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.
This wedding invitation for Andy and Drew is certainly a unique format. It was designed by Drew Hodgson for his wedding in Palm Springs, CA. The bold colors and contemporary shapes make the design both modern and masculine. The invite is actually a folder enclosure that opens to reveal the invitation text on the flap. The folder opens further to Continue reading ‘Modern Graphic Type Wedding’
One of the best ways to get lots of color in a letterpress project is to print a colored paper. For these business cards Cricket Design Works in Madison, WI chose three colors for some extra vibrant variety in their design.
The paper is all custom duplexed from French Paper Poptone colors. We love the color options and small quantity availability of this paper line. These cards are printed on Gumdrop Green, Wild Cherry and Blu Raspberry each pasted to Poptone Sweet Tooth White on the opposite site for a 200lb heavy weight. The cards were printed with a metallic silver ink first, then overprinted in black. The same artwork and ink colors were used for all three business cards on the press sheets. (Everyone received all three colors.) This made the project more budget friendly since all we had to do was change out paper stock while running the prints – no extra wash ups or ink color changes.
These two posters came to us from agency friends at Bailey Lauerman, illustrated by the ever fabulous Rilla Alexander of Rinzen. This TUNE project was sponsored via federal grant by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Bailey Lauerman launched TUNE which uses music to inspire young women to make better choices and live healthier lives. There are 8 selected artists out of 150 entries, and their music was written and recorded specific for this project. Songs are free to download from the TUNE website.
We printed the posters with a split ink fountain using florescent pink and blue inks which blended to a nice purple in the middle. We kept the lateral ink distribution setting at maximum spread for a good blend in the poster. It was printed on French Paper Poptone Whip Cream 140lbC.
This is an iphone video of the job on press. Lo res, but you’ll get the idea of how the fountain looks.
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)
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.
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”.
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.
