Tag Archive for 'silver'

Heads of State Business Cards

For some illustration inspiration and silk screen goodness check out the Heads of State from Philadelphia. They designed these business cards with an insignia that turns the national USA seal on its ear, adding an extra head and replacing the olive branch and arrows with a pencil and x-acto knife. We letterpress printed in black and dark silver on both sides of Crane Lettra 220lb FLo White and edge colored to match the silver – it’s a card thick enough to plant a listening device inside. And maybe we did that too… maybe.

Published on February 1, 2010 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: 220lb, Business Cards, crane, edge color, edge coloring, emblem, heads of state, insignia, Letterpress, lettra, national, philadelphia, printing, seal, silk screen, silver.

Iron Beast Poster – Toys In The Attic Show

This is our letterpress poster for the Toys In The Attic show opening at the Soo Visual Arts Center on Dec 4th from 6 to 9PM. The show features both custom toys and toy inspired posters. Proceeds benefit Toys For Tots. Hey, that’s tomorrow night! We hope to see you there.

These beasts are in fact our toys. The graphic beasts are constructed from various press parts and form into a crest that commemorates ten years of printing here at Studio On Fire. The dog latin phrase reads “Iron Beasts Make Great Beauty”. It is printed in fluorescent and dark silver inks on Crane Lettra Flo White 220lbC at 13 x 13 size.

It was ten years ago this month back in 1999 that the first C&P was lowered into the then basement studio. More to come on our own ten year anniversary party soon.

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Published on December 3, 2009 in Design, Letterpress, News and Posters. 0 Comments Tags: 220lb, beast, crane, crest, Design, edition, fluorescent, ink, iron, Letterpress, lettra, minneapolis, poster, press parts, print, printer, silver, soo, soo visual arts center, soovac, studio on fire, ten years, toys for tots, toys in the attic, unique.

Dita Eyewear LA Business Cards

These are the brand new cards for Dita Eyewear in Los Angeles. Bryan Crabtree designed them and did a nice post over on his blog too. The blind flourish on the light side and the diamond pattern on the black gives these cards a tonal and elegant look.

We first printed these as two sheets, a natural color and black stock and then pasted the sheets together after printing. This step eliminates show through of the impression when printing a two sided design. We’ve found that the gluing of the sheet after it is printed does flatten back some of the impression, so we start with a heavy impression initially. The lighter color stock is Wausau Compliments Natural White 100lbC and is printed with a blind pass and black ink. The black stock is Wausau Eclipse Black 100lbC and is printed with PMS 8001 silver and black ink. The final thickness is 200lbC, about the thickness of a US dime. After printing and gluing, the cards were die cut to the final shape with angled corners.

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Published on November 30, 2009 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 4 Comments Tags: 100lbC, 200lbC, angle, black, blind, bryan crabtree, business, Business Cards, California, card, cards, cut, Design, die, die cutting, diecut, duplex, fashion, inkless, LA, Letterpress, los angeles, natural, off white, offwhite, paste, pasted, shape, silver, white.

Six Speed Biz Cards – Crushed AND Burned

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.

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Published on November 24, 2009 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 4 Comments 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.

Timberwolves Basketball Invitation

Chris at Echo Creative designed this invite for an exclusive Timberwolves event. Getting court side tickets for the season is a big deal and attracting the right people to get in on the action requires an invite with some presence. This clean and tactile card is much visually different than the usual slick and colorful NBA related material. But its overall size and thick luxury material make their own statement. And, the dimpled basketball pattern just looks great printed letterpress.

The invite is a massive over sized 12 x 19 inch card printed on Crane Lettra 220lb Flo. White paper stock. The card is printed with silver and a light silver tinted opaque white ink and the text area is die cut to remove as a ticket to the event. If this is what basketball is about, I’m in.

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Published on November 9, 2009 in Letterpress. 3 Comments Tags: 220lb, basketball, custom, echo creative, exclusive, flo wh, invitation, invitations, invite, Letterpress, lettra, luxe, luxury, nba, printing, silver, tickets, timberwolves, white ink.

A Study In Black Letterpress Business Cards

In our custom letterpress work we see an almost daily request from designers for white inks and/or light colored inks printed on dark colored paper stocks. Since white ink and light colored inks are not completely opaque, the ink will print on the paper with some transparency. This ink transparency is more evident the darker the paper color. This issue represents a learning curve for folks coming to letterpress print production for the first time. White ink does not turn out bright white and light colors will not print lighter than the stock color they are printing on. Metallic inks are a notable exception and will print opaque on colored stocks.

These card design offers a look at what letterpress printing CAN do. These business card were designed by Aadvark Brigade, Chris Straley Photography, and JDH Group. The designs shown are printed on the same black paper stock – 200lb Wausau Eclipse Black.

- The Straley card is black and silver ink.

- The Aardvark card is Opaque white and silver inks.

- The JDH Group is black, silver and metallic blue overprinting the silver inks.

The final cards turned out great and offer a nice comparison of how the various inks letterpress print side by side. Notice how the white ink has almost a blueish appearance. The black ink gives a nice tonal effect and a metallic color overprinting silver offers some additional opacity to the color.

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Published on October 20, 2009 in Business Cards and Letterpress. 2 Comments Tags: 200lb, 877, aardvark, black, brigade, Business Cards, card, cards, chris straley, color, colored stock, commercial, comparison, custom, Design, eclipse black, ink, jdh group, Letterpress, letterpressed, metallic, opaque, paper, photography, printing, silver, stock, transparent, wausau, white.

