I am so excited to share this little video (below) with you. I shot it on my ipod and put it together in instagram. It just gives you a 15 second glimpse into offset printing of some stationery I whipped together.
I am the in-house designer for an offset printing company. We print everything from newspapers and magazines, down to brochures, letterhead and business cards (and everything in between). Sometimes on the rare occasion, and if I’m lucky, we print a job that only requires so much space printed on a big sheet of paper, leaving an open hole. This week I scrambled to put together a quick little note paper for writing letters. You may remember this pattern that I made below.
I’ve used the pattern to make little notebooks and note cards before. But, earlier this week I scrambled to use that pattern as a masthead on some stationery. I already had the image scanned and saved on a jump drive, and then I drew out some loose pencil lines, scanned them and put them together to make the above stationery that I am IN LOVE WITH! It’s a good thing too because I have enough to write letters for the rest of my life.
I was on cloud nine when I pulled it together because often an available hole shows up very last minute and there isn’t time to design something and get it ready for the press in time. The print world moves FAST! You’d think that I’d learn by now and have a whole folder of projects to pull from for last minute, but the holes are never predictable in size or nature. One time it might be a job that is being printed in an odd spot color only, or it might be a business card sized hole and another time it might be something printed on label paper. But this time, I had an idea and pounced quickly. I was so excited all day and told Matt that it would be my DREAM job to get to design things like this all the time and get to see them go from my original handwork to a final printed product. I love designing for print, but it’s almost always other people’s design ideas and I’m just executing it. It’s not very often that my personal creative side and professional side get to cross paths and it felt amazing.
Maybe I’ll share some in my etsy shop?
Really loved seeing this on instagram last night. So glad to see this post this morning, explaining more of how it works. And yes, please, stationery in the etsy shop!!!
:)
Loved seeing the video yesterday, and now I’m happy to hear more about what went into creating it! I totally understand your excitement about print design. I occasionally got to visit print shops to check on client work when I worked in a design studio that did some print work, and it was always such a treat. I can imagine it would be even more satisfying to see your own designs come to life! Very exciting!
I would totally buy it in your etsy shop; especially for gifts! It’s beautiful!!!