Monday, December 13, 2010

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.

New Year's cards

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.

New Year's cards

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.

New Year's cards

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.

New Year's cards

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.

New Year's cards

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

4 comments:

  1. Very interesting. I love seeing step-by-steps, especially when it's something I know so little about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. GREAT color! Hey...I recieved such a great package of tags! And just in the nick of time, as we had a party (of around 80!) and my daughter used a few of them to label the sangria and some hors devoures! They were beautiful!

    Thank You!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I gave you a shout out in my last blog post:
    http://gallimaufryandminutiae.blogspot.com/2010/12/there-will-be-real-post-soon-but-in.html

    =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Linda: Glad the tags came in handy! I can't believe you hosted a party with so many guests. Glad the tags were used for a noble purpose like the sangria. Golly, I can't wait to have sangria again!!! ;)

    Tasha: THANKS very much! :D

    ReplyDelete

Hi! Thanks so much for visiting and sharing your thoughts and comments!

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