Facts About Letterpress Printing

Letterpress has been replaced by offset printing for most purposes, but not all. When it comes to elegance, letterpress printing still commands a price. People love to print wedding and other invitations, business cards etc in letterpress. The gravity of those elegant impressions surpasses the levity of offset printing. Despite being expensive, people love to flaunt those impressions on cards that signify defining moments in their lives. It evokes a sense of nostalgia. The engravings convey a message and the events are etched in the memory of recipients. Letterpress printing can be the perfect solution to your printing needs whether it is wedding invitation, business car printing or something else. 

Types of Letterpress Print

The Letterpress printed material boasts of tangible prints. There are various ways in which such tangible prints can be imprinted on papers. Simply speaking there are various types of such prints. Letters can be embossed, debossed or blind. Your preference and significance of the occasion or purpose are the two things that determine the type of print. So the letters may have a stamping effect with a raised texture or a depressed texture. The raised letters are known as embossed ones and the depressed letters are known as debossed ones.

Embossed Printing

To print such letters the letters are pressed upwards from backside. It obviously leaves a debossing effect on the backside and an embossing effect on the upper side. 

Debossed Printing

In such prints the letters are pressed from the upper side. Like in embossing effect this also produces a debossing on the uppeside and an embossing effect on the backside.

Blind Printing

In this type of printing, ink is used to produce the effect. So what you get is just an impression of letters in ink. There is no effect on the opposite side. This is the type of letterpress print that most people look for. 

The letterpress print evokes a sense of proximity to the recipient be it a business card, an invitation or anything else. You can create a number of different effects with the help of letterpress print. Each of them has a different appeal. Most people prefer the debossed or embossed prints for printing items like visiting cards. On the other hand, the blind effect is popular in wedding cards and other invitation cards. 

Contemporary Letterpress

Though the print has kept its nostalgic flavor intact, the method of printing has undergone a sea change. Printers no longer use the wooden or metal blocks for letterpress printing. Instead they use polymer plates which can be carved out in different forms and colors. The polymer plates are prepared separately for different sets of letters. This is done photographically. In the first stage the letters and the embellishments are designed in computer. Yes, this is now done in computer. This obviously widens the scope for designs and embellishments. After the design is finalized, a printout of the same is taken on a film. This is then used a negative photographic plate for developing the polymer plate. Next a polymer plate is taken and it is dipped in a water-soluble and light-sensitive synthetic material. It is then kept against a clear support and the negative film is kept in front of it. Next, UV light is made to pass through the film and onto the polymer plate. As a result, the portion of the plate that is exposed to the UV light gets hardened up, and the rest of the material is washed away. The hardened portions of the plate become raised surfaces and give shape to the letters, ornaments and designs. The polymer plate is now ready to print embossed, debossed or blind letterpress printed material on invitation cards, greetings cards, business cards etc. If you need the same material in different colors, you need to prepare different plates for different colors.

Owing to the use of computer in designing, you can have rich designs, patterns and ornaments on the cards. This enhances the beauty of the card. You can also get exquisitely designed letters through computer.

Requirements of Good Letterpress Printing

You need good quality tactile paper with rich texture for Letterpress Printing. This is all the more required for the embossing and debossing effects rather than for the blind printing effect. You also need to design the photographic plate in good resolution. Otherwise, the debossing or embossing effect won't be clear.