The Dingbat’s Agenda

  • February2nd

    1 Comment

    Love by Phoebe

    Posted in: branding, business cards, Custom, extending a brand, posted by ADRIENNE

    These cards were letterpress printed on 220# arturo with Pantone match and matte metallic gold inks as a 1/1 business card for Phoebe. Phoebe is an excellent graphic designer and designed these cards for her branding collateral as an extension of her already awesome website.

    I am a big fan of chevrons lately and am totally digging these wide set ones on the back of Phoebe’s card, how about you?

    Edge painted with a custom mix strawberry ink, thanks Phoebe for being so excellent to work with! I loved how these turned out.

  • December20th

    2 Comments

    What to expect… Flood printing, part 1

    Posted in: branding, business cards, Business Papers, letterpress technique, posted by ADRIENNE, What to expect...

    Picking up with the What to expect series today we’ll be discussing large coverage areas and floods.  Below is a business card design by Vanessa of NESS Design. It is a 2/1 letterpress business card printed on 220# paper. Vanessa’s cards got a really great ink coverage because of a few things.

    Her knocked out type was built up with extra stroke wight so that we could flood the press with a LOT of ink and by the time the letters started to fill in they were back to their “normal” weights. Serifed typography is a lot harder to work with and isn’t recommend (especially when small). If you want to knock out of a flood color area (knock-out meaning that the type is white or image area is white with ink surrounding it) then stick to imagery or typography that can be bulked with a stroke or two – that extra padding will make a huge difference in how your print turns out.

    Another advantage to flooding with Vanessa’s cards was the selection of a lighter ink value for her cards. Lighter colors usually flood more evenly. The reason behind this is that all inks are transparent. With transparent inks, large coverage areas, and a textured paper can often have the flecks and texturing show through, lending a “salty” look to the pieces being printed. The darker the ink color, the more evident the salty look. While the press can be run with a double strike (run through the press twice) you can run into registration problems and more waste. You can also set up your press to ink the forme twice before printing, however this can be time consuming and add to your labor costs as well.

    Ultimately if you are considering a flood or large inked up area, know that there will be variables. Letterpress is much different than offset in that way. Stay tuned for the other half of flood printing where we’ll go over paper selection if printing a flood!

    Letterpress printed on 220# lettra paper, 2/1 pantone inks, trimmed to 2×3.5″ – For a set of your own, get an estimate, we’d love to work with you! If you have questions about a file, you can also email it over and we would be happy to advise.

  • November29th

    No Comments

    BLACK FRIDAY, letterpress Tuesday

    Posted in: Business, Business Papers, Calling Cards, Edge Painting

    Never one to follow tradition, I received a lovely email from a colleague yesterday morning wondering if I’d hold my Cyber Monday promotions and instead launch them on Tuesday as part of a Letterpress Tuesday promotion – specifically showcasing letterpress artisans and their holiday goodies on sale. I of course opted out of Cyber Monday and am happy to announce that for the next 24 hours (YES, RIGHT NOW) you can get 25% off ANYTHING in our online shop until midnight tonight (MST).

    These black letterpress calling cards were printed on a black 80# coverstock (I think it was AstroBrights paper). Black can be tricky on press because letterpress inks are very transparent and do not get good opacity when printing on dark papers. We like to recommend a color mix with opaque white to help bulk up the color (PMS Silver 877 works great too if you can afford to have a little tonality with the grey).

    With the left-overs we decided to add a teal edge paint to see how it would take to the black. I feel like I’m having an 80′s flashback!

    Because I just couldn’t get enough, I decided to see what a lavender would look like. If you want to order a set for yourself, you can customize them right here and we’ll make sure they look radical before they ship out to you! If you are unsure about color, stick with lighter hues. They will print and show-up much better than darker colors on the color wheel.

  • November9th

    4 Comments

    Making pigs fly since 1984

    Posted in: branding, business cards, Business Papers, Calling Cards, letterpress technique, NSS, posted by ADRIENNE, posted by MATT

    I have to say, I have some awesome brothers. Both of which I love dearly! Matt, the little brother, worked for Dingbat last year before he started grad school and if you remember he did a few great posts on business Friday. As a thank you, these were supposed to be at NSS last year for him to hand out but they got lost in a shipping snafu and then buried for a few months back at the studio. I finally was able to find them and dig them out as well as photograph them and get them sent off to their rightful owner.

    A few things about Matt, he really liked this flying pig that was rejected by another client. He claimed it as his own. Matt’s personality is all about having fun, enjoying life and having a positive attitude. He also snorts when he laughs (just kidding Matt, you only did that when you were a baby or when I was trying to choke you).

    These cards were a custom duplex with Lettra 110# white and Revere 110# black. Duplexed cards can be tricky on press because of the extra glue between the sheets. That glue can make for a harder and less flexible paper resulting in a not-so-deep impression on the back side.

    I still love how those skinny chevrons turned out though, BEAUTIFUL!

    Thanks Matt for putting up with your crazy sister for a year and for being the best small business consultant EVER (next to dad who gives great legal advice)!

  • October24th

    No Comments

    Ciocia Ela

    Posted in: branding, business cards, Color, letterpress technique

    Happy Monday friends! We had the wonderful opportunity to develop branding for Nelly Wu who makes beautiful handbags and every day goods. It has been so long ago that we did her branding that I only just realized that we never blogged the finished product until we did a re-print for her business cards! As you can see below, these are a single color business card. Pantone match fuchsia, printed on 110# lettra and paired with 1/4″ rounded corners.To see Nelly’s work click over to her spectacular shop!

    The great thing about single color letterpress is that when you re-print you can switch up the color to whatever suits your fancy. It is very cost effective in letterpress terms, and really creates a great minimalist look. Many people totally rule out single color business cards, but it is a great way to get creative with the design or illustration and a fun challenge to make the design interesting for one color printing.

