What is Letterpress?
Letterpress printing is a centuries-old form of relief printing in which text or images are pressed into paper, creating a beautiful, tactile effect. Historically, individual metal or wooden type blocks were arranged to form each line of text. However, a modern resurgence has lended to the use of polymer plates, which allow for more creative freedom.
A Quick Guide to Our Process
Designs are created digitally and sent to a plate maker to be made into polymer plates. These plates function similar to a stamp, in which empty space lays flat and a negative of the design is raised to be inked up and pressed into the paper.
The letterpress plates have an adhesive backing which adheres to a base locked into the press. Each plate is carefully positioned and measured to ensure that the design prints perfectly straight on the paper. When more than one color is used in a design, we take extra care to ensure that each color is perfectly aligned with the corresponding elements - this is called registration.
Each ink color is mixed by hand using the Pantone formula guide and loaded onto the press for printing. The nature of letterpress allows only one color to be printed at a time, so every color/plate requires its own pass through the press.
Once the press is adequately inked up and the plates are registered perfectly, each sheet of paper is hand fed through the press for printing. Throughout the printing process, we constantly make adjustments to ensure that the ink distribution and coverage stay consistent.
Any finishing touches are made once printing is complete. These include edge painting or cutting down to final size to ensure that each piece has crisp, clean edges.