Dueling Wedding Invitations, Part Two

Sorry for the delay in posting part two of the dueling wedding invitations (click here for Part One); it's taken me some time to want to look at these guys again. They were such an ordeal to print in many ways, and I wasn't as happy with the whole thing as I had hoped I'd be. This was the last project printed on the 5x8 Kelsey and then a week later I brought home the 6x10 press and spent two weeks messing around with it before finally printing my business cards. I think I needed to print those cards and be super happy with them before I could step back and think about all the things that either went wrong or I did wrong with these invites.

Below is the finished product, which in some moments I do like. They're probably not everyone's cup of tea since they're brighter and maybe more casual than the standard wedding invitation, but I think they fit the tone of the couple and their upcoming wedding pretty well. John and Alissa are having a casual (for a wedding), summery wedding in Louisville, Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend, and I do think the invitation conveys that. My main problems with it are that it doesn't look as polished as I would have liked - I just couldn't get certain things to print perfectly and while the design isn't elegant, I still kind of wanted it to look elegant (because I'm bonkers). It looks handmade, which actually pleased the bride and groom, but ironically upsets me. Obviously I'm still having trouble evaluating this printing job, so let's just move onto the process, shall we?

So everything in the invitation except the trellis border is handset metal type, and the trellis is a stereotype mounted on wood. I'm sure you know that it's best to place the type in the chase with the lines of text running parallel to the top and bottom of the chase so that when the platen closes, pressure is applied evenly along the entire line of text and the line prints evenly. If you set the type so that a line of text runs parallel to the sides of the chase, the pressure might not be applied at the same time or quite as evenly since a clamshell press, by necessity, closes from the bottom to the top.

Naturally I try to follow that principle while printing, and at first tried on these too. Since the chase is only 5 inches tall from top to bottom, I had to print the text in two sections and the ornaments in two other sections and finally the trellis. That made 5 print runs, yikes. I had kind of accepted that when I noticed that the lines of text were not straight in the proofs, and it took me a very long time to figure out why, mainly because I didn't want to admit it to myself. Each text section was lined up nice and straight when I printed it (I promise - I measured 40-zillion times), but they were zigging and zagging towards each other when you examined the proof sheet. Because of the chase size and paper size, I was lining up the first text section to the top of the paper and the second text section to the bottom of the paper. The paper wasn't cut straight (thanks, incompetent Staples), so using two different straight edges wasn't lining everything up. I'm used to my paper-cutting being a bit unreliable (at some point I really need to face facts and find some sort of paper cutter), but I expected a bit more from Staples, with their fancy laser cutting. But, hey look! At least I've finally got ink mixing down!

  

So I finally faced facts, threw the ruler across the apartment with a curse, and set about the business of making sure each print run lined up with one edge, THE SAME EDGE, of the paper (the trellis edge). Unfortunately for me, this required resetting or at least repositioning pretty much every line. I'd taken care of much of my layout in the composing stick, and the shift needed to reposition lines running from 8 inches to 5 inches was large enough that I couldn't just turn the chase and rearrange the furniture. (Just as an aside, it's dumb-ass mistakes like this that led me to start this blog. Sure the idea of using a common edge for alignment seems obvious now that you've read it, but really was it before? Not to me, apparently. Now it is, and just in case this lesson hasn't been seared into my brain, I now have it recorded on the Internet for future reference.)

Somewhere in that process I got confused about my print runs - or at least that's my only explanation now. My notes are unclear, and as it was probably late at night, my memory is fuzzy. As you can see, I printed half the Della Robbia text first. Why? I'm not sure. I believe (and this is reconstruction) that I meant to print that portion of the text and the couple's names (in Gallia) in one run and the remainder of the text in the 2nd run, but that may not be true. If that was my intention, I can certainly explain why that didn't happen: the Gallia printed very badly. So I think that I decided that I didn't have enough ink for the Gallia but adding ink would cause over-inking of the Della Robbia. I was wrong, but I didn't know that yet. So the question now is, if I removed the Gallia, why didn't I add the rest of the Della Robbia text, and just print that all in one run? I don't have the answer for that, except perhaps that I was extremely frustrated and tired from an already long evening of resetting everything and discovering that the Gallia wasn't printing well. Regardless, that was stupid and added a whole extra print run and alignment headache. Now we're back at 5 print runs (3 text, 2 ornament). Ah, hindsight, etc.