  • October19th

    1 Comment

    QR Code calling cards

    Posted in: branding, business cards, Calling Cards, Edge Painting

    SO excited to show these, they’ve been hanging out here in draft space for quite some time! We’re launching some updated calling card designs (but will still continue the beloved calligraphy calling card). One of them is our QR code card. These are for the minimalist techie addict, and thanks to the genius of smartphones (THANK YOU STEVE JOBS) these would be a great new way to send out your contact info without flooding the card with loads of info.

    Letterpress QR code business cards, printed on Legion Eco-rag 220# with registration black ink.

    Edge painted in black ink, sized at 2.5×2.5″ – you can read the full write up on the letterpress project at FPO (UnderConsideration). So excited!!

    Want some of these rad cards for yourself? Contact us for an estimate (they are quite well priced)!

  • October4th

    1 Comment

    Mink Cards, RI Proofs

    Posted in: branding, extending a brand

    Here are some logos we worked on for Melody of MinkCards. Typographic in nature as well as minimalist these were some of the round 1 options that we presented in color.

     

     

     

     

  • August15th

    5 Comments

    Stephanie Reinish, extending a brand

    Posted in: branding, business card proofs, business cards, extending a brand

    Hello! I feel like I’m back from the dead! I’ll spare you the gory and boring details and save it for business Friday. For now, it’s back to blogging and FINALLY back to work! You may remember Stephanie’s RI proofs for a branding project that I blogged about here. Part of making a brand work for a business is being able to expand it from the logo into the rest of the business collateral, be it business cards, packaging,  promo pieces or website – how you extend your logo into an identity of yourself and brand extension of the initial concept will help make your business stand out from your competition. In Stephanie’s case it was extending her branding into business cards (her website is an awesome execution of brand extension as well).

    When working on Stephanie’s design for business cards she wanted something that reflected her logo that we had done for her, but that also conveyed a look of minimalism paired with good organization. Her hierarchy was easy to work with and the logo helped hint us at where we needed to go with the stacking of her business name. The cards needed to be flexible enough for letterpress and offset printing as well as economical. Although we had the blush/grey with the heart going on in her branding, it was clear that we didn’t want to be overly cute with the design either. The emphasis on large margins helped with that sophistication, and the creative organization of the typography helped keep things playful within the design – ultimately not having it end up cute, but not having it be so minimalist either that it becomes stale. Below is the finished piece, what do you think?

  • July8th

    No Comments

    Creative Consultant letterpress business cards

    Posted in: branding, Business, business cards, Calling Cards, posted by ADRIENNE

    Now I know I say this a lot about my clients but Natalie was SUPER awesome to work with. While we explored what felt like hundred of options, Natalie was really patient with us as we worked on her designs, layouts and typography to create a minimalist rockstar card for her new consulting venture.

    When we finally got close to the design that Natalie wanted, it was a matter of then taking that and figuring out color and iconography to organize her information. This type was beautifully small and I love how petite it looks with their little matching dingbats and knocked-out type. I love the red on these too – it was a really rich and bloody color to print! Thanks Natalie for working with us and being so inspiring to work with. I am so happy with how these turned out, I hope you are too!

    Letterpress printed on 110# Lettra paper. 1 Spot color ink, design and layout included.

    To request an estimate for branding and letterpress work,
    please Get An Estimate as we’d LOVE to work with you!
    All designs ©2011 Dingbat Press

     

  • May2nd

    3 Comments

    Brittany Gerth Photography, Branding collateral

    Posted in: blog branding, branding, Business, business cards, Business Papers, posted by ADRIENNE

    Thank you everyone for putting up with no blog posts for the last week. There will be GOOD stuff this week to make up for it! David is recovering. Its looking like a couple months before he makes a full recovery but we are so thankful it wasn’t larger than a burn area of 1-2% on his body. I really appreciate everyone’s support!

    We worked on Brittany’s branding awhile ago and she recently came back for more printed material. Above were her banner/avatar options, as well as final style guide.

    Her business collateral now consists of letterpress business cards, with matching letterpress 4Bar flat notes and folded notes.

    I love seeing how a brand develops and the styling really takes its own personality when applied to other pieces.

  • April14th

    7 Comments

    Art Deco Architect branding system

    Posted in: branding, business cards, business friday, Business Papers, posted by ADRIENNE, web design

    This was a branding package done for Gayle of Pickering Design. We explored many many options with Gayle in her branding and it all came down to art deco styling.

    This project was a collaborative effort between myself and one of my good friends and freelancer Linsey Bair.
    Linsey presented the base design that turned into the final branding work for Gayle and then we refined it and adjusted from there.

    One thing that really stuck with me on this project was the color choices that Gayle made. I have a REALLY hard time mixing warm and cool colors, especially when they are in the same family. Gayle knew what she was doing and insisted on the blue, lavender with coral combination and I was utterly amazed when they finally came off press.

    In addition to Gayle’s branding, we developed design out into her business papers, including business cards and letterhead.

    Letterpress letterhead is something that I need to do for myself, especially after seeing these beauties in their finished state. The letterhead was printed on 120GSM Lettra soft white letterhead sheets, 2 inks and paired with matching letterpress printed no. 10 envelopes also printed with 2 ink colors.

    Business cards were letterpress printed 3/0 on 110# paper with pantone matches for each color.

    The envelopes were a little weightier stock and came from Wast Not Paper (Paper-source.com’s wholesale company). We matched WNP’s soft white No. 10 envelopes with the letterhead and they added a little thickness just exactly where it was needed regarding the take of impression and contrast of ink.

    Thanks Gayle for being SO fun to work with, we are really happy with how these turned out and are honored to have had the opportunity to worked with you.

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