Twenty eleven

I've been working like crazy the last few weeks to finish up a few work projects so that I can spend the rest of my time this month getting ready for Goober's big arrival.

The last printing project of the year is some New Year's cards for a client. The cards are printed in a moss green color (Pantone 583U) and will be duplexed with a moss green cardstock.

I printed the cards about a week ago, and now--after spending a couple of weeks searching for the perfect matching green paper--I'm working on duplexing the cards and trimming them to their final size.



Here are some behind-the-scenes photos from printing the cards.

Here's the photopolymer plate for the card. This is created from a computer file and it comes with an adhesive backing. I peel off the protective covering, adhere it to a special base on my press, and print away! The image and text are reversed so that it creates a right-reading image once pressed into the paper.



The ink was custom mixed to match Pantone 583U. When I'm making small amounts of a custom ink color, I use a small paper plate to mix the ink.



This was a very deceiving color to mix. What looked like a dark forest green when it was mixed actually printed as a mossy green with a lot more yellow in it. I test the color by dipping the tip of a paper towel into the ink and rubbing it onto a scrap of the paper I'll be printing on. It usually gives a pretty accurate representation of how the color will look once it's on the press.



It took quite a bit of tweaking to get the ink to match the color swatch in my Pantone guide! Ultimately, the color was a tiny bit too light, so I printed each card twice to darken the color a smidge to get it closer to the color of the swatch.



I'll post some pictures of the final cards just as soon as I finish with them.