invites

business cards

Letterpress is a "relief" printing process and is one of the oldest and most beautiful printing techniques, dating back to the invention of the movable type by Johann Gutenberg.  In this method, a surface with raised letters is inked and pressed to the surface of the paper to reproduce an image in reverse. Typically, metal type has been used, but other possibilities include carved wood or stone blocks.  

These days, it is also common to print from photopolymer plates, where the design can be created on Adobe Illustrator or other design programs and turned into a plate with the image/text on it.  These plates are then printed on presses (such as mine, pictured above).

Fine letterpress work is crisper than offset litho because of its impression into the paper, giving greater visual definition to the type and artwork.   Before offset printing came into being, the goal was to have the inked type barely kiss the surface of the paper and leave no impression at all.  If letterpress was printed like that today it would be hard to distinguish it from offset machine printing.  In letterpress printing now, you can feel the recessed texture around the type. This is a distinctive characteristic of letterpress printing. From the elegant look and feel of each piece, it stands out among other printing types found today.  

Check out this blog posting about letterpress printing.    

___________________________________________________________________

Making your design letterpress-friendly:

1. ✴It’s best to design your files in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign, outline your fonts (see directions below), and send to me as a PDF.  If you don’t know how to use Illustrator or don’t have it, you can design it in Photoshop and send it to me and I can try converting it, but just know that it may look a little bit different, depending on how complex your design is.
   
   

2. ✴To outline your fonts in Illustrator on InDesign.  Select all of your text with the Selection Tool (black arrow), go to the “Type”  drop-down menu and select “Create Outlines”.
   
   

3. ✴Your graphic should be made of lines, or fills that will print solidly, not something that resembles pencil shading.
   
   

4. ✴You don’t want to have an area that requires a large amount of solid ink and an area with fine lines on the same item you are printing (this includes fonts), unless they are going to be different colors and therefore require a separate run, anyway, where I can adjust the amount of pressure and ink.
   
   

5. ✴Keep a minimum line weight of .25 pt for all line art to prevent broken lines in printing.  The space between lines also needs to be at least .25pt.   Font should be no smaller than 3pt for sans serif fonts and 4pt for serif fonts.
   
   

6. ✴The largest size image my press can accommodate is 8” x 13”.  The paper can be a little bigger than that.
   

1. ✴If you are not giving me a sample of the color of ink that you want (can even be a color sample from paint store), please tell me what Pantone color(s) you’d like.
   

1. ✴Letterpress inks are not super opaque, so printing light colors on dark paper is not advisable unless you are looking to have silver ink printed on black paper.
   

1. ✴Keeping all artwork at least 1/8” away from the edge of the paper will avoid the need for a post-print trim (and the extra cost that goes along with that).  But feel free to incorporate a full bleed if you want to - just know that you’ll pay a little extra for it.
   

1. ✴Any questions about what any of this means, feel free to email me! :)
   

<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Reb-Peters-Press-Letterpress-Printing/127689970619009" width="222" colorscheme="dark" connections="0" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box>

business cards

greeting cards

workshops

original linocuts