Papillon Press is a letterpress and illustration studio located in Westport, Ontario, Canada that specializes in illustrated greeting cards and paper goods. Our greeting cards, note cards, gift tags, thank you cards, stickers, etc. all feature our hand-drawn illustrations and are printed by hand on our 60 year-old letterpress.
You know what one of the perks is to owning your own letterpress business? Being able to print sweet, over the top business cards for yourself, that’s what! The other half of the Papillon Press team, illustrator Joel Kimmel, needed a business card to attend a conference so of course he designed and printed a fancy one, featuring his own illustrations and big, bold type.
Specs: DesignJoel Kimmel | Paper Crane Lettra, 600 gsm, flo white | Size 3.5×2″ | Ink Colour Turquoise & PMS Black
We were positively thrilled when we received the design files for this business card from friend and illustrator Jonathan Bartlett. We are big fans of his illustrations and the chance to print this illustrated beauty was such a treat. We did a bit of an overprint, taking advantage of the opacity of gold letterpress ink and printing it over the black in the vines. Registration was tight between the two colours but we can handle it and are very happy with how it turned out.
If you haven’t heard of JB yet, you will now that his beautiful illustrations are painted all over Ralph Lauren’s Supply and Demand Soho outlet in NYC. The Ralph Lauren brand is celebrating JB’s art and donating proceeds from the sales of the t-shirts he has designed to the School of Visual Arts MFA Illustration program. We love it! Read more about it here.
Printed on Crane Lettra, ecru white, 300 gsm in Gold and Black inks
Jonathan Bartlett mural in Soho, NYC for Ralph Lauren. Photo by Read McKendree
If you want affordable letterpress business cards, this is the way to go: $150 for 300 cards. Choose from 7 attractive templates that are printed on eco-friendly thick bamboo stock with your choice of ink colour.
Check out these latest calling cards we printed.
Calling card printed in Navy inkCalling card printed in Cerulean Blue inkCalling card printed in Navy ink
We were very pleased to be able to print this fantastic business card for Yeah Sure Productions, designed by Jake Bauming of Industrial Strength. This marks the 2nd time we’ve printed on 4-ply black Rising Museum Board.
We often get requests for printing on black paper stock but often times have to turn them down because people expect letterpress inks to be more opaque than they actually are. The truth of the matter is that our inks are quite transparent; the most opaque we have are metallic silver and gold. Any other colour would require several passes on the press and thus become too expensive.
Luckily Jake requested that this card be printed in metallic silver and the result look fantastic after only one pass. The Rising Museum Board takes the impression very well and allows for deep impression without any show-through.
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