Here is a piece that I printed back in about 1898 after first carting our new Chandler and Price platen press up the hill to the print shop from the railway station. The color palate was all the rage that year and the cut was an electrotype block which I purchased from Messrs. Badoureau and Jones of Fleet Street in London.
The press performed well on its first outing and, even then, I could anticipate many decades of serviceable work coming henceforth from its jaws.
Ah Spring, or nearly so, and a young man’s fancy turns to, well, love.
Here is the latest letterpress invitation to be printed at the Nomadic Press. Produced for Wali and Kalisha, and designed by the groom himself, this oversized tri-fold piece is a 2 over 0 example of how to bring an invitation up to the size of the affection.
In designing and overseeing the production of the invitations to his own wedding, Wali finds that he has become a member of an elite group of men. In 20-some-odd-years of printing invitations at the Nomadic Press Wali is one of only 6 or so men who have been the go-to person, from the beginning of an wedding invitation project right on through to its end.
And this, I believe, bodes well for their marriage.
In Edwin Abbot’s 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, a story is told of characters who live in only one or two dimensions. The three dimensional world that we live in is, for them, almost impossible to imagine.
Most Graphic design for print is conceived of in a flatlander’s world. Side to side, up and down but no back and forth.
When designing for the letterpress printing process one must cast off the restrictive thinking of two dimensional existence and embrace the third dimension. The impression, which is one of the endearing qualities of relief printing is the third dimension.
The piece shown here is a nice example of three dimensional graphic design.
Printed on (into?) a sheet of 190 pound blotter paper, the first and lightest impression is of crosses inked with a transparent ink. The second, deeper impression, is of a separate group of crosses blind stamped into the paper (which is to say that they have been printed with no ink, just impression). The third impression, the type, presses even deeper into the paper. Finally, there is a single cross which is die cut out so that it passes completely through the paper.
Abbot’s flatlanders would be horrified.
Luckily there are graphic designers who are able to think beyond the surface and take their designs to a deeper level.
Printed in two colors with a blind stamp of the client’s logo in the background, this business card is printed on 160 pound stock. The deep impression of the blind run lends the 3 dimensional air of Art Deco architecture to what might be considered a 2 dimensional medium.
The card is undersized by a little bit, it measures 3.5 by 1.75 inches, which helps it stand out in an understated way.
The client, Kenneth Kunkle offers legal services to creative professionals and he worked closely with The Nomadic Press to come up with a design that had both the look of a serious professional and a hint of artistic flair.
Matt board isn’t just for framing pictures anymore.
A wedding planner and a wedding photographer, who together run a business in Texas, recently hired The Nomadic Press to print their business cards. They wanted something very thick stock so we all decided to use matt board.
The color choices are a little limited when you use matt board but the results are a lot of fun. This card is printed 1 over 2 so the printing costs are reasonable. The thick edges are colored silver (I gave them a bid for gilding the edges with silver leaf but the cost was a bit prohibitive).
The design they supplied is tasty, and it is telling of the fantastic work that they both do professionally. If you are thinking about getting married soon, think about Texas.
It used to be that one would go visiting and leave behind an indication of having called. This was the calling card.
Usually it was imprinted with just a name and perhaps the name of the club that one was a member of. If the person you were visiting was not at home when you called, then the calling card was left on a silver tray for them to take up upon their return.
The position of the card’s placement on the tray, and the bending over of one or another of the card’s corners, held deeper meanings.
These days, the modern business card is printed with a persons name and title, the name, address and logo of their business, their telephone and fax numbers, email addresses, twitter addresses, and facebook and linkedin information. Whew.
In practice, there is so much information contained on a modern business card that it is a wonder that they have remained 2 by 3.5 inches in size and have not ballooned to the size of greeting cards.
The custom business card shown here is understated in its simplicity. Printed in one color, it has an abundance of white space which shows off the letterpress impression nicely and lends a calm and professional air to the image of this company.
Now where did I put my silver calling card tray?
Oh man, is the type on this card small or what.
The red type in this image has a lower case x-height of about 2.5 points. It works just fine in a body of text, but I would not wish this point size on my fiercest competitor in a line of stand alone type.
Photopolymer plates work amazingly well with small type, but lines of little type, all on their lonesome, seem to fare poorly. Especially the “dots” in email addresses which tend to suffer under the heavy impressions called for in modern letterpress printing.
Whenever possible, I have the graphic designers that I am working with boost the point size of the “dots” in the design of email addresses by at least one point. In the end it is not noticeable but helps everything hold up a bit better in the printing process.
Dotting your ‘i’s and crossing your ‘t’s has long been a euphemism for sweating the little stuff and for making sure that attention is being paid to the details. Here at The Nomadic Press, I am crossing my eyes and dotting my coms.
Business Cards from the Past
While sorting out some of the letterpress work produced during the last year I came across this business card in the archives. Werner Design Werks did the design and The Nomadic Press produced the letterpress printing.
The work created at Sharon Werner’s design studios has always been beautiful and this custom letterpress piece is no different.
Though this example is nearly a decade old, it already looks as though it is 60 years old. And yet . . . it also looks like it came off the press yesterday. It is both crisp and faded at the same time.
Werner Design Werks is one of those volcanic design companies that Minnesota’s tectonic environment seems to give rise to. They came out of the ground on fire and have not begun to cool down yet.
It has always a pleasure working with them.
This week NASA continues its attempt to get their rover free after it broke through the surface of a sheet of 190 pound blotter paper and got stuck. This photograph shows a detail of the paper’s surface as seen from the onboard camera.
Actually, this is one of the pictures that photographer John Noltner took of Nomadic Press work. It shows, in wonderful detail, the texture of the paper and the depth of impression that can be achieved when working with such heavy, soft stock.
The ampersands in circles are printed using transparent ink, which does not impart a new color but rather changes the way the light comes off its surface.
The blotter stock is a very long and loose fibered paper that is also a bit inconsistent in its thickness. These qualities make it a pleasant paper to work with that is full of nice surprises. Which is to say that it can be a bit unpredictable (but in a good way).
It is a fairly cheap paper too.
Let’s talk.
Well, the mad rush is almost over and the myriad holiday cards that are part and parcel of the season’s work are about complete. Every year I think that I should take some time in July to print the cards for my family’s use.
The problem that I run into is the same problem that I expect all of the designers who hire me at the last minute are confronted with. How does one find cold and snowy inspiration in the middle of summer?
It is, understandably, difficult. So, go ahead, enjoy the weather this coming summer and I’ll be ready (again) for the December holiday rush of 2010.
