Letterpress Pointers For Designers

Do you have a business card or personal design you’d like letterpressed? Are you a designer looking for some guidelines on how best to deliver your project? Take a look at some of our guidelines and friendly reminders below.

If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to contact us to talk about your custom printing needs. We’re always up for a chat!

File Guidelines

• Send files at 100% scale. Set all bleed at 3mm and always export your artwork with crop marks.
• We prefer EPS (vector) or press-quality PDF formats.
• When sending EPS files, outline your fonts. Before submitting, outline selected fonts instead of sending them packaged. This way, we can ensure that your lettering prints exactly as you designed it to. (You can do this in Adobe Illustrator by selecting the fonts and clicking Type > Create Outlines, which will convert the text into vector shapes.)

Design Guidelines

• Use type 6 point or larger. Our letterpress handles most fonts masterfully, but type smaller than 6 point will be blurred.
• Minimum stroke weight is 0.1 point. This is a vital requirement to produce the cleanest final product.
• Vector images are preferred.
• When printing letterpress each colour requires a plate to be made. Therefore, the more colours you have printed the greater the cost will be. Please note that a blind impression is considered a ‘colour’ as a separate plate needs to be made for this.
• Large solid areas are not recommended when printing. Prepare for a mottled look when using large blocks of colour. Letterpress printing is at its best when designs are kept simple.

Extra Considerations

• Consider die cut patterns. We’d love to discuss capabilities for interesting cuts and shapes. For die cutting please indicate all cut lines with a 1 point 100% magenta stroke and score lines with a 1 point 100% cyan stroke.
• Consider envelopes. We can digitally print on both the back flap and front of envelopes. Feel free to have a chat about the different types we offer.
• Consider paper choice. This is one of our favourite parts of the letterpress process. We have a variety of preferred paper stocks from 100% cotton to Enviro Board, but we’re more than happy to discuss any paper suggestions you might have!