With beautiful pattern and subtlety, Jeff at Telemetry Studio designed this identity and stationery system for Arzu Studio Hope. Started by a former Goldman Sachs partner, Arzu is a social entrepreneurship company that works at a grassroots level to better the lives of women in Afghanistan.
We letterpress printed multiple elements for this stationery system using gray ink and contaminated opaque white ink on Neenah Classic Crest papers. The business cards are 165lb Solar White, a smooth stock with a with enough thickness for some impression on both sides with minimal show through. We printed on pre-converted envelopes opening the flaps, printing envelope face and flap at the same time, allowing the pattern to wrap from front to back. The pressed pattern in this system is elegant and understated, creating real tactile inspiration.
Published on
March 10, 2010 in
Business Cards.
Tags: #10, 165lb, afghanistan, arzu, Business Cards, envelope, florida, ink, letterhead, Letterpress, neenah, pattern, printing, rugs, social entrepreneurship, stationary, stationery, studio hope, telemetry studio, white.
This massive custom wedding system is exquisitely graphic. It was designed by the groom, Scott Peiffer. More of his design portfolio here. What is especially nice about this invitation set is the uniqueness of each card. Care was taken to bring together lots of different textures and graphics – beautifully combining, flourishes, coral patterns, florals, silhouettes, crests and even a bulldog.
We letterpress printed all the cards on a sheet together in two color on Cordenons Canaletto Grana Grossa Bianco 111lb C . It is a 20% cotton blend stock with a textural finish. The A7 folder is sized to fit inside an A7 envelope. It is letterpress printed in a coral pattern with a tone on tone blue ink and then die cut. The folder stock is a bright color 100lb cover stock from French Paper’s Poptone line. The Save the Date Envelope is also a matching stock color, printed tone on tone.
Published on
January 26, 2010 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: a7, bahamas, band, blu rasberry, bulldog, canaletto, coral, cotton, crest, Design, destination, envelope, floral, flourish, folder, french paper, graphic, invitations, invite, Letterpress, paper, pattern, scott peiffer, silhouette, stationery, system, tone on tone, Wedding.
Six Speed sent us this design for custom letterpress business cards. They are a specialized events marketing company here in Minneapolis. And what could be a better business card job really – crushing AND burning all on the same press sheet.
The cards were letterpress printed on 200lb Eclipse Black Wausau with silver ink, then the press sheet was laser cut. The laser cutting was used due to the complexity of the cutting die and the size of the print run. Laser cutting does a really nice job, especially on darker stocks were the edge burn is less evident. With lighter colored and white stocks, a mask is sometimes sometimes required to prevent burning marks on the face of the sheet.
Published on
November 24, 2009 in
Business Cards and Letterpress.
Tags: 200lb, black, burn, Business Cards, custom letterpress, cut, cutting, dark, Design, die, eclipse, ink, laser, laser cutting, laser die, marketing, minneapolis, notches, paper, pattern, performance, press sheet, printing, shape, silver, six speed, thick, wausau.
Abbie at Passing Notes is a master of refined print design. Her type is always exquisite and these cards for her client Aphro Chic were a pleasure to print. They are on a thick 60pt blotter stock with a flood of bold geometric pattern on the back and two color letterpress on the front. The blotter sheet has a pulpy appearance with lots of soft fiber texture. We printed the business cards along with a note card on the same press sheet so the print dollar went a bit further. The business cards were edge colored in a PMS match yellow for the perfect finishing accent.
Published on
October 21, 2009 in
Business Cards and Letterpress.
Tags: abbie, aphro chic, blotter, board, bold, Business Cards, CA, California, Design, edge, edge color, edge coloring, fiber, geometric, heavy, Letterpress, note, note card, passing notes, pattern, printed, printing, refined, San Francisco, soft, stock, texture, thick, typography, yellow.
A simple pattern goes a long way with letterpress printing. This is a design from the bride that uses a contemporary geometric pattern with a refined gray and yellow color palette. It is pressed on Crane Lettra 110lb Cotton stock with a matching Lettra envelope. The pattern even comes across the flap of the envelope. A nifty little details card directs you to the couples web site and replaces lengthy printed information that can clutter up an invitation suite. Connect with the bride Sabrena if you like the design style of this invite and would like her design services . The right pattern produces such beautiful letterpress texture. We’d love to print more like this.
Published on
June 16, 2009 in
Letterpress and Wedding.
