Tag Archive for 'stock'

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Electric Green Edges

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Edge coloring is an amazing addition to a letterpress project. These are a couple thousand cards stacked up, just completed for GS Design in Milwaukee. They designed these for their client Dohmen. The radial dots are a nice contemporary design on the face of the card and the sides are a matching vibrant green. They are printed in two PMS colors on thick 165lb Neenah Solar White.

We can match edges to any printed PMS color. And the effect looks at it’s best on stock 160lb or thicker. It’s taken us a few years of practice to get the edge coloring production process just right, so we are purposefully a bit elusive about exactly how we do this. It has something to do with unicorn tears and hens teeth. ;) The effect is much more subtle when seen as a single business card and always makes people take a closer look.

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Published on April 20, 2009 in Letterpress. 12 Comments Tags: 160lb, 165lb, accent, bright, business, card, color, coloring, contemporary, cover, edge, green, heavy, Letterpress, letterpress services, paint, pantone, paper, pms, printed, printer, printing, stack, stain, stock, thick, typography.

Bingo, A Meat Raffle And Letterpress

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If you aren’t sure what a “meat raffle” is you should really look it up to fully understand the heritage of this design. It’s good to see a fine establishment carry on this noble tradition. Our friends at Fame created this cuss-worthy design for Continue reading ‘Bingo, A Meat Raffle And Letterpress’

Published on April 19, 2009 in Letterpress. 8 Comments Tags: 60, 60pt, a10, bar, beer, board, brown, coaster, dark, darts, Design, dive, envelope, ephemera, Fame, fameretail, foos ball, gold, heavy, ink, invitation, invite, Letterpress, letterpress services, meat, metallic, minneapolis, minnesota, orange, party, point, pulp, raffle, Sam Soulek, sizing, stock, thick, typography, vintage.

Your Business Card Is Crap

We watched this last week and haven’t been able to stop pulling quotes from it.

Published on April 18, 2009 in Completely Unrelated. 15 Comments Tags: business, business card, card, crap, Design, humor, Letterpress, paper, stock, video.

Tuscany Semi Formal Wedding Invitation

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Designer Aya Ikegaya created this beautiful invitation structure for a wedding in Tuscany, Italy. We produced this by combining letterpress printing with blind embossing. The outer sleeve is actually the invitation. Inside is a thick cotton card letterpress printed with Continue reading ‘Tuscany Semi Formal Wedding Invitation’

Published on April 15, 2009 in Letterpress and Wedding. 6 Comments Tags: aya ikegaya, blind, copper, cotton, die, emboss, embossing, Formal, invitation, invite, Letterpress, letterpress services, lettra, no ink, paper, Semi, stock, Tuscany, Wedding.

One Card For Three People

The esteemed fellows at Wilderness in Portland sent us an unusually simple business card for letterpress printing. Rather than load up the card with four telephone numbers, an email, a fax, a twitter, etc – they all simply share the same card. A nice solution for keeping cost down too. Wilderness is the new design trailhead of Aaron James Draplin, John Phemister and David Nakamoto. We can’t wait to see what they do next.

Of course, simple design doesn’t always mean simple production. We printed these on 220lb Pearl White Lettra, 100% cotton. Flooding a dark color like this on letterpress is difficult to lay down and keep consistent over the course of the print run – especially on a stock that has some texture to the surface. When we print a solid like this, we generally go to our Paul Bunyan of Heidelberg Windmill presses – the 13 x 18. Even so, there is still a salty, weathered look to how a stock like this will take a solid coverage on letterpress. But we like it that way, it ain’t offset.

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Published on April 14, 2009 in Letterpress. 3 Comments Tags: 13 x 18, 220lb, business card, color, cotton, dark, DDC, Draplin, Field Notes, flood, Heidelberg, Letterpress, letterpress services, lettra, Nakamoto, OR, pearl, Phemister, portland, printer, printing, solid, stock, typography, white, Wilderness, Windmill.

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.

Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 1

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This is a big post with lots of images so be sure and see Part 2 as well.

We’ve been an online friend with French designer Fabien Barrel for a while. He’s been kind enough to show our press work on his Graphic Exchange website. His site is a finely curated collection of designers and projects from all over the world. Be sure and see it next time you need some graphic inspiration.

Fabien collected three other friends that also wanted letterpress printed business cards. Fabien Barrel designed his card and the card for So Goods. Fred Dauzat designed his card and the card for Limited Press. We letterpress printed these cards together with Continue reading ‘Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 1′

Published on April 7, 2009 in Letterpress. 0 Comments Tags: blind, Business Cards, card, fabien barrel, france, fred dauzat, french, graphic exchange, heavy, impression, ink, Letterpress, letterpress services, limited press, minneapolis, minnesota, paper, so goods, stock, thick.

Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2

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This is part two showing the production of business cards on our Heidelberg Windmill. Be sure and see Part 1 showing the finished cards.

We start with a high resolution film negative. The negative is used to expose the plastic plates. The plates are attached to an aluminum base and placed into the press. The press uses air suction to pick up a sheet of paper on the left side and deliver it into the press for printing. The printed sheets are automatically stacked in the delivery pile on the right side of Continue reading ‘Four Friends Letterpress Business Cards – Pt 2′

Published on April 7, 2009 in Letterpress and Printing Tips and Tricks. 4 Comments Tags: 10 x 15, 10x15, blind, Business Cards, card, fabien barrel, france, fred dauzat, french, graphic exchange, heavy, Heidelberg, impression, ink, Letterpress, letterpress services, limited press, minneapolis, minnesota, paper, press room, printer, printing, so goods, stock, thick, Windmill.

Trajectory: Shapely Cards With A Punch

The folks over at Cue don’t mess around. They designed this seriously good card with a cartouche-like outer shape. We printed a single color letterpress on each side and die cut the cards with a small punch in the center.

When you are printing a business card with letterpress on each side, usually one side is chosen as the “hero side” and gets a bit more impression. When die cutting the hero side also faces up. The side on which the knife enters the paper is more rounded – more noticeable on thick stocks. This card is 100% cotton Crane Cover 179lb Pearl White.

(Completely unrelated: when my angry and nerdy designer side comes out with an insult, I’m likely to call somebody a cartouche-bag.)

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Published on March 24, 2009 in Letterpress. 1 Comment Tags: 179lb, business card, cotton, cover, crane, cue, design cue, die cut, die cutting, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, pearl white, punch, stock, trajectory.

Secret Agent Man Letterpress Business Cards

The thickness of these cards allows them to also serve as a secret weapon. When your primary audience for business card hand off is art directors and designers, your card had better be memorable. A 55 point coaster board makes them fantastically textural and unstoppable. Clockwork Active Media Systems designed these for photographer rep Jeff Cerise – aka Secret Agent Man. They are hot off the press.

One thing to note about Coaster Board – it does not take a sculptured impression like other softer sheets. The surface will break. One of the detail photos below shows the surface cracking that will occur with to much pressure. This is likely especially in interior areas of artwork and must be watched for and adjusted to avoid this breakage. However, the finish of the stock is nice and pulpy – a definate stand-out among more typical paper mill stocks. We also like the “salty” look to the dark ink color on this stock. Gives it an aged / weathered appearance.

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Published on March 4, 2009 in News. 4 Comments Tags: 55 point, 55pt, board, Business Cards, clockwork, clockwork active media, coaster, cracking, jeff cerise, Letterpress, letterpress services, minneapolis, photographer, rep, salty, secret agent man, stock, thick, ultra.

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. 9 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.