How best to print this

I was given the attached logo to print business cards. I’m trying to figure out the best way to achieve the two-tone effect in the symbol.

I had four ideas:

• I initially thought about double hitting the lighter tone to achieve the darker tone, but the rest of the copy on the card is the darker tone, and I’d rather not have to double hit all of that. That’s just asking for trouble!

• I could halftone the lighter toned sections, but it’s pretty small and I don’t know how great it’s going to look as a screen.

• I could print the small sections as separate colors (oy…)

• I could print a semi-opaque hit of white to knock back the colors for the lighter tones.

Any other ideas? Any of these seem like the best option? I’m thinking the white ink is probably the best.

Thanks!

image: fifth.png

fifth.png

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Print this on a offset press or digital on a laser printer.

You are wasting your time thinking about printing this Letterpress.

What kind of paper will you be using? If it’s smooth, a screen would work.

You can’t make one piece of Film and have screened and Lineart (Non screen) on it.

Run it 4 times in tight registration or screen everything.

Regarding the “cashew nut” part of the design: print the lighter tone under the entire “nut.” Then overprint the darker tone on the nuts, with the type at the same time, so the type would not be a double hit. At least that way you would avoid a trap through the middle of the nuts, which could result in a visible line.

I don’t envy you this project as I know the “nuts” on the actual cards are a lot smaller than on the graphic you posted.

It’s 3 runs if the client is not totally enamored with completely color-matching the inks together.

~Light blue, on left of logo, almost only where you can see it- I wouldn’t print it ‘under’ everything. I’d print it with a bit of bleed out to the right- just a bit to fit under the medium blue.
This will be necessary to avoid registration issues later of course.
Perhaps if these are 1/4” tall, you could trap it with the equivalent of .35 pt stroke to the right of the blue shape.

~Dark blue logo of right nut, solid, the whole shape, but you’re going to have to nail the damn crosshairs over the lightest, first run, because positioning is key here for run 3.

~Run three is the medium blue of the left nut and the type, and the lighter highlight over the dark blue. This is knocked back with opaque white and trans base, to make it transparent but still have some white in it in order to lighten the navy blue;
this OVERPRINTS the dark blue to achieve the lighter compliment to it’s darker tone.

If you mix that medium blue just right, ink it consistently and dead on, and it matches the open paper color and overprints the dark nut precisely, and you print it straight as an arrow, you can do this “the hard way” in three runs.

Note: You’re probably going to have to run this 1-up in this case. If you do multi-up, you might see a lot of motion and things won’t track together easily.

I will say this: This logo doesn’t look like it was designed with spot color, plate style letterpress in an economical fashion in mind.
It looks like it was designed for digital platforms; sometimes digital platform design does not adapt well to spot color/plate driven letterpress on a reasonable budget.

You should charge the shit out of your client for this job, plan on lots of press-time and overages and to baby the runs carefully, because it will likely be a PITA to produce. Unless you’re a perfect printer- you’re probably going to have to run it twice- once short to ‘prove’ it, and once long to ‘run’ it.

Good luck!

Oh my oh my!!!!! Obviously none of the above has ever dealt with corporate logos before. I use to dwell in the world of corporate design, annual reports, et al. You DON’T screen their colors and you damn well better hit their colors DEAD ON or everything goes in the dumpster.

When Apple Computer started, Steve Jobs insisted that their logo (six colors, I believe) be printed in six EXACT PMS colors in PERFECT REGISTRATION. A printer’s nightmare!!!!!!!

This is NOT a job suitable for letterpress. You would have to be dead on the money to do an “acceptable” job, anything less and you become a schmuck.

Rick

Oh my oh my!!!!! Obviously none of the above has ever dealt with corporate logos before. I use to dwell in the world of corporate design, annual reports, et al. You DON’T screen their colors and you damn well better hit their colors DEAD ON or everything goes in the dumpster.

When Apple Computer started, Steve Jobs insisted that their logo (six colors, I believe) be printed in six EXACT PMS colors in PERFECT REGISTRATION. A printer’s nightmare!!!!!!!

This is NOT a job suitable for letterpress. You would have to be dead on the money to do an “acceptable” job, anything less and you become a schmuck.

Rick

This is proof that $5 logos can be much more expensive than advertised.

