letterpress business cards
hot foil, hot foil hang tags, hot foil note cards, hot foil stationery, hot foil tags, letterpress, letterpress business cards, letterpress calling cards, letterpress cards, letterpress stationery

In the studio, life lately

It’s been pretty busy in our little studio lately, so no time for blog updates. No time for anything, actually, other than work. And a lot of running around.

We’ve been working on a bunch of interesting projects and here are a couple of them:

gold hot foil hang tags

gold hot foil note cards

So the note cards and hang tags above are right up my alley. I love simple, minimal designs with clean, clear fonts. And they’re exactly like this. The one detail that’s a bit more uncommon is the fact that we used matte gold foil to print them. Usually the metallic foils are preferred, but it highly depends on the design as well. For this set, the choice of using matte foil was absolutely perfect.

letterpress business cards

letterpress business cards

letterpress business cards

I am totally in love with the blush ink color we used for the custom letterpress business cards in the photos above! The cards were printed on both sides, using the same lovely ink color, with one side presenting the logo, and the other, the information details.

Hopefully i’ll be able to update the blog more often, although being busy in the studio is good too! :)

Have a colorful day!

Contact for more information at: office@funkyprintstudio.com

hot foil business cards
funky box studio, funky print studio story, hot foil, letterpress, rant

FPS finally back blogging!

It’s been quite a while since i last updated the blog, but the entire website is still a work in progress! It’s so difficult to choose an appropriate theme, edit it, update it, add photos and so on. During all this time i’ve changed the theme 15845458 times! Well, i’m sure many of you can understand my struggle. I’m still not happy with this theme, but i think i’ve come to a point where i’ll just say “Oh, leave it be!” The only thing left for me to update is the website’s shop. And that’s going to be a continuous work.

A bunch of things happened since i last updated the blog. There are a couple of new services we can now proudly provide! I’m really excited about both of them. A while back we got a new machine woohoo! (our little studio is growing!) We can now do edge painting in gold hot foil!

hot foil business cards

Edge painting is a very delicate process and one wrong move can ruin everything you’ve worked on. Well, the gold foil edge painting requires even more attention. However, the end result is stunning. There’s nothing classier than hot foil and the cards are bound to stand out and leave a lasting impression.

The second new thing we can now offer is actually so new i didn’t even have time to take photos! We can now have clear acrylic cards! Hopefully i’ll be able to take some photos soon.

We’ve been keeping busy with the letterpress and hot foil activity, so i didn’t have any time at all to update the packaging shop. Pretty much everything has to be updated there – there are some boxes not available anymore, but a bunch of new ones came instead; i have to update the quantities and prices because of major changes in the post office’s shipping fees, but most importantly, i must take photos. That’s my eternal enemy. :(

That’s about it for now. I’ll definitely try to update the blog more often now!

Have a colorful day!

Contact: office@funkyprintstudio.com

etsy, funky print studio story, hot foil save the date, hot foil tags, letterpress, letterpress business cards, letterpress calling cards, letterpress cards, letterpress save the dates cards, letterpress stationery, letterpress tags

Latest letterpress and hot foil printing projects. Bonus, exciting news!

We’ve been working like crazy lately and i figured i should share some of our latest letterpress and hot foil printing projects. Since there were quite a lot of them, i just had to pick somehow and it wasn’t easy. That’s because i really loved working on each of these projects! I loved the artwork (a bit of self-praise here, as some of them are designed by me) and i loved the end result. The best part of all is that our clients were happy with them too and that’s really the best feeling you could have regarding your own business.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

letterpress business cards

It really doesn’t matter what Pantone says, grey is definitely the color for letterpress. We’ve had so many projects in grey ink even from our very beginning about 2 years ago! Even now, the projects i’m presenting now are most of them printed in grey ink… You can’t deny the power of grey! Well these letterpress cards above rocked grey ink! gold foil tags

This time around we have gold hot foil tags. My personal favorite combinations for hot foil printing are the ones that use darker colored card stock; i feel like the shiny metallic foil stands out a lot more. However, it highly depends on the design too. And if it’s a simple, minimal design such as the one above, then it works wonders on our Snow White card stock as well!

letterpress hang tags

I was totally in love with the color combination of these tags and the design as well! Using 2 ink colors on small tags is not that popular, although seeing how these cuties turned out, i definitely think it should!letterpress square tags

