Tag Archive for 'type'

Custom Hand Lettered Wedding Invitations

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.

Modern Graphic Type Wedding

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’

A Narrow Elegant Business Card

These business cards are elegant and simple with an unusual format. Although the feel of the design is traditional, the 4.25 x 1.25 inch size presents as an untraditional business card size. The client, William and Mary, makes premium gift wrap collections, so the paper crafting of the printing was very important.

These cards were letterpress printed with 2 ink colors on each side. The cards also have a heavy blind letterpress impression graphic on both sides. This blind area overlaps type on the reverse side. To get an even type appearance and a heavy sculptural impression on both sides we printed a 110lb sheet of Crane Lettra Fluorescent White and pasted it together back to back after printing. By duplexing the stock to a thick 220lb weight after printing the impression show through is eliminated. It is a time consuming and more premium production step, worth it for the final look of these cards. The final step was a round corner die cut.

Wild Air Letterpress Poster

This poster was letterpress printed for the Artcrank poster show here in Minneapolis, which opened this last weekend. Since much of this show tends to be image and graphic heavy, we wanted our poster to stand apart with lettering only. It is an excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Considerations by the Way, 1860. The full sentence is actually, “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air’s salubrity.” (But “salubrity” is such an odd word and just didn’t work well in the design.) The lettering started as a hand drawn sketch, then refined in Adobe Illustrator. We printed with a photopolymer plate on Crane Lettra 300gsm Florecent White at 18 x 24 size.  They are on display now at One On One in Minneapolis.

They sold well at the opening night and are still available. There was some confusion about them being sold out. They are $30, to be purchased at One On One Bike Shop.

You can also buy one, now for sale on our studio site as well. Cost is $40.

Blind (inkless) Letterpress Business Card

These cards, designed by Jacob Ward have a heavy blind (inkless) letterpress impression on one side and black ink on the other. A blind hit needs a substantial amount of impression since it is relying only on the change in paper surface without any ink color to define the graphic. The large type size really pops on this card. If you have a good monitor and click through the pics below, you can see that even on a 220lb cotton stock there can be small amount of impression show through on the reverse side.

Squarespace Poster and Business Cards

The simplest looking things can be deceptively complex. This is a tricky little business card and a typographic poster for Squarespace New York. Designed by their Creative Director Tyler Thompson. The design shows restraint, making the logo treatment the hero. And the format is a square card of course.

So why is the business card tricky? It is custom duplexed stock, letterpress printed, laser die cut and edge colored. We custom duplexed Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb Cover up to a 220lb thickness. Then we letterpress printed them several up on a press sheet. A larger press sheet means we can economize the laser cutting by doing more at a time. The laser cutting can leave some scorch marks, so the sheet is masked with a paper tape that peels off after the cutting is complete. Then the sheet is trimmed up into cards and edge colored in black. That 220lb thickness shows off the edge and has a nice smooth surface. The poster is on Crane Lettra 110lb Flo white, pressed in a single PMS blue.

200 Year Calendar

This wonderfully typographic calendar is the work of Sonner, Vallée u. Partner in Munich, Germany. It is a true information architecture project, letterpress printed on thick cotton paper. Check out their online portfolio for some crisp and polished typographic excellence.

We printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White 220lb (600gsm) cotton stock in two colors -with deep impression text you can’t help but touch. The sheet is a large 420 x 297 mm.

Many Fold Farm Letterpress Business Cards

So often, what we do for our clients in the graphic design profession is disconnected from personal passions. This project managed to combine both food and design values. The food our family eats falls into a traditional foods diet, as recommended by the Weston Price Foundation. Which is why we were especially excited when Rebecca and Ross Williams asked us for business cards for their new adventure called Many Fold Farms. Their must-read blog is smartly written and shows a true passion for food and land. I’ve been learning about fine cheese and feeling a bit envious of their farming adventure.

This was both a design and print project for us, which is where our company can truly shine. Not that we don’t love printing the custom work of other designers and collaborating in the production process. We also love owning a design project from concept through production completion.

The design for the logotype merges custom 19th century inspired decorative capitals with slab serifs. We combined typographic texture with a folk inspired pierced tin borders and an inverted round corner die cut. The letterpress printing is on Crane Lettra Ecru (Ivory) 220lb Cover stock  for a thick and soft feel in a nice warm color. We produced two different sizes – an oversized card with farm information and a smaller card with personal contact info.

Rad!

Conrad Lim, a photographer out of LA, had some ideas for an identity and we made it happen. He was pretty darn excited that the letters R-A-D were smack dab in the center of his name so it was pretty clear where we needed to go with it.

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Eight Hour Day Letterpress Holiday Card

Not that a heart felt email blast or animated web message for the holidays isn’t all well and good, but as you may have guessed we are suckers for a good old fashioned ink on paper. The next few days, we’ll show some previous custom holiday projects we’ve letterpress printed in the hopes of inspiring your own letterpress holiday projects. The holiday card seems to be one of those notorious last minute tasks for creative types. We are already heavily into estimating custom cards for many designers. And as much as we love rushing last minute projects, earlier is always better and leaves many more production options available. Word to the wise, ask us early for an estimate on your project.

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Who says typographic characters don’t make delightful tree ornaments? This card was designed by Katie and Nate over at Eight Hour Day. The green combined with hot pink makes a unique holiday color combo. The card was die cut to produce two parts for a desktop Christmas tree, to be decorated further with objects on your desktop. It was letterpress printed on thick Fox River Blotter stock from Neenah Paper. Since the paper is produced without any surface sizing the blotter sheet has a more mottled appearance in how the textured surface accepts a large solid ink area like the green tree. This gives the printed piece some additional tactile quality. Fa la la la la, ooolala.

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Museum Board Business Card, Yellow Edge

A strikingly simple business card designed by Blok Design out of  Mexico City. Sweet type. We letterpress printed on some heavy 4 ply cotton museum board. Edged colored in a delicious yellow. A modern and materially elegant card indeed.

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Nashville Wedding Invitations

Designing your own wedding invitations has to be a designers most challenging project ever. And these are some to be proud of. The groom, Jefferson Perky of Perky Bros., designed these with an elegant typographic flair. They combine textural wood grain photography and letterpress printed type.

We produced these cards together on a 13 x 18 press sheet. The wedding invite was printed along with a save the date card, a thank you card, an accommodations card and a die cut vertical belly band. The stock was 100% cotton 110lbC Pearl White Crane Lettra. The wood grain was digitally printed, then the black type was letterpress printed.

When thinking about doing a letterpress wedding invitation it is important to consider all the cards you need upfront. We ultimately print everything together – saving us time and our clients cost. (Example – if you know you need a thank you card, plan to print it with the main invitation set.)

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