A 1920's Nod - Wedding Stationery, Alex & Peter

This clean, 1920's themed invitation took inspiration from the deco style railings that surround the building in which the lovely Alex and Peter were getting married. We incorporated the bold geometric design of the railings into the wedding stationery suite by blind letterpress printing it onto the soft 600gsm 100% cotton Cranes Lettra board. 
This subtle technique of Letterpress printing without ink is not only pleasing to the eye but creates a tactile pleasure too. A mix of typefaces all with a nod to the twenties come together to create this elegant invitation.













































As well as the main invitation, we designed and printed the pre-wedding dinner invite, information sheet and the rather pleasing envelopes that were handmade using Cranes Lettra paper before being litho printed in 2 colours. For the day we created a matching welcome print and table plan.





And, we are sure now that Downton has hit the roaring twenties, this invitation would even be fit for Lady Mary Crawley  if she ever decides to accept her proposal from Lord Gillingham (fingers crossed!)

3 Wonderful Years!

Today is our 3rd Birthday! (the 23rd of October)

It's been non stop since we first opened our doors here on Walcot street, and the weeks have been flying past. We've gone from printing bespoke stationery on our small table top presses to reeling off hundreds of prints at a time in our new print works in Oldfield Park.

A few of our letterpress greeting cards.

The shop is still busy as always, and we will shortly be undertaking a small shop refit to allow us to stock more of our favourite goods and so that we can fit in the increasing amount of our own products. It's taken a while for us to fit in designing more of our own goods, but thanks to new team members Suzie and Zoë we have been able to design more products, release our first catalogue for wholesale and even send out our first wholesale order to a shop in Singapore - we've gone international!
In January we will be partaking in our first trade show for our own brand paper goods, at Top Drawer in London - the next step for Meticulous Ink.

The Meticulous Ink Team, Athena, Charlie, Suzie and Zoë.

We continue to enjoy producing private bespoke stationery for our customers from our lovely shop in Bath, and have seen an incredibly busy year. We have had the pleasure of designing many beautiful wedding stationery suites for many happy couples, as well as helping companies develop their branding into something we would be proud of ourselves.

Our 2014 letterpress calendar, available in store from November.

Our platens haven't seen a dull moment, both printing away into the night on new box sets, christmas cards and our first calendar for 2014.
We are currently designing many more products and expect to bring you more lovely paper goods next year. In addition to this we have been slowly phasing in our new branding which will be in full effect by January.

Here's to another glorious year!

A sneak peek of our updated Meticulous Ink logo.

Letterpress Wedding Stationery - Gemma & Samuel.

Some pretty summer wedding invitation inspiration for you today, a classic English country wedding.

Gemma and Samuel took full advantage of the bespoke nature of our invitations and requested an illustrated border containing various items that really meant something to them - hot air balloons, daisies, roses, a rugby ball and knitting needles amongst other things. This illustrated border perfectly framed classically typeset information for the big day.
They chose pretty soft summer colours - a soft yellow and dusty blue, to be printed on to a beautifully thick 535gsm Bockingford board - a board that we often use for printing as it performs so well with letterpress.

We also provided them with matching day stationery - an order of service - with matching colours, ribboned in bright yellow. Scattered throughout the pages of the order of service, more illustrations we created of items that meant something to them. This idea really brings together a truly personal feel to the whole wedding suite, and something that is now a very popular style for us.
For their wedding favours, they made small pots of jam for their guests - so we provided them with a pretty jam jar label to match the rest of their stationery.

Stationery photography by Benkin Photography.

Letterpress wedding invitations and matching digitally printed order of service booklets.
 
Their favourite things, letterpress printed onto 535gsm Bockingford board.

More meaningful illustrations, scattered throughout this pretty order of service.


































































The big day and the happy couple, both looking wonderful.

Croquet celebrations and homemade jam.
And then there was cake, beautiful cake.















Making Errors

After a recent encounter with the lovely people from Cereal magazine and the extremely capable brothers of Raspberry and Jam creative video I felt inspired to blog about something which cropped up in our days filming together.
Since we started in 2010, we've barely had time to really sit and look back on what we've achieved and how we've done it - but something came up on the day which completely captured the modern approach to Letterpress, and captured how we use letterpress to produce our stationery.
So I thought I would try and explain modern letterpress without pushing aside or forgetting about its traditional beginnings.
Traditional letterpress printing, flat, crisp and well inked.

Traditionally Letterpress is a flat print. We set the type, make our packing just right so as not create any indentation upon our paper and print. The outcome is a crisp, perfectly inked flat print. Letterpress originated this way, from the days of Gutenberg, Caxton, Caslon and Baskerville, a flat print - a print that could barely be seen to be pressed into the paper - was a fine print.
Anything else was considered the work of a poor printer, a print that bruised the paper or bit into the card - this was just no good.