Tags: bride design, California, contemporary, design texture, details, flap, geometric, invitation, invitations, invite, LA, Letterpress, letterpress wedding invitation, lettra, los angeles, modern, pattern, printing, simple, square, Wedding, yellow.
Fresh cards sent in from the good dudes at LovelyMPLS (who’ve got a real solid portfolio of design/screenprinted work). Two color print with ultra-bright day-glo pink and metallic silver on the good old 220lb Crane Lettra make for a very impressive and striking card, to say the least.
Check out that fine pattern work on the back- the envelope really got pushed with this one. A bunch of that line work is 1/4 point thick (literally as thick as a hair), tapering down, and on top of that the thing’s are reversed out!
Published on
June 8, 2009 in
Client Focus and Letterpress.
Tags: 220lb, day-glow, flourescent pink, Hairline, letterpressed, lettra, Linework, LovelyMPLS, metallic ink, pattern, registration, Reversed Out, tight.
The Sound Set event is an amazing line up of hip hop happening this Sunday in the Twin Cities, put on by Rhymsayers Entertainment. We just killed this letterpress poster job, 1000 qty 3 color posters in just over a day. This is some fresh geometric pattern and color designed by Adam Garcia – work you should certainly check out further over at The Pressure. And be sure to get a poster if you go to the event.
This poster is on 100lb Poptone cover stock from French Paper. It is a 15.5 x 23 size with some big solids going down. With this much ink we have to run the powder spray pretty heavy so the ink doesn’t transfer to the backs of each other. That makes the inside of the press look like a powdered doughnut. The powder spray is actually just a corn starch and works well to avoid offsetting ink transfer. Sucks to clean the press afterward though.
We love doing posters, but be aware that the polymer plating for large sizes can be expensive for small runs. Just the plate cost alone will run about $200 per color. That kills the price for a run of 50 posters with polymer. But 500 to 1000 quantity- now we’re talking. That spreads the plating cost out over more pieces and makes it more reasonable get on press. Not that we aren’t happy to do small runs, but plate cost is what it is regardless of quantity.
Published on
May 22, 2009 in
News.
Tags: 100lbC, 2009, adam garcia, cost, cylinder, font, geometric, Heidelberg, Letterpress, pattern, photo polymer, plate, poptone, poster, powder, rhymesayers, sound set, soundset, spray, the pressure, typography.
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.
Published on
March 12, 2009 in
Letterpress.
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.
We print for other creative companies both large and small. Our friends in Designworks at BBDO in New York made up this gem of an identity system for their new post production suite called The Kitchen at BBDO. The system blends some fun patterns and crisp tiny type onto coasters, business cards and a CD package. And it was among the projects we printed that won a feature in the Print Design Annual.
It is a misconception that letterpress is only for small projects. We are not scared to run a big press sheet and handle large volume work. The 4 panel, 2 pocket CD package ran 2 up on our full size 18 x 23 sheet and was custom die cut and converted. The coasters and business cards ran together on a second sheet. And the details still look edible.
Published on
March 2, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: BBDO, Business Cards, CD, coaster, designworks, identity, large format, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, package, packaging, pattern, press sheet, print, system, the kitchen at bbdo.
When Becky Rosenthal was launching her wedding photography business she asked us to both design and letterpress print her identity system. So many wedding invites are letterpressed, why not appeal to brides with the same tactility?
Here’s a couple design considerations for letterpress:
One of the things we like about letterpress is what happens to the white areas within a design. You can see in the logo below how the interior white spaces have a raised effect because the area around them is being pressed down. Creating those white spaces within a solid area is one of the things we try to include in our design work to show some dimension.
Another thing that works well in letterpress design is the inclusion of pattern. Rather than using large solid areas of color (which definitely are not well suited for letterpress) a flood of pattern adds both color and a texture that can be felt.
Published on
February 19, 2009 in
Design and Letterpress.
Tags: becky rosenthal, Business Cards, design services, identity, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, logo, pattern, photographer, Wedding.
Our design friends over at Westwerk have some tremendous attention to detail. Be careful, these images are NSFW. With dense black and custom silver inks printed on heavy 160lb chocolate colored stock, these cards are pretty sexy. That black ink on the dark stock impresses a subtle layer of texture. The silver was toned back with a bit of black mixed in. And the offset printed label wrap with a nice accent color is inset with a die cut and provides the information. Perfect.
Published on
February 15, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: black, brown, Business Cards, custom, details corporate events, die cut, diecut, label, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, pattern, silver, thick, westwerk.
