LETTERPRESS
When tradition becomes a trend again
Mara and I (Maya) get into the car and start our wild ride. It's 7 o'clock, so the temperature is still bearable. We had a first little fight with the entrance gate in Bolzano, but once we're out, nothing can stop us.
4 hours and a short coffee break later we arrive. We enter the large, modern industrial-style hall. we take a look around. A glance to the left and there is Sabina. She welcomes us with a warm hug and makes us coffee. We chat for a moment and then Friedl comes around the corner. He too makes us immediately feel welcome. Besides visiting our dear colleagues here in Augsburg, we are also here to get some impressions of the latest products and especially to take a look at a new, exciting and really cool project. Project is actually way too modest. It's a whole machine - actually three of them, which offer us new, completely new possibilities: Letterpress.
If someone doesn't know what "letterpress" is all about, no problem, I'll explain it briefly - I'm practically a professional now. Letterpress means " book printing" and represents the origin of all printing processes. Back there, with all the printing machines, it feels a bit like being in a historical museum.
The historical printing technique is back in fashion. Retro is "in" and high-quality is certainly a thing. Quality before quantity is the motto. Letterpress is characterised by its high-quality appearance and the haptic sensory experience that comes with it. The impressionsons the paper created by the embossing give the product that certain extra touch.
As already mentioned, letterpress means book printing and therefore works similar to offset printing. There is ink, rolls, paper and a "printing plate". However, the printing plate is not an exposed plate consisting of fat-binding and fat-repellent parts that ensure that the ink gets onto the paper in the end. The printing plate here is called "cliché" and consists of a milled metal plate - a bit like the potato printing we know from school. During the printing process itself, though, not only ink or foil is stamped onto the paper, but a "relief" is created - a real artwork, in other words.
As already mentioned, letterpress means book printing and therefore works similar to offset printing. There is ink, rolls, paper and a "printing plate". However, the printing plate is not an exposed plate consisting of fat-binding and fat-repellent parts that ensure that the ink gets onto the paper in the end. The printing plate here is called "cliché" and consists of a milled metal plate - a bit like the potato printing we know from school. During the printing process itself, though, not only ink or foil is stamped onto the paper, but a "relief" is created - a real artwork, in other words.
So we go to the production area, which now has a "historical" air, and take a close look at the whole scene. Danny takes the time to explain to Mara and me what is possible: relief printing, intaglio printing, hot foil stamping, colour embossing, blind embossing, colour cut and much more. When it comes to colour embossing, it is important to remember that there is only one colour unit on a letterpress, which means one colour per print. If you want to combine more than one colour, you have to plan one printing pass per colour. Another difference to offset is that you do not work with four colours, but with pure Pantone colours.
We take hundreds of photos and are very enthusiastic. The machine is really very "instagramable" with its retro look. The combination of vintage with modern elements lets the viewer know that you are not "frumpy", but that you like artistic-creative "old-school".
Back to the cliché - not what we understand literally by it, but our printing plate for the test run. Before Danny can show us what the imprint looks like in practice, we have to decide on the graphics. Mara has already come up with something cool, and together with Tom she defines the best way to arrange the graphics. This means deciding on which part of the graphic should be milled deeper and how fine certain lines should be. Then it gets down to the nitty-gritty. Tom uploads the graphic to the PC and starts the milling cutter. Cutters of different sizes have to be mounted to draw the fine lines and circles. Different patterns, different heights and depths are to be shown - we want to see what the Old-Timer can do. Tom and Friedl have been very passionate from the beginning, testing different materials and optimising the process. Milling takes time. Mara, Tom and I are standing in front of the glass and watching the milling machine. Along with the sound, it's almost meditative.
From the kitchen comes the smell of delicious food. We use the time for milling to catch up with the others. After lunch, we return to the place of action: finally, we can see the first fine lines. The fine-tuning happens overnight.
The next morning we walk to our workplace for these days and sit down at "our" borrowed desks. Mara is busy with our client Sportler and I work on my mails. Finally Danny calls us. The cliché is ready. We choose a foil for hot foil embossing. A real foil paradise. Matt green and shiny violet have made the race. Then we discover a box at the very back, at the bottom of the shelf: rainbows, glitter, a lot of "trashy" - somehow 90ies foils. We're not quite sure what exactly it is, but we want to try THAT.
Friedl just shakes his head "well, that's really NOT my taste", but Mara and I are happy with our rainbow whoopee colour. This 90ies foil with our modern cliché on the "Original Heidelberg" from 1950 becomes a really stylish mix of epochs on paper.
We ask Danny 100 questions and he has an answer for everything. He learned on a machine like that - hard to believe. When we get to try the machine ourselves, we realise how heavy the almost 100-year-old machine is and how much power it requires. It's really fascinating that this device, which looks so historic, works so well. The machines from years ago not only have charm, but are also in really good condition. They still do exactly what they are supposed to do after 70 years. I often struggle with my printer at home - this one seems to work flawlessly - well, there are professionals involved. Moreover, in this case it's not the well-known love-hate relationship between man and machine but genuine craftsmanship.
For the sample we use Mara's design and a 700gr paper (for people who are not experts: this is VERY thick). A cotton paper, high quality, voluminous and therefore perfect to emphasise the three-dimensionality. It is printed AND embossed in one pass - everything happens in one step, which makes it possible to print very fine details.
Our embossing looks really spacy - I'm not sure if there is such a word, but it describes pretty well how it looks - kind of like from the space 😉 The elegance of the traditional printing technique in combination with the modern design and the somewhat "crazy" foil make our print special and looks really high quality on the voluminous cotton paper despite the rainbow whoopee colour.
We use our little project as a thank-you card for our colleagues for their patience and their warm welcome. Actually, our trial is in business card format - probably the most common field of application for letterpress together with invitation cards or postcards. It has already been applied in-house for the cover of an art book, but the machines are not suitable for every format. The paper should be well chosen, as already mentioned, in order to achieve the desired effect.
Finally, we are allowed to be part of the summer party. Just like the last time I stayed with our colleagues in Augsburg, they cooked: Oxana and her daughter Sonja were in the kitchen together with Friedl and Tom. Gabi and Ellen prepared ice cream, Steffi tiramisu and Sabina a really tasty cake. Everything is super delicious and the mood is also very good. As we still have some distance to travel, we set off at around 19:00. It's a pity that the days passed so quickly. But as the Pink Panther said (and he is known to be very very wise): Today is not every day; we will be back, no question.