Jacob Ryan Letterpress

Description: To print a letterpress design we make a photopolymer plate for each ink colour and mount it on the press to be inked up. It’s simple and efficient. Except if you run into finicky dots-Yup tiny little innocent looking dots. When I made the plate for Jacob’s cards the little lines of dots morphed and started moving on the plate. I had never had this happen before so I thought it might be the plate-sometimes they get old and don’t expose as well. So I made another plate, and another and another and it still wasn’t working! What I eventually realized, after wasting quite a bit of plate material, was the large solid logo needed to be exposed for a different amount of time than the small dots. So, I made another plate of the full card and using an exacto knife and a steady hand, I cut out the lines of dots and printed the cards in 2 runs, one for the logo and one for the dots. It was probably the most work for such a simple job I have ever done. And in the end the result was excellent and the client loved them-which is all that matters! With letterpress, it really is a new experience with each design, each plate, each print, and that’s why we love it!