Guidelines for Designers

Type and Lines: Type looks fabulous in letterpress, but we recommend you use 8 point minimum, and your lines should be thicker than .25 point. Please avoid using rows of dots, or any kind of hairline (these are vulnerable in the photo-polymer plate-making and print process). Text is best from Illustrator, rather than Photoshop. Artwork must be black & white – no grey or colour.

Artwork: Our preferred way to receive your artwork is as a print-ready PDF. We require one pdf per colour plate you specify.  They should be 100% black CMYK, all text turned to paths, with crop marks at 2mm.  Vector images (from Illustrator or InDesign) work well in letterpress.  We’re not keen on Photoshop creations – the raster images are blurry, and the type is not crisp enough to achieve a great print in letterpress.. Please avoid submitting greyscale images. If you’re not sure, please contact us or send through your artwork for consideration – we’re very happy to advise.

Colours: We work with Pantone uncoated spot colours. These are mixed by hand, and although there may be a slight variation depending on the stock you’ve chosen, we work really hard to match the printed ink with your colour choice.  We can also colour match to a swatch you supply, or piece of fabric.

Large Solid or Reverse Areas: These are not recommended for letterpress printing, as the nature of the printing process usually results in a colour fade or mottled effect.

Blind Debossing: this is a beautiful letterpress effect achieved by printing without ink. It requires it’s own plate, so please keep this in mind when producing your final artwork.

Perforating, Scoring, Die-Cutting , Creasing Debossing and Embossing: These are all available to you – please ask us about rates for your job. Perforating, scoring and die-cutting is done on the Heidelberg press.

We’re happy to talk through any of these aspects, or anything else letterpress related. Contact us here.