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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Space invaders birthday party invitation

Six (6) passes through the press for this one. (only the best for my boy!)
Printed on Somerset Waterford 100% cotton rag.
Fed through black lazer printer to print text.
lets call it 'Hybrid Letterpress' My b&w lazer printer is a very inexpensive model ($99 from Australia Post) so my thinking is that most people would be able to imprint onto these. I haven't tested on an ink jet yet.
Of course there is the option of hand writing onto these with a felt tip pen my handwriting is terrible so i didn't bother.
Registration was challenging. Perhaps I will consider this when designing anything again. Things in lines with polymer plates prove to be slightly more time consuming. Although 6 passes may have had something to do with it...
Ill definitely re-print these but use only 2 or 3 colours to make them more economical.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

More things I've learned

  1. There are no short cuts in letterpress. Possibly more efficient, and logical ways of doing things but no fast shortcuts.
    Which leads me to my second point:
  2. Adding white to a colour to lighten it up ON the ink disk, is not quicker than cleaning the old colour off, mixing a new colour and re inking the disk- and its less accurate.
  3. Making 6 passes through the press is just silly (pics to come)
  4. A design that requires 6 lines of images to all be straight and even is again a bit silly. You have to be super accurate and this takes time (see point # 1) Much easier to design with images that can be a tiny bit out without spoiling the design.
  5. Trying to save a wrongly inserted piece of paper and trying to stop the platen from closing with your hands is ineffective. Better to loose one print than a finger. (No fingers lost but a knuckle bruised!) Der!
  6. Still..I'm pretty happy with the end result. Invitations to Leo's 4th birthday. He is worth the full days work plus injury. Wonder if I can claim compo...