cards, color, coloring, crane, custom, dunham, edge, french, heavy, ink, lettra, minneapolis, minnesota, paper, poptone, red, riley hayes, staining, sweet tooth, thickness, tipping, tonal.

Custom Hand Lettered Wedding Invitations

These are some beautiful wedding invitations designed by Anchalee Chambundabongse just letterpress printed here at Studio On Fire. The variety of the hand drawn type in this invite is super well done. Mixing up lettering like this looks deceptively simple. The texture of the diverse type styles in this layout maintains simplicity without looking cluttered. The format is fun too and keeps the type big so the lettering details come through. The invitation unfurls as a long trifolded card. A nice punch of blue color with an acorn printed slip sheet and matching blue rsvp envelope. The blue paper stock is French Poptone and the invitation is Gruppo Cordenons Canaletto 111lbC.

We’ve had the pleasure of letterpress printing some other beautiful projects designed by Anchalee you can check out on our blog – coasters and cigar bands and cd packaging.

Published on August 31, 2010 in Wedding. 3 Comments Tags: acorn, anchalee, blue, blue on blue ink, canaletto, chambundabongse, custom, folded, french, hand drawn, invitation, lettering, minneapolis, minnesota, poptone, RSVP, tonal, trifold, type, Wedding.

iphone app developer letterpress cards

Letterpress seems pretty far removed from the slickness of the iphone. Yet even the most technically focused business can benefit from the tactility of letterpress business cards. In fact, we would argue that they are the perfect counterpoint. Marko Karppinen & Co is a software developer in Finland specializing in iphone and ipad applications. We designed and printed this card for their ten person company.

The back of the card is printed with a heavy blind (inkless) letterpress impression. The front side is printed with gray ink plus accent yellow bars. A key production step to virtually eliminate show through and have heavy impression on both sides was to print two separate sheets and paste them together after printing. For this step we use Potdevin pasting and rotary presses. The pasting machine applies glue to the back of a sheet. That sheet is then paired with the sheet for the reverse side of the business card and run through the rotary press to firmly squeeze them together and eliminate any air bubbles. The stock is 110lb Neenah Classic Crest Solar White custom duplexed to a thick 220lb weight. Special finishing is a yellow edge color. A well crafted card indeed.