it’s rare, but i love it when the client tells us to experiment with a project.
1/1 2” square business cards printed on 140lb. sweet tooth paper. the client wanted a naturally occurring distressed look. he could have incorporated the distressed look into his layout and each card would come out looking the same, but this way ensured that each card would come out different. we simply had sloppy floods and printed with a super hard 90 duro squeegee.
3/2 card with edge painting. 220lb. lettra paper. the thicker the card, the more effective the edge painting! the darker black is actually a clear acrylic spot coat (both sides).
i recently found a lot of beat up business cards in the glove box of my car. i remember cutting these down with the old cutter so they weren’t all exactly the same size. couple that with the beating that they took being in my car, i tried by best to edge paint these black. i think they came out really well. the black barely seeps onto the front/back side of the card. they are on the really thick chipboard stock, so the edge painting is way more noticeable than thinner cards.
2/1 card on various stocks. this was a design and the card was featured on FPO.
1/2 card for my CD/DVD duplication and screen printing company. designed and printed by our intern (at the time), Brittany Slopey. this is color/paper combo #1, kraft chipboard with white and black ink. i’ll post the other color with reverse side soon.
2/2 print for Figlewicz Photography on kraft chipboard. we were able to get a lot of detail to come out on the small flowers and petals.
1/1 card for randy coleman photography. this card is really small. i love the dimensions of this even though i am not personally a fan of small cards.
3/1 cards for Custom Ink. these came out really great. because of the opacity of the inks we had to do this as a 3/1 card instead of using the natural white of the paper as the white color on the front. otherwise you would have gotten an inconsistency between the two blues where they meet.
2/0 print on kraft chipboard with rounded corners. the yellow ink is plastisol though i could have gotten away with using acrylic. we also printed two color 5” sleeves for this client. this is one of my favorite designs that we’ve done on the chipboard with keeping it simple.
1/1 print for on kraft chipboard. pretty straight forward. this client actually had us print additional mailers and promotional DVDs.
2/0 card on 140lb. black muscletone. orange ink is plastisol. occasionally we print cards for art school students and designers. i love helping them out.
1/1 print on kraft chipboard. i was surprised how clear the small text around the logo came out. i expected more loss in any of the number of areas where it could happen, but thankfully everything came out great.
also, today i tried experimenting with embossing powder. unfortunately it’s not for mass production, but i see myself using it for my own personal projects in the future.
2/1 print on 140lb. bright white paper. the client initially had this as a 3/2 print and i was able to make it work better as 2/1 which also saved the client money. the text on this came out surprisingly well as i thought it would bleed into itself a lot more on the purple only side.
side note: thanks to everyone who started following this blog! it’s great to see people that also have a passion for design/print as i tend to think i’m a big nerd for liking such things. please feel free to share this blog and repost cards you think are totally rad.
1/0 print on assorted papers. i printed these for a friend of mine so i just used some muted toned papers that we had laying around.
2/1 print on 0.30 kraft chipboard with rounded corners.
my name is chris. i own a screen printing and cd/dvd duplication company called sire press based in philadelphia, pa. i really appreciate a good screen printed business card because after years of printing, i know how difficult they are to master. this blog is dedicated to cards that i (we) print at sire press, cards i print on my own, and cards from around the web.
i print everything by hand. some other companies use machines to print their flat stock. that takes the soul out of what we do and commercializes it. screen printing is an art form that i have learned to love and respect.
if you are interested in getting business cards made by me, please e-mail: undergroundamericastudio@gmail.com (my design/creative company) or sirepress@gmail.com.
