With each passing year I notice that wedding invitations are stepping further and further away from what one would expect to find contained within the envelope. With the couple’s personalities becoming more and more apparent in every wedding detail it is no surprise that Emory Cash spent countless hours on the drawing board crafting infinite details on his illustration and fussing over each hand lettered character as he strove for the perfect invite.
But it is in the envelopes that we see his final punch of dedication as he made Xerox transfers of the return address on each piece. It has been a while since I have seen this technique, so I asked him to give us a quick tutorial for those of you who might be interested in doing something with it:
The process seems to work better with grayscale images, but it is possible to use this process with a color copy. Finalize your design the way you want it and then flip it horizontally before printing it, otherwise your final image will come out backwards. Once you have a printed piece, make a copy of the original printout on your copy machine. Proceed to place this copy face down on the desired substrate and tape in place. I like to tape my paper just along the top so I can flip it up and check on my progress. If you’re transfering your image to another sheet of paper, like I did with the envelope and return card, then a lightbox makes it easy to line the two pieces up exactly where you want them. Now you’re ready to transfer. Take the oil and apply a few drops to the end of a cotton swab and begin to apply the oil to the back of your image. You don’t want puddles of oil, just enough to make it damp.I would suggest working through your image in a series of small sections, otherwise the oil will dry out before you get to it. Next take the paper scorer, or whatever else you might be using, and begin to rub the back of the image where you just applied the oil. This should have successfully transfered the image. Continue to work through your image until the entire image is transferred. You can also go back over areas where it looks like it didn’t transfer as well as you would have liked.
Materials needed:
• 100% pure essential Wintergreen Oil—I found mine at the local Whole Foods
•Cotton swabs
• Bone folder or other hard and dull tool
• Photo copier
Editor of FPO and co-founder of UnderConsideration LLC.
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UnderConsideration is a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives, and content while taking on limited client work. Run by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit in Bloomington, IN. More…
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