Some more fine examples of traditional letterpress printing from Incline Press




































From the advent of polymer in the 1980's, we find ourselves with a slightly more flexible and hardy material to work with, both literally and creatively. Polymer allows us as designers to use anything, from an illustration to hand lettered text. Now we have a material that will take a beating, a material that is sturdy enough to last several print runs and not break or become damaged within the process - and a material with which we are able to press into our paper to achieve a different kind of finish to our prints.
When printing with moveable type, it should not make an impression onto the paper, amongst other things this can cause the type to become damaged and therfore useless for future printing needs. Polymer allows us to make this impression without damaging the type, especially when we are using type that is of a certain age, rare or of great importance.
There are still working type foundries in the UK and US today making a wide array of fonts, such as M & H Type in the States and Whittington Press in the UK. More working type foundries here.

Bespoke Meticulous Ink letterpress invitations, both on extra thick board - a must for that sought after bite.













However, as purveyors of fine print - and designers who enjoy the variety and creative freedom allowed to us by polymer, we find polymer something we could not live without.
It allows us absolute creative freedom within the design, not to mention the flexibility within the paper and board we print on - allowing us to go up to weights as thick as 2100gsm.
The images below will explain the differences between traditional and modern letterpress printing techniques. I feel neither should be compared as both have their own qualities, each presenting type and design in their own individual way.
For us, our preferred method is the modern way, but this does not mean we dislike traditional printing, nor do we look at it with disregard and abstain from using traditional print methods. We look to traditional printing as our elder, something to look back at with respect and to admire when you know how much tweaking and adjusting goes into a crisp flat letterpress print.

We print letterpress in error, and we know this - it is this modern way of printing in letterpress that we tend to prefer, 99% of the time. We know it is not the way letterpress was intended to be but it is how we and many others have found to be a very pleasurable way to print.
 

Letterpress on GFSmith colorplan board, a versatile substrate for a good impression.


Logo and Website Design - Darwin Ecology.

Creating a new company logo from scratch is an exciting project for us here at Meticulous Ink. With Darwin Ecology, we were given the opportunity to rebrand the company, design a logo, produce new stationery and develop their website.



Logo design and branding.

At Meticulous Ink we like to create simple, print friendly logos that are typographically beautiful and are completely personal to you and your company.

We begin with 3-5 different artwork options, then work with you closely to evolve the logo until it is completely perfect.

First proofs are always supplied in black and white, so that you can concentrate on the typographic detail.


 When the final logo is complete we will supply you with a simple identity guide, which includes colour codes and typefaces to use alongside your new logo.


The final logo is supplied to you in a variety of formats so you can begin using it straight away.

Stationery.

Next comes the design of the stationery - business cards, letterheads and compliment slips if required. Templates for in-house documents can be made for you too.


Business card proof options.


For the stationery we always supply 3 proof options to ensure your final product is exactly what
you had in mind.

The completed business cards - full colour print, two sides, onto textured Tintoretto Gesso card.


Website Design and Build.

At Meticulous Ink we specialise in the design and production of stationery, however, working with web design & build expert James Parker, we created the shiny new website for Darwin Ecology.


The new Darwin Ecology website, complete with their updated logo.

As well as being in harmony with their new brand and identity, the website is now user friendly and informative, giving new clients the opportunity to see the Darwin Ecology team at work. You can see their site in all its glory here: darwin-ecology.co.uk


If you would like to discuss an update to your business brand, or would like help creating a logo for a new company, then do get in touch. (01225 333004 • info@meticulousink.com)

Bristol Vintage Wedding Fair 2013

It's here again, the wonderful Bristol Vintage wedding fair - one of our favourite wedding fairs in the South West, and these days we don't find a huge amount of time to do wedding fairs - but we just cannot miss this one.

This year we had the pleasure in designing the artwork and posters for the fair, which we gave a hand drawn, typographic style.

The fair takes place on the 10th of March at the wonderful Clifton Pavillion (10am - 4pm), right next to Bristol zoo - a well suited and beautiful venue perfect for the wonderful array of businesses that Ali and Katie have rounded up.

Bristol Vintage Crockery (http://www.bristolvintage.co.uk/) have supplied us in the past with wonderful vintage crockery and teapots for our opening and subsequent birthday parties and they are a true pleasure to use. Their annual wedding fair brings about their passion for all things vintage - and this certainly comes across in the wonderful array of business they handpick to be involved in the wedding fair itself.

This will be our third time at the Bristol Vintage Wedding Fair, and we are very much looking forward to it - lots more information and exhibitor profiles here - http://bristolvintageweddingfair.blogspot.co.uk/




We will have an array of our delightful wedding stationery to give you lots of inspiration and also be selling our own cards and wedding stationery guides.

See you there!