So I printed the first section of Della Robbia separately and it went fine - it even looked pretty, with a nice kiss impression. Since I already had the press inked up and that had gone so well, I decided to give the Gallia a shot (this is still the first night of printing, just very late that night). Hubris. (Yeah that's right, this is an epic battle). My original idea was to print all the Gallia in one go, and since it's a heavier font than Della Robbia, I added more ink and I think removed a sheet of packing. The print was splotchy and uneven. I decided that I would go to bed and that the next night I would split the two sections up into two print runs. For those of you keeping track at home, that makes six print runs now, and let's keep in mind that each separate run entails a ridiculous amount of measuring and fiddling to make sure everything is aligned and straight.

The next evening I inked up again and tried to print the names only. Still no good. I added ink, I subtracted ink, I added packing, I subtracted packing. I briefly hyperventilated. Seriously though, I messed with this for hours. I examined each piece of type and did loads of spot makeready, mostly without success. I believe I had the tympan sheet, the makeready sheet, the press board, a piece of Lettra and three piece of card stock as packing and it really was pretty much perfect. I was getting just the right impression (a kiss), which I think you can even see in the below picture, but the printing was still blotchy. With the impression taken care of, I decided that the ink must be the problem, but soon ruled that out as well. I suppose that inking the Gallia isn't completely straightforward since there is both line and (a small) solid in the font, but I'm pretty sure I had more than enough ink on the press. At some points the ink was filling in the white space between the lines (see the I and last S in the bride's name) while still printing splotchily in other places (see the K in the groom's name). I did loads of makeready and it didn't help. I cleaned and examined the type before re-inking and that didn't help. I tested this two days in a row, so the press was cleaned in between, and while I used the same ink mix, I also used that ink mix to print the Della Robbia. Why did it print so badly? I'm still not really sure. 

 

My best guess is the paper wasn't taking the ink well from the type, but I don't really see what was so different about this situation than any other printing situation where this didn't happen. I was using Crane's Lettra, mainly because it probably is the paper I'm most familiar with, so we decided to use Lettra since much of the rest of the invitation was a new experience so why invite more trouble? So still, I'm unclear what the problem was.

Finally, late that 2nd night, I decided that I would have to dampen the paper. I had been reluctant to do this because I had already printed on the paper and I still had a few more print runs to go, so dampening the entire sheet seemed really problematic. The only other time I've printed on dampened paper, it was a small, one-run print job and I put 4 sheets of paper in a Tupperware container, dipped the fifth sheet of paper in water, laid it on top of the four sheets and repeated the process with the rest of the stack. I then let the stack sit closed overnight. Obviously I had no time to do that in this case and the idea of dipping my printed on sheet into a tub of water made me nervous.

So I devised the only stop-gap measure I could think of. I got a container of water and a sponge and spot-dampened the middle of each page where I would then print. I tried to print all the Gallia at once, but it actually still worked better in two sections, so I just printed the names that night. As you might imagine, individually dampening each sheet took a while and I couldn't do them all at once or they would dry before I printed them. It also took some experimentation to figure out how much to dampen. Finally I worked out a system where I would dampen 4 sheets and print them and then do four more. After about 25 I would stack them up and put them in the book press. When I was finally finished I left them all in the book press overnight and collapsed into bed. The next evening I repeated these steps for the 2nd section of Gallia and I also printed the 2nd section of Della Robbia. Between spot-dampening and then doing two runs of about 110 sheets with a hand-cranked press, it was a long evening. Let me tell you, after those three nights of difficult printing, I would be happy to never see that shade of blue again.

