Tag Archive for 'stationery'

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Hey, Nice Ensemble

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.

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Published on March 12, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment 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.

Six Degrees Of Colored Paper

Since letterpress doesn’t do a great job flooding a page with ink, designers must come up with production alternatives to bring in big areas of color. One of the things that can be done when designing for letterpress is combining different colored paper stocks. This works especially well for projects with multiple pieces that need to coordinate – like stationery systems, wedding invitations, etc. Our previous post on the Ocean House system shows a splash of color added to the back of everything via offset printing. Adding a contrasting paper stock for pieces like envelopes and cards can be a more cost effective production solution to still add color to letterpress and avoid offset (or “flat” printing as people call it when comparing to letterpress)

This system designed over at Space150 by Jason Strong brings color to the system by adding a couple contrasting papers. We printed the same letterpress ink color on the white stock and then the burgundy colored stock for the envelopes. This creates a tone-on-tone effect that remains legible and adds a nice texture. A smaller note card in a pink stock also matches the pink ink used throughout the pieces. The business cards are on thick 220lb Crane Lettra, which does an excellent job eliminating the impression show through of a two sided card.

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Published on March 11, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 220lb, Business Cards, colored, crane, envelope, envelopes, flood, jason strong, Letterpress, letterpress services, lettra, offset, paper, space150, stationary, stationery, thick, two sided.

Ocean House Stationery – Mucca Design

Our good friends at Mucca Design in NYC designed this beauty. A tight piece of typography with a punch of color to bring everything to life makes this system sweet.

The large color flood on the back of everything is offset printed. Then we printed two color letterpress. The paper is Monadnock PC100 throughout which gives a nice warmness and a little texture.

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Published on March 9, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: business papers, businss cards, card, Design, envelope, flood, ink, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, mucca, ocean house, offset, stationary, stationery.

Sweetheart Seamstress Stationery

Check out a feature from our own product line…

The Studio On Fire Deskline contains uniquely formatted and detailed paper goods. Sweetheart Seamstress stationery elements include stitched journals, letter writing sets, punch-out calling card and tag sets, self mailing notes with pinhole perforated labels and mini folders.

Look for these details: custom scalloped edge envelopes, fill-in-your-name calling cards, mini book marks, perforated label sheets with dry gum backing.

Our vision for a product line was to create finished pieces that captures some of the random qualities that happen in test prints and makeready. We worked with Kelly English and Kindra Murphy on three different product themes. On this theme, Kelly used vintage sewing pattern inspired elements to create layers of texture and pattern. The detail is almost to cute to stand. And of course all of it is letterpress printed. They can be purchased on our website.

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Published on March 7, 2009 in Design, Letterpress and Studio On Fire Products. 7 Comments Tags: bookmarks, calling cards, card, deskline, envelope, folders, handmade, journals, kelly english, labels, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, mailer, minneapolis, patterns, product, scalloped edge, sewing, stationery, stitched, studio on fire, sweetheart seamstress, tags, thread.

Black Paper: White Vs. Silver Inks

Here is an image comparison of “opaque” white ink to silver ink. We did this little letterpress test to illustrate why opaque ink really isn’t opaque.

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Note: The small type in these images is about 4 point serif type.

We offer letterpress services to designers around the country and are constantly asked to print white ink on black paper. You can see above that it does not look crisp and bright like you might expect it to. The conversation we have with designers goes something like this:

- Can I have white ink printed on my black paper?

Yes, but it will not be opaque like you might expect.

- What will it look like?

Sort of whitish blue and blotchy and with a bit of ink squeeze on the edges.

- Oh, why doesn’t it just print white?

Opaque white ink for letterpress and offset printing is actually not very opaque.

- Why is there ink squeeze?

A thicker film of ink must be run on press to achieve any sort of opacity. When the ink is run thick on letterpress, you get ink squeezing out at the edge of the artwork.

- Can you do anything to get it to print up better?

We can run the paper through twice. The first pass is run with almost no ink and heavy impression. The second pass is run with heavy ink and just a kiss impression. This allows the white ink to sit right on the surface of the paper. It is not a very nice bright white, more of a blueish white.

- Does twice through the press mean I’ll pay more?

Of course.

- What do you recommend?

Print a metallic ink. Unlike opaque white ink, metallic ink is actually opaque. One hit of metallic ink can get good coverage on dark colored stock. A double pass of the metallic ink can even offer a nice sheen.

- How about yellow or pink, will that work on black paper?

Nope, this goes for all inks of a lighter color printing on darker colored stock. The stock affects the color of the ink. Colors printing on dark colored papers will not be opaque.

- How can I know what my ink color will look like printed on a colored paper.

We recommend using the “multiple” filter in Adobe Illustrator. It isn’t a perfect match but does give a good approximation.

- Is there another printing method that can print opaque white?

Silkscreen Printing – but small details can suffer.

Foil Stamping – but small details can suffer.

Engraving – but the size and nature of the artwork is limited. And the cost is $$$.

- Can you engrave it for me?

We do only letterpress printing services and some small foil stamping work. We do not do engraving. We partner with another vendor for engraving services when there is engraving combined with letterpress printing.