If this customer is new, and doesn’t have the potential to bring you considerably more business, maybe the best thing to do would be to just refuse the job. There is no shame in that. It is a good business decision if there is a high probability that the job could be rejected, or that you could lose money on it.

To follow up on what Rick says above, all of the conventional printing processes (letterpress, flexo, litho, gravure and screen) have their types of work which they are well suited to, and types of work which they are not particularly well suited to.

I assume this is a deep impression job. Have you thought about getting it printed digitally and then applying the impression afterwards? I don’t know how well that works, but as I recall there was some talk about it on Briar Press not too long ago.

Paper is probably Lettra or Savoy. Savoy might be the better choice. Of course he also wants the logo on the reverse side, so it has to be the 220/236 cover.

And yes, my guess is this is a $5 logo. If you could zoom in and see the curves, they’re just awful. The file I was sent is in RGB mode too…

The pieces are too small to trap. The Windmill is pretty good at nailing this stuff, so that doesn’t worry me. I’ve done tight registration before.

What do you guys think about the spot semi-opaque white to knock back the color in the ‘nuts’? I’d run the nuts in solid color, then use the white to achieve the lighter tone. This makes it a 3-color run.

you could do “fake” letterpress:

print digital and then hit it with a plate afterwards without ink to provide a slight impression.

Guess what I received a bid request for this very job,
just yesterday! wow what a coincidence? Do they call this
fishing?

If it’s a $5 logo then chances are they are going to go nuts (pun intended) and walk away, when they find out the price for letterpress.

I like the spot semi-opaque white idea because 1) it simplifies the job, and 2) if the white is a little off register, you won’t see it against the white stock. The only possible problem with that is if you can’t make both lighter blues with the same formulation of the white. It would be interesting to know if this is the first time they ever printed that logo. If that is the case, and they approve your proof and job, then your job will become the standard for color, and you will have an advantage in getting other work from them.

I have no idea if this would be possible, but, to avoid making a letterpress printed proof, could you possibly make a proof using Illustrator, to simulate applying the same formulation of opaque/trans white to the two blues, to see if you can make both lighter blues with the same white?

Another factor which will come into play here, is that on a business card, the logo and type are small and on a white background, which will make the colors appear darker. So, if the customer has only viewed their logo in a large format, when they see it on a business card, they may think the colors are too dark and want them lighter. This is another reason to show them a proof first.

Since James got a bid request too, there’s no telling how many other bid requests are out there. When the customer finds out the price for letterpress, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they decided they didn’t have to have deep impression after all, and went with one of those TV and internet ads for 250 cards for $9.95

It would be great to be a fly on the wall of the customer’s office……

+1 ryanhowell

+1 on receiving a quote request for this same job. Just replied that the design was not suitable for letterpress.

I had a bad experience last year trying to work with a client who started with me and then got an intricate/impractical logo from 99 Designs. It was a nightmare… Thanks for those who reminded me that not every request is worth persuing.

I’m finding the lack of customer service in this thread alarming. When a customer comes knocking on my door with a difficult project I don’t say “this is not possible with letterpress” and slam the door - I politely explain to them that in it’s current form letterpress printing is not the best solution (along with some quick explanations) and then I recommend changes that could be made to make is a successful letterpress project. People are looking for solutions, not salty, dismissive vendors. If the changes are not possible then I can part ways knowing that as a business we did our best to help a potential client, and they can pursue other forms of printing.

I also quoted this project (getting multiple quotes is good business, not fishing) as 2C/2C on duplexed stock with the lighter colors being halftones (for which I explained that exact color matching on the halftones would not be possible). If they want samples of previous projects I will send them. If they feel the pricing is too high I will wish them the best and ask that they consider us for their next letterpress project. If they agree with our quality, pricing, and turnaround time I will run their credit card and get to work.

Stupid duplicate posts!

Wow, how many people did this guy reach out to? :-) And to think, I was trying to be discreet and not show the full logo!

I don’t care that he’s shopping around. He gave me a reasonable budget, and I’ve been going back and forth on printing options. I requested certain changes to make the card more printable, but haven’t heard back since. Maybe the necessary changes aren’t palatable. He sent me a beautiful letterpress pic of the logo, which was obviously a photoshop mockup. Maybe I should suggest he print the mockup!

Oh well, there are other jobs to do.