Voila, the text was finally done, and it looked mostly acceptable. The Gallia wasn't perfect and though I sound like a broken record, I still don't know why exactly. I've printed with it before without problems, I examined each piece pretty closely, but who knows? I'll do further tests at some point but haven't yet had the time or energy. To be honest, I just had to look at the time I had left and accept imperfection (although being honest, it's pretty obvious that I haven't accepted imperfection). The really annoying thing was actually something else (it just never ends). Though I had spent hours on alignment, the text still looked crooked. It wasn't crooked, but it looked crooked. I measured with my pica ruler, I tested with a triangle and the text was all perfectly aligned with the trellis edge, but due to the white space left by using both 24pt and 14pt Gallia, some of the text looked crooked. Since attaching a slip of paper explaining that this was just a visual trick wasn't an option, I decided to just take comfort in my measurements and hope that no one else would pay attention.

Elisabeth will maybe be proud of me after looking at the above picture. After seeing the frog business cards I printed (in two parts) last August, she commented that I could be pushing the press further and she was right. As you can see from this lockup, I printed that same frog, but this time printed two other elements and utilized most of the chase. I think if one compares the two prints, the newest one, with the larger print area, actually printed much better. Look at me growing. Perhaps there is hope yet? With the frog and the flowers, I really didn't have to do anything special to make it print well, so that was quite a relief. After all the problems I'd had with the text section, I had left myself only one evening to print all the green elements, including the envelopes.

Lots and lots of late nights with these guys, but that last night was the worst. I literally stayed up until 9:30 in the morning and then woke up at 11:40 to go to work (paying work) from 1-9. So obviously one of my issues was time management. As you may have read in my previous post on these invitations, it took us longer than expected to finalize the design, and once we were done, I procrastinated for a couple days because it was my birthday and I was tired of these invites and then I got crawl-around-on-the-floor sick for a few days, and by that time I only had about 4 days left to print everything. That may sound like plenty of time, and if everything had gone smoothly it would have been perfect. Of course, things went wrong, and I'm no expert, so 4 days was really, really pushing it. To be honest, I don't know if it would have turned out any better if I'd had more time. Maybe if I had decided to throw the whole thing out and start over, but I don't have that kind of money or patience.

The trellis was the final challenge, and its printing badly was purely my amateur fault. The trellis is actually two different pieces that I bought on EBay ages ago. They don't really fit together all that naturally, as you can see in the invitation, but that was unavoidable and I had originally planned for the invitation to be smaller and to only use the larger trellis piece. Anyway the trellis looked a little weird at the meeting point to begin with and parts of both pieces required some pretty complicated makeready, but I mostly got the job done. If you can believe it, I even spot dampened it too, just in case. If you look at the finished invitation however, you will notice a small area right in the center (yes, of course it would be the center!) that still didn't print, even with all my ministrations. That, ladies and gentlemen, is where the block just slopes downward. SLOPES! I did everything I could, underlays and overlays, and it does look better than the first prints, but there was just no way to print something that didn't exist. Why, oh why did I not notice that before? I could have just cut off the whole edge. It was a silly mistake, but now I know the value of carefully proofing all new materials!

 

And that is the saga of those invitations. If anyone has any ideas about any of the problems I experienced, I'd be thrilled to hear them. Also has anyone printed with French Paper? If so, please describe both which you used and the results.

All right, the duel is over. But it wasn't really a duel, I guess. Both are still standing (in that they please the brides and grooms) and now again so am I.

Comments

[Rich]

Well, whatever else one might say about that experience, I think you learned more about the actual craft of printing from that one invitation than most people do from dozens of deep impression jobs with photopolymer plates. You're learning to be a printer and not just a print-maker.

I'm guessing that the paper and possibly the ink may have combined to cause the problem with the Gallia. Lettra is "made for letterpress" in the sense of the modern, deep impression style. I've heard, though not experienced as I've never used it myself, that it does not always do so well with a lighter impression.

