We were as excited to print this collateral for Swiss CosmoLabs latest venture, Renouve, as much as we wanted to try it out. It’s the worlds first anti-aging hand sanitizing lotion! We’ve tried it and its awesome, but not as cool as the print work we did for them. The collateral included letterhead, envelopes, mailing labels, business cards, and promo postcards. We used a mix of 1-color offset and foil stamping on all of the pieces, and added a full color photo on the back of the promo cards. To add an extra pop we also edge colored the cards to match the same offset ink.

Letterpress and foil stamping create a stunning effect.

Today we’ve got a letterpress and foil suite we recently produced for Mario Brathwaite of Brathw8 Studios. We’ve worked with Mario before on a custom set of letterpress business cards, but when he updated his branding he wanted to create new business cards and notecards to match. We love foil stamping as much as letterpress because of the unique look it produces – it can create truly shiny metallics and allows light colors to be printed on dark stocks.

The letterpress was done in a deep purple on 110lb lettra (Ecru white) and we used a gold metallic foil for the vintage camera logo. The business cards and note cards were both duplexed to create a 220lb stock with heavy impression on both sides. We used A2 lettra envelopes and printed them in purple (letterpress) and gold (foil) to match the set.

Using offset + letterpress for your business cards.

Today’s post is a quick update on some offset business cards that we printed for Stepanie of Stephanie Salo Photography, a Sacramento, CA based photographer. She worked with Brand Envy, a Seattle based design firm to develop the logo and layout for the business card. For this project we mixed offset printing with letterpress. The front and back of the cards were offset printed on Mowhawk Cougar 130lb and then duplexed together to create a 260lb stock.

Offset printing is much more capable of laying down even solids of ink than letterpress is. To add some texture to the design, a floral pattern was blind pressed onto the front of the cards which were then die cut with rounded corners. The photo above was taken by Stephanie Salo for her blog series I want to be a Food Photographer (part two).

For more information on using offset printing for your next project, email us at contact@dolcepress.com.

Yesterday we were happy to announce the start of our Type Card design contest (For more info: Submit your design. Get it printed FREE.) and today we’re back to business business cards as usual. Robert DeLeon is a graphic designer and illustrator based in California. His business cards were letterpress printed on 600gsm Lettra in two colors: Red / Gray. The clean design works really well with letterpress and helps to highlight the impression and the texture of the paper.

Today we’ve got business cards for Universal Diamonds, a jewelry and diamond dealer located in Atlanta, GA. The owners worked with Kelly May, a local graphic designer, on refreshing their branding and designing a new card that was both high-end and classic. The original logo was purple with a gradient, which doesn’t work well with letterpress. Instead they focused on more traditional colors like black, white, gray, and silver. Check out all of the photos after the break. 

The business cards were double sided and duplexed. The back was printed on 110lb fluorescent white lettra in three colors (gray, silver, transparent white) while the front was printed on French Paper’s 100lb Steel Gray Dur-O-Tone in two colors (silver, transparent white). French paper has a great selection of colored stock, a perfect choice for duplexed business cards.

If you’re working on new business or calling cards, email us at contact@dolcepress.com for pricing and samples.

If you like letterpress and edge coloring then you’ll be a fan of these card we printed for Nurture Athletics, founded by Jennifer Landis. Jennifer worked with Cainkade, a creative agency based in NYC. The cards are well rounded using just about every trick from offset printing, to foil stamping, letterpress, edge coloring and duplexing! Check out all of the photos after the break.

The business cards were double sided but we started with sheets of 110lb lettra in fluorescent white. I tried my hardest to recreate the nurture logo with Jennifer’s cards above, I think that was a failed experiment!

The front of the card was printed with a flood of green-blue ink. Normally we try to match a colored paper if the client wants a full flood, but the stock didn’t exist so we printed the solid on an offset press to get a pantone color match. The nurture logo was foil stamped in a flat green pigment foil 1 shade darker than the paper for contrast.

The back of the card was left white and foil stamped using the same green pigment foil for the nurture logo. We letterpress printed the contact information in three colors: black, fluorescent green, and dark green (to match the foil).

