Our business card die cuts four cards in a single pass. We usually die cut our business card jobs, even when the job doesn’t call for an unusual shape. After this print run dried, a third printing run was made on the reverse of the pages.Ĭutting! Printing is finished and the job is ready to cut. This design, like most we produce, has cross-hair trim marks made into the plate that serve not only as cutting guides, but printing guides as well. Consistent placement of every print on every sheet is a must for quality printing. For this particular run, the red ink ran out relatively quickly and frequent re-inkings were required.Īll presses have a system of registration. Adjustments are made to produce the desired color, and the print run is checked periodically to be sure the color is consistent. Differences in pressure and the amount of ink can dramatically affect the printed color. The ink is allowed to dry and the next day the press is inked up in red. The 220 lb Crane Lettra paper, double than the standard 110 lb weight (and more than twice the cost), allows for a deeper impression on both sides, which was desired by the client. This produces 8 cards per sheet in a process called a work-and-turn. The sheet of paper is hand-fed through the press twice, once from each end of the paper. This plate prints an area half the size of the sheet. Too little, and the color will not be solid. Too much ink will produce a sloppy print. Even the inking process has to be done carefully. When possible, ink can be weighed out to match a specific color recipe, but in our shop we mix everything by eye, often matching to a specific Pantone color. The plate is affixed to a machined metal base which is in turn locked into the press. These plates match a gridded Boxcar Base, a machined aluminum plate that raises the plate to type high. We send our designs to Boxcar Press, where they transfer your digital design onto a polymer plate. A separate plate is produced for every color being printed, and the paper is run through the press at least once for each color in the design. What remains is a raised surface in the shape of the design. The portions of the plate that are exposed through the clear parts of the film hardens, and what is not washes away. The polymer plate is made of a light-sensitive, water-soluble plastic with a clear backing. The digital design is output to a film as a negative (left), and then exposed to a polymer plate using UV light (right). Polymer plates are produced using a photographic process. Today, these presses are sought after for their quality and large printing size. In this press’s first life it probably pulled proofs of pages for a daily newspaper.
These cards were printed on Crane Lettra 220 lb Pearl White cotton paper. They were designed for a wedding photography company called Readyluck, by Baltimore designer Christopher Clark. The images below walk you through the process of printing 2-color, double-sided business cards on a Vandercook SP-20 printing press.
The printing part is still by hand, one at a time.
Designing for letterpress today begins on a computer, and as such, new fonts, embellished ornaments, graphics, patterns, and complicated multi-color designs can be produced with relative ease. What began with hand-set wood and metal type (read more about this from Jen of Starshaped Press here) has become an industry centered around the photo polymer plate.
It’s easy to forget that what we treasure today as an artisan product, made by a well-trained craftsperson, was once known simply as printing. Today’s cottage industry of letterpress printers has been built on the shoulders of 100 years of printing industry, starting around the late 1800s. Letterpress printing has become the go-to printing technique for wedding invitations, greeting cards, and business cards for anyone hoping to make an impression (pun intended) on the recipient. We’re thrilled to share the process of letterpress printing with you and how things work in our shop. Hello OSBP! We’re Kim and Kyle from Baltimore Print Studios, a public-access letterpress and screen printing studio where we also print commercially and for ourselves. Today Kim and Kyle from Baltimore Print Studios are here to walk us through modern letterpress printing!
#LADYFINGERS LETTERPRESS SERIES#
Every morning this week, I’m running a series of guests posts about different printing methods – so if you’ve ever wondered why certain printing methods are best for certain kinds of designs (or cost more than others), this is for you! You can read the previous installments covering digital printing, engraving, screen printing, letterpress printing with antique type, and foil stamping all right here.
0 kommentar(er)
