made with love paperie and design studio

Paper, Oh Paper

Made with Love works with different types of paper for announcements and is constantly searching for different types of paper to test on the letterpress.

One of Amanda's favorite paper to print on is Crane Lettra. It's 100% cotton. Some might even say it's environmentally friendly as it requires 0% trees! The feel of Crane Lettra is exquisite. So lovely that when Amanda's husband handed out his personal card, printed on Crane Lettra, to a friend, the first thing he asked was "whoa, this feels really nice, what is this?" Lettra takes the ink very well and the colors comes out crisp.

Another paper choice that Made with Love likes to work with is Stardream or Curious Metallic papers. They make the ink that sits on the paper look sparkly as well!

One of Made with Love's current experimentations is printing on wood veneer. Amanda is looking into sustainable wood and bamboo choices for her invitation lines.

MWL Printing Methods

One of the most important decisions made for your wedding invitation is the printing method. Made with Love uses the following printing methods for all their announcements: Letterpress or Offset (Flat) Printing.

Letterpress is one of the oldest methods of printing (think Gutenberg's-bible-old). Traditionally, printers produced letterpress prints by using cast metal type or plates. Now, the printers can produce polymer plates with raised images and allow the ink to touch only the raised area. The inked image is then pressed onto the paper. This creates a debossed textural feel to the page. Our letterpressed work is printed entirely by hand on an antique press; subtle variations in ink coverage, impression, and color are normal and makes each piece unique in its own right. These small variations in your wedding piece are what makes letterpress so beautiful.

Offset (Flat) Printing is one of the less expensive ways to print your wedding set. It is when the ink appears to lay flat on top of the paper. The process involves a metal plate being made from the design and the plate being put on the press. The image on the plate is then transferred onto the paper. The advantage of offset printing is the accuracy in printing PMS (Pantone Matching System) colors.

Let's get personal

One of my favorite things in terms of line development is personal cards. My husband rarely hands out his business card in a social setting because of where he works. He asked me to make a set of personal cards for him. He wanted something simple and clean. I decided to go with the classic: initials, more like initial (just a D for his last name…) I rented out a press at Evanston Print and Paper and made one beautiful mistake…

It was supposed to be two colors: blind hit (no color just the indentation of the plate onto the paper) and blue. I printed the blue first because I was printing blue previously for another job and then cleaned the rollers to make the blind hit. While cleaning the rollers, I looked over to the clear varnish base and wondered if the varnish base will add some sort of matte sheen to the piece… Highly doubt anything would happen because the cotton paper is very absorbant but figured it wouldn’t hurt, I put some varnish base onto the rollers and off I went.

Apparently, the rollers weren’t as clean as I anticipated… and this came out:

 

I like the light blue on the D (from residual blue left on the rollers + clear varnish) very much… Beautiful mistake.