I helped a friend about a month ago print some invitations on a Vandercook with a photopolymer plate. To soften the paper for the crush of the impression I held the sheets over a steaming coffee pot, moving them back and forth for about a minute before handing them over. That seemed to work really well without soaking the paper. If I even have a need to dampen sheets for printing I'm going to use that method.

Rich

[Maggie]

Thanks, Rich, that's a really nice thing to say. Becoming a good printer is the goal, so you're right, it was all in service to that goal.

I think that is a fantastic idea for dampening paper, and next time I will try it. I wish I had thought of it before!

I bought some Lettra when I first got the Kelsey, just to give it a shot. I go back and forth about how much I like it - perhaps because I don't do huge impression. But since I have it, I use it.

But in the coming month or so, I'm planning to start experimenting with a few different papers to see what kind I like the best.

Do you have a current favorite stock?

[Rich]

I've used a number of different kinds of paper, from bond and index to laid 100% cotton Stratmore. It's all found paper, I've not actually had to buy any yet.

I tend to choose from the stock I have available what I think will work best for the application. When I printed the poetry broadside I used a 100% cotton laid paper because I was trying to get an antique look and feel. For my pads I had some fairly heavy weight bond cut-offs, some of which were a bit creased. Since the pads I've made so far have been nothing fancy, strictly for their intended purpose, I used some of that stock. I had a lot of boxes of older die-cut card stock a bit larger than standard modern business card size (which I like) with a very slight vellum finish and I used some of them for my business cards, trimming the corners on my corner rounder.

No doubt I'll have to actually buy paper for some reason at some point but I've a pretty good selection and I like the challenge of working out something with what I have, like I do when choosing a typeface.

I have nothing against Lettra, and if I was printing wedding invitations for the average modern client would use it if that's what they wanted. But on the other hand, why do what everyone else is doing, even in that area. I think that good typography, paper and ink selection including color, quality of printing, etc. have a lot more to do with a good job that sets letterpress apart than debossed letters.

[elisabeth]

Hi! It's been a while. I think it all looks terrific, though I can totally feel your pain. When I first started up I volunteered to print the invites for a fundraiser, and included a large, completely opaque tree in the design -- not ultimately knowing what I was up against. I could not for the life of me figure out why the impression was deep at the bottom and light at the top until duh, I realized it was the mechanics of the press. My point being that it's not all obvious, and hindsight is twenty-twenty.
I wish I could say why you had such problems with the type on the invite --I have nothing to offer. Meantime I've been making notes on a soon-to-be order from Don Black and they're both on the list! Anyways I guess my best advice, based on what I've learned is:
1. Build a pyramidal stack of paper to correct for the impression
2. Shave your rails to smooth them -- which everyone advises against but you can simply add a piece of cardboard behind your form -- do it with a fine grit sanding sort of thing. My vocab is obviously rusty but I think you'll know what I mean.
More importantly I just moved studios and despite expanding am running out of space -- I have my original Pearl Improved that is broken, and needs to be braised (spelling?) that I would love to see go to a good home. If you think you can fix it -- it basically needs to be clamped and braised -- it's yours for the taking. I'd like to see it go to a good home.
Email me if you'd like it or would like to see it. And I should mention that it won't be too difficult to move -- I can have my husband come help your man move it onto a truck or whatever, and you'll need two burly guys at your end.
Okay that's it. But free Pearl that needs some love. Think on it, I'd rather you have dibs on it before I put it on Briarpress.

[elisabeth]

Ahem. I also don't know the terminology for what's broken -- I'm happy to send pictures but it's basically the base of the top half that connects to the platen. A fairly significant crack that, again, needs a bit of goop.

[Maggie]

Wow, Elisabeth is the most generous person ever.

[marriage]

I also like this, like on the part one they are truly beautiful invitations. :)

winnie