Tone-on-tone white and black inks

We have a lot of requests for blind (inkless) impression with letterpress plates. However, a tonal ink is often something we suggest rather than a truly blind impression. If the stock being printed does not lend itself to deep impression, the artwork needs some legibility or the art work is on both sides of the sheet, a blind hit can be ill advised. The amount of impression needed to clearly read a completely blind hit will create impression show through on the reverse side of the printed piece. One of the ways we get around this is to mix a tonal ink, shown here on both black and white business card samples. By printing a tone, we can lessen the impression and dial up the legibility a bit.

The black stock is 200lb Wausau Eclipse Black. It is letterpress printed with a black and silver ink mix.

The white stock is 220lb Crane Lettra Flo. White. It is letterpress printed with opaque white ink contaminated with 877 silver.

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Published on July 30, 2009 in Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks. 6 Comments Tags: 200lb, 220lb, black, blind, business, Business Cards, cards, cover, crane, eclipse, flo wh, impression, ink, inkless, Letterpress, lettra, opaque, plates, printer, silver, tonal, tone, tone on tone, wausau, white.

Black + Blotter Business Cards – Space150 v23

Space 150 changes their identity every 150 days. And with an identity process and look all their own, today marks the 23rd version of the Space 150 brand. This is a business card project we’ve managed the letterpress print production on for several versions now. Designed by Ned Wright at Space 150, this simple looking card still combines 4 production processes. Can you spot all four? Here they are:

250gsm Black Stonehenge sheet – FOIL STAMPED with gloss black foil.

22 pt White blotter sheet – LETTERPRESS PRINTED with silver ink.

After printing, these sheets are DUPLEX pasted back to back for zero impression show through.

After trimming the cards to size, they are EDGE COLORED in black for a clean look on the edge.

We print these cards for around 70 people. For a large studio, value comes with quantity. It would be fiscally improbable for an individual to produce a design like this on a small run of cards. (If you have to ask, “How much?”… )

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Published on June 5, 2009 in Completely Unrelated and Letterpress. 9 Comments Tags: black, blotter, business, Business Cards, cards, Design, duplex, edge color, edge coloring, edge painting, foil, foil stamped, impression, ink, Letterpress, minneapolis, ned wright, printing, silver, space150, stonehenge, typography, unique.

Back In Black

I’m back after a helluva week with some crazy virus. I miss writing this thing!

This is a sweet little business card designed by Andrew Young at Exclamation 101. The information wraps the card from front to back. We letterpress printed them on a thick two ply black museum board. Weight wise, it is about 200lbC which gives virtually no show through. We really like the finish on this sheet too. The impression takes with a nice crisp bite and the black is very dense compared to commercial papers. The metallic silver ink offers great opacity on the black stock.

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Published on May 15, 2009 in Letterpress. 5 Comments Tags: 2ply museum, andrew young, black, board, business card, exclamation 101, heavy, impression, ink, Letterpress, silver, thick, two sided.

Black Tie & Black Paper: Wedding In Edinburgh

Setting the tone for a black tie event with rich black paper just seems logical. Black paper should actually be a requirement if you are having a reception in a castle. (insert jealous sigh here) This contemporary type and linear design is letterpress printed with silver ink on 250gsm Stonehenge Black Paper in a horizontal format. It’s nice to see the type arranged outside typical wedding layouts. These invites were designed by a fantastic design firm – Field - based out of Copenhagen and Dublin. Which goes to show we are happy to letterpress print custom work for designers everywhere.

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Published on May 4, 2009 in Letterpress and Wedding. 11 Comments Tags: black, black tie, castle, copenhagen, denmark, Design, dublin, edinburgh, field, fieldmice, ink, ireland, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, minnesota, paper, printing, reception, silver, stock, stonehenge, type, typography, Wedding.

Skin Of The Night By Deuce 7

One of the finest poster shops around is Art Minion in Northeast Minneapolis. We just completed a letterpress poster edition called “Skin Of The Night” they commissioned for artist Deuce 7. His fantastic illustrative style is influenced by train yards and riding the rails.

We completed the edition on a variety of colored stocks with an interesting spread of colors. Posters are one color, but the color of the stock changes and the color of the ink changes, giving the whole edition a wide variety of final combinations. These images show some of the metallic prints we rolled. There is silver, gold and copper ink on brown stock. It’s a good comparison of how metallic ink goes down on dark paper. And word has it that Deuce is hand embellishing some of the edition. You can buy one from Art Minion.

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Published on April 13, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 27, 7, art, art minion, copper, dark, deuce, edition, fine, gold, ink, Letterpress, letterpress services, metallic, minneapolis, northeast, poster, print, silver, stock, train, twenty seven.

Look Mom, No Script Fonts – A Wedding Invite

If script fonts on wedding invitations generally make your stomach turn, this invite layout should provide some typographic Alka-Seltzer. That’s what happens when a great interactive designer gets married. Designed by the groom himself, Jamey Erickson principal over at Sevnthsin in Minneapolis created his invites with a simple and bold typographic layout. Check out some Sevnthsin interactive work here. (They did this great website recently for P.O.S.)

The column layout using justified type accents information and creates heirarchy in a way unique to wedding invitations. The invite set was letterpress printed in our studio with black and silver ink on a single press sheet to keep costs reasonable. (just the little dotted lines of hearts are in silver) The whole invitation set uses Crane Lettra 110lb Pearl White cotton paper stock with matching envelopes. The program card was printed separately closer to the wedding date. It is a very long and narrow card format with printing on each side to handle all the program information. All in all, simple type, done up proper.

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