Our Techniques

Printing puts an image on paper. Finishing puts it into the paper.

Everything we make goes through one of a handful of processes, most of them in use long before digital printing existed. We kept them because nothing else does what they do. Foil catches light in a way ink never will. A letterpress impression has depth you can find with a fingertip. These aren't effects. They're the difference between a printed thing and a made one.

Why we finish

We choose our papers for their texture, their weight, the way they take light. Ink laid flat across a sheet like that leaves most of it unused.

For the same reason, we don't laminate. A film of plastic protects a sheet and seals away everything it was chosen for. Texture you can't feel isn't texture.

So the press is our standard, not the print run. Foil, emboss, deboss and die cut are worked on paper chosen to receive them, and even a run of a thousand goes through the press one sheet at a time.

It costs a die instead of a file, another pass through the press, another day on the schedule. That day is the whole point.

Hot foil stamping

A metal die is heated, pressed through a roll of foil, and the foil transfers to the paper under pressure.

What you get is real shine, not a printed imitation of it. Gold, rose gold and silver, in a single spot or across a full page. On dark or coloured stock it's the only method that stays bright, because foil sits on top of the paper instead of soaking into it.

Best for logos, monograms, names. Anything that should be the first thing seen.

Letterpress

The oldest method here, and the slowest. A plate is inked and pressed into the sheet hard enough to leave a physical impression.

Run a finger across letterpress and you feel the type. The ink sits slightly below the surface, in a bed of its own making. It needs a soft, thick paper to bite into, which is why we pair it with cotton board rather than a standard stock.

Best for wedding invitations, and anything the reader will hold for a while.

Emboss

Two dies, one raised and one recessed, press the sheet between them. The paper is pushed up rather than marked.

No ink is involved. A blind emboss is design made purely from shadow: you see it because of how light falls across the raised surface, not because of colour. It's the quietest thing we do, and the one people reach out and touch.

Best for a logo you want present but not loud.

Deboss

Emboss in reverse. The design is pressed down into the sheet instead of up.

Deboss reads as more restrained than emboss. It works particularly well underneath foil, where the foil settles into the recess rather than sitting on the surface, giving a depth neither achieves alone.

Best for heavier stocks, where there's enough paper to press into.

Printing

Not everything needs a die. A few things, like small text or fine photographic detail, are simply better read than felt, and for those we print.

But it plays a supporting role. Most pieces are foil, emboss, deboss, or die cut first, with printing added only where the design calls for it.

Shaping and finishing

Some things happen after the ink.

Die cutting. The sheet is cut to shape instead of to a rectangle. Single arch, double arch, rounded corner.

Stitching. Machine-sewn edges, used on our vellum envelopes.

Embroidery. Single colour, stitched into fabric covers.

Combining them

The work we're proudest of usually uses more than one.

Foil over deboss. Letterpress with a foil accent. Emboss on coloured stock with nothing else at all. Every additional technique means another pass through the press, another die, and more time, so we'll tell you honestly when a second one earns its place and when it doesn't.