Best Letterpress Cards 2010

Even thought 2010 is not over yet I came across this site with the best Letterpress Cards produced this year. They are all nice:) Have a look! Taken from Apartment Therapy New York.

Absolutely great poster

I came across this amazing and lovely poster from Studio On Fire !! The colours, the font, the size of it. Such nice work. And it is for sure printed from a plate. But it is still such a lovely piece of letterpress.

Lego and letterpress

Came across this inspirational letterpress with Lego through an letterpress email list, check it out at Design Work Life.

Life is not always easy

I've mentioned earlier I get inspiration from different people, subject, theme, etc. Around these times I know several people struggling with life in general. There are different ways to fight for your life, and to live it fully every single moment. I wanted to inspire others the way some inspire me to keep on fighting for what I want and a happy life. Especially Kim Jansen has inspired me in the work on this poster. It says: “Fight for life” (in purple) and “ it is worth it, I’m saying it is worth everything” (in ice blue).

Thank you card

I printed this card for some time ago but added my logo on the back last week and remembered then that I hadn't posted it here yet. I was inspired by a friend who help me collect my letterpress type to do a thank you card.

Saying thank you can be as simple as the design on this, clean and straight forward!

Christmas card

I get my inspiration to do projects from people everywhere. Sometimes the inspiration is not how it looks but what to print. I have some Christmas cards I printed last year (will post them in a few days), but last week I got inspired to do new ones. These are rare and maybe a bit unusual in design, but I had a bit of fun playing with type and letters.

The process of my work

First I need to choose typefaces to use, place them together, set the spacing (with rulers and leading) and make a solid shape where all letters and furniture (the bits used around the type) is locked up so nothing moves.

When the type is locked onto the press (see above image) I can start taking the first proof for adjusting register and to build up warnout type.

First proof will easily reveal the types that needs to be build up with paper underneath. There is no "right" or "wrong" on how equal the type should print. I prefer a bit of different, and I try to always keep most of the texture in wood types.

How much that needs to be adjusted is different on every project. Final result for the first layer for this project is seen underneath.