I finalized the design and, with the green light from Evan, emailed digital images to my platemaker to have them made into plates for printing. Then I took a field trip to the platemaker's studio, aaaaaaand ta-da! I actually made the plates myself! Evan's card required four plates, one for each color to be printed on each side: one blue layer, one gray layer (the lines of the drawing), one black layer for the front (his name), and one black layer for the back (his contact info). I shadowed my intrepid letterpress leader, Via, around the platemaking "lab" in Berkeley and helped to turn the negatives of my plates, into plastic polymer plates. It involves a machine the size of a small dishwasher that combines NASA-like good looks with oven-like functions. And it smells like a dark room. You can see one of these plates on the press bed below:
So, the first run was the blue, since it was the lightest color of the cassette image. I printed 130 ridiculous blue blobs...
... then added the linework. Wow. Check out the difference it makes! I started getting really excited...
Lastly, I printed his name on the cassette, which he and I designed to look like he'd written it in Sharpie. What do you think?
He picked a really nice luxe heavy paper from Paper Source, whose tooth you can really see in the close-up below. This thickness and texture is perfect for enhancing letterpress impressions.
Now all I have to do is crop these into their final dimensions (3" x 3.5", larger than the standard business card) so he can start handing them out to potential employers. I would definitely hire the kid who handed me this card!
