Blending old school techniques with digital technology, only to use an older printing press led Joel Kimmel to a set of promotional cards that he can truly call his own—cards he sends out as promotional pieces for his illustration work.
Inspired by some of my favorite words and depression era-looking characters, these Troublemakers were illustrated and letterpress printed as a 4-card series for editorial art directors. Each set was wrapped with a letterpress printed band and mailed in a bright green envelope to help it stand out among the many promo pieces that land on art directors desks every week. I wanted the artwork to be bold and striking with the hopes that the cards would be displayed around the editorial offices.
Everyone loves the feel and look of letterpress and illustration reproduces beautifully with that process. Each card was hand-drawn with brush and ink and letterpress printed with photopolymer plates on a New Style Chandler and Price. A fun challenge when working this way with my illustrations is to separate the colors since the drawing is all done traditionally. I draw the black outlines first on smooth Bristol ink paper and carefully ink the shadow colors (in blue) on a separate sheet of vellum taped over the original drawing. With registration marks added on each sheet it’s simple to line them up digitally and overlay the colors. Adding registration marks is a huge time saver with this process.
Editor of FPO and co-founder of UnderConsideration LLC.
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FPO (For Print Only), is a division of UnderConsideration, celebrating the reality that print is not dead by showcasing the most compelling printed projects.
FPO uses Fonts.com to render Siseriff and Avenir Next.
FPO is run with Six Apart’s MovableType
All comments, ideas and thoughts on FPO are property of their authors; reproduction without the author’s or FPO’s permission is strictly prohibited
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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…
blogs we publish
Brand New / Displaying opinions and focusing solely on corporate and brand identity work.
Art of the Menu / Cataloguing the underrated creativity of menus from around the world.
Quipsologies / Chronicling the most curious, creative, and notable projects, stories, and events of the graphic design industry on a daily basis.
products we sell
Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work.
Brand New Conference videos / Individual, downloadable videos of every presentation since 2010.
Prints / A variety of posters, the majority from our AIforGA series.
Other / Various one-off products.
events we organize
Brand New Conference / A two-day event on corporate and brand identity with some of today's most active and influential practitioners from around the world.
Brand Nieuwe Conference / Ditto but in Amsterdam.
Austin Initiative for Graphic Awesomeness / A speaker series in Austin, TX, featuring some of the graphic design industry's most awesome people.
also
Favorite Things we've Made / In our capacity as graphic designers.
Projects we've Concluded / Long- and short-lived efforts.
UCllc News / Updates on what's going at the corporate level of UnderConsideration.
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