The edge coloring was done after duplexing the sheets to create a 220lb stock. The finished cards were edged in a fluorescent green to match the light green ink used on the card. The finished piece is a great example of what different techniques can offer to a design without any one process overwhelming it.

Email us (contact@dolcepress.com) for more information on all of the different techniques and embellishments we offer.

Ecru white duplexed business cards with yellow edge coloring.

Barry Freeman (portfolio) is a California based photographer whose business cards we’re featuring on the blog today. As a photographer barry wanted to reference what he does in the design in an abstract way. While the original cards were designed on black stock, we worked with him to change the design and make it work on white stock. See more photos after the break.

Some quick 3D photos above of Barry’s cards (Front on top / Back on bottom).

We printed the cards on 110lb Ecru White Lettra, which was the perfect match to the yellow ink color Barry wanted to use. As with most double sided cards, we letterpress printed each side on 110lb stock separately.

Once the printing was done, we duplexed the sheets and edge colored the cards in yellow to match the yellow ink. The yellow edges is perfect at highlighting the ecru colored stock.

If you’re working on a business card and want to know how to incorporate edge coloring, email us (contact@dolcepress.com) for more information and pricing.

Add a pop of color to your card!

If you’re reading this you might be asking yourself, “what’s edge coloring?” It’s a special process we developed several year ago to add color to the edges of cards. Edge coloring has become a very popular finishing technique for business cards, wedding invitations, and social stationery. We we’re busy photographing print work this week and thought it would be the perfect time to highlight the process. More photos of colored edges after the break.

We’ve blogged a lot of cards with edge coloring and no matter how many times we do it, every card just looks that much better with colored sides. Above are cards for CFDesigner, AtMedia, and Joanne Hoerle. Below is a photo of bright green edges on french paper for cards we printed for Homer Liwag.

Edge coloring is a finishing technique applied to cards after printing. We can edge cards in any color, even metallic gold and silver. Edge coloring works best on thick stock which is why we recommend it only for 220lb or equivalent stock.

A popular choice with edge coloring is duplexing, a lot of these examples show either duplexed 110lb sheets or duplexing with French Paper or another colored stock.

If you’re interested in using edge coloring on your wedding invitations or business cards, email us (contact@dolcepress.com) for more information and samples. There’s no short supply of business cards to blog (see below).

We photographed some great cards for SightForStyle this morning, which were designed by Craig Leontowicz. We’re not stranger to Craig’s work, he designed cards for Tonic that we printed a while back (Hot Pink Business Cards). You can check out his portfolio on cargo collective here: cargocollective.com/leontowicz. The design for these cards took a different approach, they wanted to mix a modern and antique look

The cards used a mix of foil and letterpress and also a mix of stock, lettra and muscletone, to achieve the mix of modern and vintage looks for the cards.

The back of the cards was printed on Frewnch Paper’s Muscletone Black. The logo was foil stamped with gold metallic foil. The benefit of foil over letterpress is the wide range of metallic colors and special foils available. The metallic gold foil is shinny where metallic gold letterpress is flat with a slight shimmer.

The back of the cards was printed on Crane’s 110lb Lettra in an Ecru White color. The logo was also foil stamped in metallic gold and the text was printed as a light gray. After printing each side, the separate stock was duplexed to create a 250lb business card (black on the front, white on the back).

If you’re interested in mixing foil stamping and letterpress, email us at contact@dolcepress.com for more information and samples.

Nothing is more indulgent than a letterpress coupon. Today we’ve got a project we printed for Network Redux, a web hosting and data service provider based in Portland, OR. These cards were designed by Rhonda Spencer, a designer at freshfruit creative - a creative agency also based in Portland. We spoke to Network Redux before posting these and they said the promo code is still in effect: NetworkRedux2011 – which is good for a $50 service credit. Check out more photos after the break. 

The cards were printed on 110lb pearl white cotton stock in black and blue ink. We printed them 6-up on the Vandercook because of the solid coverage of the blue. We had to strike a balance between ink coverage to get a nice solid blue and keep the small text in the knockout clean and easy to read.

The final cards are 3″ square and the white text knockout is raised creating a faux-embossed effect.

If you’re working on a letterpress project, send us an email (contact@dolcepress.com) for more information, samples, and a quote.