Getting back to the grey area, the letterpress square hang tags above and the rectangular ones underneath are both printed in grey ink on our puffy Wild card stock. I love using this card stock for designs that have thin elements or thin fonts. Since it has 35% cotton in it, this card stock allows a deeper indentation. letterpress rectangular tags letterpress round cards

The design for the letterpress round cards cards above is absolutely beautiful (no, sadly, i wasn’t the one who created it)! Using grey papier mache for round cards is actually quite popular in our little studio. I never would have thought, actually…  copper hot foil save the dates

Finally, i am proud to say that the design for the copper hot foil save the dates above is created by me and is has gotten really popular! See what i was saying before with the combination of hot foil printing and darker colored card stock? We used a dark grey card stock (of course, back to grey again!) and copper hot foil.

Well, these are only a few of the letterpress and hot foil printing projects we’ve been working on lately, but you can see more of them on our Instagram.

And finally, i did mention something about some good news, right? Well, i am happy to say that starting tomorrow, we’ll have a special sale offer for our letterpress and hot foil printing projects!! So stay tuned and find out how you’ll be able to get custom letterpress or hot foil printed business cards, hang tags, wedding stationery, business stationery or any other type of card at a far better offer than usual!!

The Funky Studio Team wishes you, as always, a colorful day!

letterpress printing process hot foil business cards
funky print studio story, letterpress

About letterpress printing process, products and services. Tips and tricks

Letterpress is a printing technique dating back to the mid XVth century. Even though nowadays digital printing is commonly used as the main method for printing, letterpress is seeing a rebirth because of its unique feel, texture and visual effects. However, this revival, as opposed to letterpress’ use back in the day, is seen in fine arts, stationery, special events etc.

letterpress printing processHow does letterpress work?

The process back in the day followed a very strict, detailed, meticulous and precise routine: individual metal letters of various fonts and sizes were carefully arranged and put together to form the text to be printed; after that, ink was applied thoroughly over the letters and then they’d be ready to be printed by applying pressure. As an alternative to the individual metal letters, nowadays photopolymer plates are used, though there still are artisans using the old ways. At the same time, as an alternative to the hand-operated letterpress machines, automated letterpress printing machines are used.

Tips for creating a letterpress-friendly design:

  • avoid using fonts that are too thin or have fine details. During the printing process such details can be lost, so it is best to consider not using them.
  • avoid using more than 2 or 3 ink colors. Adding another color actually means starting the whole printing process all over again; each color gets its own plate and printing time, therefore, the price is surely influenced by the number of colors to be printed. Also, avoid overlapping the colors.
  • avoid using transparency, shadows, gradients etc. These can not be reproduced in letterpress printing. It’s either the color evenly spread or no color at all.
  • image files can not be used in letterpress and hot foil printing. So no, Photoshop files are not ok as they are image files. The designs used in letterpress and hot foil have to be vector files, grouped and converted to curves. That means you must use a program that creates vector files and the most common ones are Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator (.cdr and .ai files).
  • NO: .psd, .jpeg, .png etc. The design file has to be either .cdr or .ai or vector based .pdf.

Why is letterpress printing more expensive than digital printing?

Despite the use of polymer plates and automated printing machines, letterpress is still a highly complex and time consuming process. Setting up the machine alone takes a lot of attention and patience. Each color in a design gets its own plate and each plate requires a new machine set-up, washing and inking. The thick card stock used for letterpress printing is also not your regular card as well.

Why choose letterpress?

Letterpress printed products are high quality and luxurious; they are special, they provide an exquisite visual and tactile experience that will make it difficult for the receiver to throw them away. In this era of technology when all you need to get contact information is a mobile phone and we even started sending wedding invitations through emails, paper is indeed losing ground. However, letterpress printing came to show that a tangible, physical object will surely leave a lasting impression that will definitely be beneficial on the long term.

letterpress printing process hot foil business cardsWhat does Funky Print Studio offer?

Funky Print Studio is a family-owned and operated letterpress and hot foil atelier based in Bucharest, Romania. Our services include:

  • letterpress printing (we print on an Original Heidelberg Platen windmill from circa 1960) – edge painting, rounded corners, blind impression, emboss (as opposed to deboss = letterpress printing); we also make our own polymer plates in house
  • hot foil printing – various foil colors
  • die cutting – cutting card stock in whatever shape and size using custom dies
  • finishing processes – cutting, folding, perforating, drilling

We do our very best to revive antique machinery and printing processes in order to create impressive details that will be treasured for a long time.