Tip Of The Week: Letterpress Printing Tips & Ideas

I love stationery. The way that it is packaged, the colours and the print. Letterpress is the oldest method of printing and all “modern-day” letterpress printing is still printed on antique presses. Letterpress printing is an art as much as it is a technique; and it’s certainly a labor of love. It’s an extremely manual process from mixing the ink by hand to setting up the press, one colour at a time, to individually fed paper. This week we help you decide if you should splurge or save!

1. Splurge 

If you’re going to the extent of letterpress printing, splurge on paper that lends itself to letterpress printing. Letterpress printing almost always looks lovely but it’s even lovelier when printed on extra thick 100% cotton or bamboo paper. It makes that much more of an statement when your guests receive their invitation. A couple of good places for letterpress are The Artisan Press and Poppy Letterpress. In our opinion also splurge on calligraphy to add that final touch and have your addresses calligraphed. Work with your calligrapher to select a style and ink that complements your invitation. And if you’re going to work with a calligrapher, be sure to order extra envelopes! Most calligraphers require 15% to 20% extra envelopes for “just in case”. 

2. Save

The easiest way to keep costs down is to keep the number of colours down, some would say that letterpress is best with 1 to 2 colours or alternatively print on coloured paper. But one thing to know is that letterpress ink is translucent by nature. So, printing a light colour on a dark paper stock is usually not possible. You could also use a coloured envelope for the RSVP card, use fun custom or vintage postage, or create an envelope liner. 


If you want the look but still want to save even more then perhaps consider getting a rubber stamp made. There are lots of custom stamp options available on Etsy including, Meant to Be, Note Trunk, and LetterGirl.

There is one more option, you can use Photoshop to create lettepress effects! Here is the tutorial :)