|
Letterpress Business Cards All About Paper for Letterpress… On Impression and Inking… Your choice of paper makes a big difference in the outcome of the print job! Some paper stocks take ink and impression very well, while others may accept ink just fine but don’t do so well on the impression. Some on the other hand may take a great impression, but reject ink altogether. Papers that don’t take ink so well are those that are heavily “sized”, which is a coating of a starch-like substance on the surface. Paper mills and manufacturers will “size” papers in an attempt to achieve a smooth surface and provide some durability and scuff resistance. Papers that don’t take an impression well are those that are thin and/or hard in nature. The thinness factor is pretty obvious; there’s just not a lot there to impress upon. The hardness factor is a little subtler and can usually be judged by the paper’s “snap”. Snap is the quickness and sound involved when a paper is bent over at a corner and released quickly. A good example of a very hard paper is regular playing cards. Note that I say, “can usually be judged by snap”, which is not the case for all papers. Amalfi brand paper is one with no snap whatever, due to its thinness, but is extremely hard. It’s so hard as a matter of fact that it can actually cause the type on a printing plate to be broken during a print run. Solution? The best bet is to go with a paper stock that is known to be “letterpress worthy” (uncoated and heavy in weight with just the right thickness and snap). There are quite a few. To name a couple of winners here would be to include; Fabriano Mediovalis, Somerset, Rives, Arches, Magnani and so on. But best of all in the quality / price consideration is Winsted Bristol 140# 2-ply in either white or buff color. Both are considered to be the "House Stock" at Eddens Letterpress for letterpress business cards. On Paper Color… Paper color makes a difference also; one that is too dark will cause a lot of difficulty in terms of readability with most inks. The simple answer would seem to be to just use light colored ink on dark stock...but letterpress inks have difficulty in "covering" paper due to the very thin layer of ink put down. You're probably thinking, "well, just put more ink on the press and make a thicker layer...", but that would very dramatically affect the clarity of the printed words or design--making it somewhat low resolution, again affecting readability and of course the overall look. One possible solution is to use foil stamping if a dark colored paper is a must, but that's not truly letterpress printing. Although it looks great in the end, it really should be reserved for cases where a dark stock is an absolute. On the Paper Edge … The edge of the paper is an important consideration as well. For a card to be more of the Social characteristic, some feel that the most desirable is the deckle edge. A deckled edge paper is one with uneven tapered edges. The true deckle edge is result of the paper making process but is sometimes “faked” by an after-mill effect during cutting. Sometimes the paper is torn after printing to give a pseudo-deckle appearance. These substitutes are born out of the fact that a paper with a true deckle edge is usually more expensive that a straight cut edge. The main reason for its expense is the fact that the deckle can only occur at the mill and only on the edges (of course) of what are usually very large pieces of paper. If the paper you want only comes in these very large sheets, then the final print size will have to be cut out of the larger “parent” sheet and you would end up with only one edge being deckled. Hence the attraction, or at least one of them, to papers such as Fabriano Mediovalis and the like—-they are produced in small sizes, not large sheets, allowing a deckle edge all the way around. Not Sure About the Paper You’ve Chosen?… If you have a paper that you would like to have letterpress printed but aren’t sure of its worthiness—-you can submit it to us for evaluation. We’ll run it though the press if necessary and give a yea or nay in return. If the result is equivocal, we’ll send the test piece back to you for your own evaluation of the effect and you can be the final judge on whether or not your particular stock is suitable when combined with letterpress. |