- Hmm, maybe metallic ink will work for me…

Great, we are glad you understand!

Published on March 2, 2009 in News. 7 Comments Tags: black letterpress, black paper, Business Cards, card, colored, double, engrave, engraving, foil stamping, foiling, ink, letterpress services, metallic, minneapolis, opaque, silver, stationery, stock, tip, white.

Laurie DeMartino – Letterpress Identity

We love involved custom production projects with other design firms – especially identity systems. The refined work of designer Laurie DeMartino exemplifies the level of production we strive for in our letterpress shop. A keen eye for detailed type and color makes her design work striking. In fact, we believe she has a sixth sense related to finessing details. We worked with her to produce this identity system by matching her attention to detail on press.

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Some noteworthy things about this system:

We partnered with another vendor to produce the offset floods of color on the letterhead and envelopes. Those big fields of color are next to impossible to hold consistent on letterpress. We can do larger areas of color (we did it on the note card and business card) but there is more variation in letterpress printing than in offset. When that variation is desirable we will print a flood of color on certain stocks. When it is not desirable, we recommend combining letterpress with offset. (Yes, that adds cost.) It is worth noting that we can print a large press sheet and often work in tandem with commercial offset printing.

Business Cards are 5 PMS /1 PMS. We matched the ink printed offset with our letterpress ink.

All the type and small graphics are letterpress printed. Light colored type is a heavy impression with custom mixed varnish. You can see in the letterhead detail and business card detail the show through on the reverse of the sheet.

The envelope is custom converted and has a perforation line across the flap.

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Published on February 25, 2009 in Letterpress. 3 Comments Tags: blind, Business Cards, commercial, custom, envelope, identity, impression, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, notecard, offset, perforation, printing, stationary, stationery, system, varnish.

Portsmouth Tea Stationery – Letterpress Identity

An identity system need not have enough colors to choke a horse. Letterpress printing makes the understated shine. This system for Portsmouth Tea Company is magnificently elegant and simple. Just a single color – metallic silver. And premium materials – Crane 100% cotton paper. Notice the custom converted policy style envelope incorporating the shape into the flap. 179lb Crane Cover cardstock for the business cards.

We pride ourselves in planning production closely with design firms. Our friends at HV Anderson in Louisville, Kentucky designed this identity. We think it’s flawless.

Published on February 23, 2009 in Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: business card, cotton, crane, custom converted, die cut, envelope, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, metallic, minneapolis, portsmouth, printing, silver, stationery, two sided.

Affordable Letterpress Wedding Invitations

The economy being in the tank doesn’t mean people stop getting married. Letterpress wedding invitation sets can be affordable with a little planning. One of the things that we do to make printing them affordable is run all of the pieces on the same press sheet. Our presses are big enough to run several different cards on the same press sheet, then trim them down to size. This represents a huge cost savings over printing individual cards, setting up the press for each form on each card. Good god – that takes some time! Having a big press has it’s advantages.

We do not have a library of wedding invitations to choose from like many letterpress shops. Our approach to weddings is strictly custom. All the wedding work we print is either supplied by other designers or created in our studio.

Michael Carpenter at Switch Creative created these for his own wedding. We admire the simplicity and the typographic restraint. Three cheers to couples who can design their own invites and live to tell the tale.

You can see how he got all four of these cards printed together by comparing the final cards to the press sheet. The Invite, Reply, Save the Date and Thank You all pressed together makes the cost much more attractive than pricing them all individually. So think about the various pieces you need we’ll get them together on a sheet for you. It’ll save you money and create marital bliss.

Published on February 12, 2009 in Letterpress and Wedding. 8 Comments Tags: affordable, cheap, custom, invitations, invites, Letterpress, letterpress services, michael carpenter, press sheet, printing, stationery, switch creative, Wedding, wholesale.

Amma Maternity Stationery – With An Egg

The design team at Imagehaus created a delightful system for Amma Maternity. We printed a simple two color letterpress system with an egg shape die cut for the cards. We ran the solid ink for the business cards on our Heidelberg cylinder press to achieve the pressure and the ink coverage required to print this area. First we printed the chicken, then the egg. Or was it the other way round?

Published on February 10, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: amma maternity, Business Cards, die cut, egg shape, envelope, identity system, imagehaus, letterhead, Letterpress, letterpress services, stationary, stationery.

Kelly English Business Cards

Kelly English is a Minneapolis designer who worked with us on our Charmed and Sweetheart Seamstress Deskline stationery. Those paper goods are for sale on our Studio Site. We were excited to print her own card design. Her approach to the standard business card takes good advantage of a press sheet. We print them all the same time and trim them down.

A note about halftones – Letterpress can print screens of a color like offset, but the line screen is heavier. Think about it as a black and white newspaper image. We can comfortable hold on to about 80dpi on the typical uncoated papers. You can see the halftone detail in these cards creates an amazing texture. And with the overprinting magenta and yellow duotone – those girls are HOT.

Published on January 29, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: Business Cards, deskline, halftone, kelly english, Letterpress, letterpress printing, letterpress services, overprint, stationery.