Tag Archive for 'minnesota'

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Birds Of A Feather, Letterpressed Together

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Wedding invitations need not be all typographic. This is a nice change in pace from most invites that tend to focus more on type than image. And we love letterpress printing lots of color, so this artwork does the trick. It was designed by Sheraton Green over at CSA Design.  The peacock image comes from the CSA Image collection – an easy $40 bucks to license for wedding invites.

Since CSA also designs all the French Paper stuff, they sent over 140lb Cover Poptone Sweet Tooth paper stock. We printed four PMS colors, with some really beautiful overprinting happening inside  the illustration. These kind of solid areas are always a challenge for letterpress. Note how the solid areas are a bit “salty” in the ink coverage.

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Bingo, A Meat Raffle And Letterpress

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If you aren’t sure what a “meat raffle” is you should really look it up to fully understand the heritage of this design. It’s good to see a fine establishment carry on this noble tradition. Our friends at Fame created this cuss-worthy design for Continue reading ‘Bingo, A Meat Raffle And Letterpress’

Skype, Twitter, Letterpress

Now it’s even easier to get in touch with us for your custom letterpress project.

For our international and long distance clients we can be reached on our skype account to discuss projects.

10 am – 5pm CST.

And if you need more, follow our tweets.

Skype: studioonfire

Twitter: twitter.com/StudioOnFire

Land Phone: 612 379 3000

Email: Request an estimate here

Remember, If you can send a PDF preview of what you have in mind we can offer you the best price and advice based on your artwork.

And here is a preview our new certificate of production seal:

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Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 1

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This is a big post with lots of images so be sure and see Part 2 as well.

We’ve been an online friend with French designer Fabien Barrel for a while. He’s been kind enough to show our press work on his Graphic Exchange website. His site is a finely curated collection of designers and projects from all over the world. Be sure and see it next time you need some graphic inspiration.

Fabien collected three other friends that also wanted letterpress printed business cards. Fabien Barrel designed his card and the card for So Goods. Fred Dauzat designed his card and the card for Limited Press. We letterpress printed these cards together with Continue reading ‘Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 1′

Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2

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This is part two showing the production of business cards on our Heidelberg Windmill. Be sure and see Part 1 showing the finished cards.

We start with a high resolution film negative. The negative is used to expose the plastic plates. The plates are attached to an aluminum base and placed into the press. The press uses air suction to pick up a sheet of paper on the left side and deliver it into the press for printing. The printed sheets are automatically stacked in the delivery pile on the right side of Continue reading ‘Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2′

A Tasty Food Stylin’ Business Card

As the name would imply, a stylist has to have style. This morsel was designed by Westwerk Design and was just featured in the Minnesota AIGA award show. And check out Lara’s site for some really succulent looking food photography.

The letterpress printing is tasty too. The card was printed four colors on the front and a single color on the back. However, we washed up the press four times and did all four single colors on the back as well That gives a nice variety to the presentation of the card on table display on photo shoot sets and studio events.

A heavy ink flood is not the greatest application of letterpress – there is no impression to the information side of this card. We even held on to the tiny 5 point type reversing from a solid. And yes, that many color changes certainly adds up cost. But hey – this job hand eight wash ups!

There is a practical reason to do this kind of solid on a letterpress if you are happy with the more mottled (salty looking) and varied way a letterpress lays this much ink. The reason is stock thickness. Offset printing, which is the best process for printing solids, is usually limited by the thickness of paper for smaller press sheets. To run a thick stock (these are 165lb Neenah) on an offset press gets expensive because you usually need to hire a larger size offset press to handle the stock thickness and have a big press sheet. That just doesn’t make sense for a short run business card project. And most smaller offset presses which could less cost just can not take the stock thickness rattling through the press – if they can get paper to feed through at all. Putting the card stock on a letterpress makes paper feeding possible for a short run job. Offset printing – eat me.

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McKnight Artist Fellows – Letterpress Journal

We worked together with designer Stuart Flake and illustrator Brian Gunderson on this fine little journal project for the McKnight Foundation. The McKnight Foundation is truly one of the significant supporters of Minnesota artists. Each year they award grants to independent artists in several categories. This  journal was used to commemorate the artist fellows awarded in 2008.

The journal is perfect bound with a letterpress printed 60pt blotter board affixed on front and back covers. We found an existing library pocket and printed those to contain a card with the list of the artist fellows. Note the beautiful way Gunderson incorporates overprinting into his illustration to make a third color.

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