The Studio On Fire 2010 Calendar is now available on our new web site. This calendar is a decade marker for us. Established the end of 1999, Studio On Fire began letterpress printing in a cold Minnesota basement. Our first press occupied a spot between the boiler and the litter box, and oh, how the studio has since grown. Now seven presses strong with a fully equipped studio space, we celebrate ten years as a bustling design and print studio.
This Tenfold Edition calendar is letterpress printed with four colors on a cotton-blend stock, each month beautifully illustrated by selected designers the world over.
Contributors:
Jan/Jul_ Studio On Fire
Feb/Aug_Cecilie Ellefsen
Mar/Sept_ Brian Gunderson
Apr/Oct_ The Little Friends of Printmaking
May/Nov_ ghostpatrol
Jun/Dec_ Rilla Alexander (Rinzen)
Published on
January 7, 2010 in
Design, Letterpress, News and Studio On Fire Products.
Tags: 2010, Brian Gunderson, brown, calendar, day-glo, Design, easel stand, edition, florescent, ghostpatrol, green, illustration, Letterpress, little friends of printmaking, months, pink, poptone, printing, rinzen, studio on fire, tenfold.
This is a holiday card about appealing to the sense – it looks, smells and feels just right. OrangeSeed Design created this card for their holiday message plus a cup of orange tea. We letterpress printed the cards on French Paper Poptone Sweet Tooth, 140lbC. Also included were string tags for the tea bags on the same press sheet. The card was die cut with a slit to hold the tea bags and scored into tri-fold panels.
Published on
October 29, 2009 in
Holiday and Letterpress.
Tags: 140lb, blue, card, die, die cut, fold, folding, french, Holiday, letter press, Letterpress, minneapolis, orange, orangeseed, orangeseed design, paper, poptone, printing, senses, tags, tea, tea bag, two color.
Scott Ray uses his favorite lid as his design monicker. He designed these cards using a colored paper stock and two inks. This card represents a couple really good ways to use ink on colored paper stock.
Using a colored paper is a great way to get a solid splash of color in a letterpress project without laying down a bunch of ink. But moving to darker colored papers presents challenges in printing. “Opaque” white ink really isn’t a great option since it really isn’t very opaque. With the exception of metallic inks, letterpress inks are transparent. So we used a metallic silver to print the lighter colored text. The tone-on-tone effect of printing a dark red ink on red stock is another great way to use ink on colored paper. The stock is 100lbC French Poptone which was custom duplexed to a double thick 200lb cover weight for a sturdy “thump factor”.
Published on
June 23, 2009 in
Letterpress.
Tags: 200lb, business, cards, colored, Design, duplexed, effect, french, hat, ink, Letterpress, letterpress business cards, metallic, my old red hat, opaque, paper, poptone, printing, red, scott ray, stock, transparent, unique.
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.
