Loving Letterpress Invitations

There’s an art to letterpress, brides who want an upscale look request it, and graphic designers go crazy for it.  Invented in the 1400s, each design has it’s own plate created.  It’s then inked, and pressed into the paper creating a deboss you can see and feel.

We all know the event starts with the invitations!  Phoenix invitation designer Amy Wallace of Page & Mason Invitations became interested in letterpress printing when she took a course at the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College in Chicago several years ago.  Through the class she worked with an old typesetting form of letterpress printing and learned how to make a photopolymer plate of her designed artwork and print her first letterpress business cards.

Today, Amy offers her clients who request the timeless and popular letterpress invitation to her clients.  I asked her to take her camera along to a local letterpress printer (she is also a former photography student of my workshops) and document her latest letterpress invites she designed.

Letterpress invitation designed and images photographed by Page & Mason Invitations.  So let’s see how letterpress is made!

Here is the plate of one of the invitations:

These are Pantone color swatches.  You might know for fall Pantone picks an “in” color for fall. What a PMS color stands for is the color tone so when you say it’s say, PMS 200, every printer will be able to give you the same exact red color no matter where you go.

This is a duplex invitation with the letterpress wording on the front and a full bleed on the back for a rich look.  Duplexing is gluing two papers together to create a really thick paper.  The yellow edge paint on the invite is a fun pop of color.

Thanks so much for sharing the letterpress process Amy!  Great photos! For more information on custom designed invitations and letterpress, visit Page & Mason Invitations.

Diana Elizabeth is obsessed with paper.  She has post-its on every type of card set (when they come in box sets) and lists names to make sure no one gets the same card for their birthday or thank you.