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Letterpress Design Considerations…

To Whom the Task Shall Fall…

The first big decision in the design question is: Who will do it? There are at least three options, one is to do it yourself, second is to hire a professional designer and third would be to have Eddens Letterpress do the designing.

The first choice...of doing it yourself, is the one that's usually thought of first by most people. But consider the following. The advantage of a DIY job is that it's the least expensive--that's about it for advantages. The disadvantage is that you may not end up with a very desirable result (unless you happen to also be a skilled designer of letterpress printing).
Why not? There are many considerations in a design piece that may not seem apparent at first thought. The first problem is usually, "where do I begin???". And most DIY'ers usually start then to sketch it out on a sheet of 8.5 x 11. You may or may not come up with a design you like and even if you do there's a great possibility that you may have to trash it when you find out later that it has to be first designed to fit the constraints of the paper size you plan to use. So, top-notch designers will START with the actual paper to be printed upon, significantly reducing the number of subsequent revisions.
And typeface, what about that? Should it be of the masculine or feminine variety? Do you mix typefaces? Is Bolding acceptable? What's the most "readable"? Can underlines be used? Is there a particular line weight of a typeface that will or will not work with letterpress? Where do typefaces come from? Can any and all be used? What is line spacing? Kerning? Character spacing? Leading? Small caps, large caps, swash caps? Postscript level 1, 2 or 3? Truetype, Adobe or Phil’s Fonts? And on and on goes the world of Typography (not for the faint of heart, or the DIY'er). Color schemes (for type, graphic elements and paper), already mentioned in the paper section, need to be given great consideration as well. Some work fine, some not at all.

The second choice...of having a Professional Designer has the advantage of a reliable great end-result (that's really what they're paid for). The chief disadvantage here would be expense. The expense factor can vary quite a bit and usually is NOT a determinant of skill. Not unlike wine, you can get a very inexpensive one and have a great taste, and other times blow a bunch of money on a recommended vintage and have it taste like what it is, sour grape juice.
But by all means, if the resources are there, Pro is the way to go. Contact me for a Professional Designer recommendations.

The third choice...of having us do it is a combination of the above two. A reasonable price with a reasonable result. Drop us an email for pricing specifics.

Design and Layout Software Programs…

Far and away the majority of files are "assembled" in QuarkExpress. Quark, for short, is categorized as a Page Layout program, not neccessarily a design program. Design programs, would be ones such as Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. And are not best for page layout. The individual graphic elements, icons and ornaments are created in the design programs and eventually transported into Quark where the bulk of the text has been set. All of the items then make up the page, or the overall design.
These pieces of the overall design need to accompany the file when it is sent either by email (preferred) or disk. Both of these categories of programs can come in either the Mac or PC compatable format and most often a file can be opened with either, despite it's platform of origin. Eddens Letterpress maintains both platforms with the most recent versions of most design and layout programs.
The most important aspect of sending such a file is to make sure that all of it's components are compressed with the file before emailing. The components include the fonts used, graphic elements, scans and decorations if any exist on the overall design. The reason for compression of all components together is so that when the email lands on various platforms along it's way, there will be no suffix changes (the files won't be regognized if compressed, or "stuffed" and no suffix changes will occur).

On Graphic Elements…

Design motif elements such as initials, monograms and line art must all be supplied in the "line art" or "vector" graphic mode. If you are designing, or editing a design motif image or element in Photshop, check the "Mode" of the image and make sure it's not Grayscale, Color or anything else other than "bitmap". In Adobe Ilustrator, vector graphics work best. It is also necessary to remove all color information, even from a bitmapped image. Any color information in an image tries to convert to halftone when a negative is made and halftones of small graphic elements don't print well in letterpress.

Like to have your design evaluated?…

Just email it to us once it has been compressed with a "stuffit" type utility. Include the fonts used and all graphic elements. You can also send a PDF (preferred for evaluation).

On Proofing…

Once a job is accepted, a standard laser print will be made and faxed back to you to ensure that what you have sent is what you intended to send.