The book features work designed by us, as well as work designed by clients, all of which was produced here in our Minneapolis location. Pictures of our ever expanding workspace also made it in alongside a forward written by our Principal.
Since we couldn’t, in good conscience, let a book about us not include any actual letterpress, all of the covers were letterpress printed at Studio On Fire and shipped off to meet the gutt of the book in the final stages of production. Due to the heavy 100 point thickness of the recycled cover boards, all of the covers were hand fed into our Gietz platen press. They are printed with a day glo ink using deep etch copper plates. We love the contrast of raw and refined created by the bright color next to the gray board.
It’s already shipping in Europe and will be released here in the states in late October. We got our hands on an advance copy, so we thought we’d share a bit of a sneak peek with you.
This business card was designed by Webb de Vlam as part of their new identity launch. With design offices in both London and Chicago, they wanted a card that would surprise and delight clients and employees. The variety of bright accent color truly brings this project to life. The overlapping colors in the logo mark also create dimension by overprinting ink colors – a nice print interpretation of the online media logo.
The business cards are letterpress printed on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 165lb C with four spot Pantone colors. There are three spot gray colors common to all the cards – that was the easy part. What made things interesting were the ten additional accent colors that switch out on the logo and edges – each person in the company receiving a palette of four color versions.
There has definitely been a trend toward larger companies using letterpress printing in their identities. We manage business card projects for companies with one person, or several hundred employees. These type of projects are most effective when they are planned with shell sheets in mind. A shell is a sheet with multiple cards ganged up that has all the common colors and logo already printed. That way, when a new hire or reorder occurs, we have those sheets on hand and ready to imprint on future orders. Typically, this works best and is most cost effective when the variable information on a card is planned in only one color. We advise companies to think about their card needs inside the next 18-24 months when ordering shells. Contact us to establish a letterpress business card production plan for your company.
This is a letterpress card designed by Jessica Raley at Bantam Design for Squarespace. They are busy handing them out at SXSW Music Festival in Austin this weekend.
And they took some time to print, seven passes through the press to be exact. Due to the card volume, we printed them on larger 13 x 20 press sheet 15up. They are printed on two paper stocks. Side one on Wausau Royal Complements Eclipse Black, printed with black, varnish, dark silver, light silver. Side two is Mohawk Via Scarlet Red printed with varnish, black and light silver. To hide impression show through we pasted them together after printing, adding thickness and rigidity with another 100lb cover sheet in the middle. The final three ply paper thickness is 280lbC. We trimmed the sheets down and edge colored them in a metallic silver.
Sometimes when you run an island in the Bahamas, you’ll need a business card that reflects the surrounding beauty. This textural business card was designed by island director Cathy Daly for Musha Cay, David Copperfield’s lush 700 acre tropical retreat.
These cards were letterpress printed in three colors on an appropriately sandy colored Mohawk Loop Antique Vellum Husk, custom pasted to a 220lb weight. Note how the island seal is printed in with just tonal transparent white ink. After the letterpress printing, these sheets were pasted back to back with digitally printed sheets (with the island beach image) for a 320lbC final weight. Those sheets were trimmed into oversize 4 x 2 inch business cards and edge colored in a matching blue.
