Production Lesson(s)

We hand-stamped each EP for an intimate hand-crafted aesthetic while cutting the budget at the same time. I have never worked with a stamp of this size before, and was concerned that the coverage wouldn't be good enough. Beacon Stamp were great and recommended a stamp with a rocker mount so that strong and consistent pressure could be applied while stamping each sleeve. So we went with that for the front cover and the back cover had a regular flat mounting.

For the bleeds we just designed the stamp artwork at 5.5x5.5. This meant that registering the stamp would be the biggest challenge. At first I thought we'd have to construct a jig from wood to make each stamp register properly. But then we went with a much more basic approach. We stamped a sheet of printer paper, then lined up the sleeve so that it was square on the printed space. Finally we stamped each sleeve, doing our best to line up each impression with the original on the paper.

Another challenge was the matter of getting the right amount of ink on the stamp, which took some trial and error but in the end worked out great. I recommend getting an ink pad larger than the face of the stamp even if you have to special order it. We didn't and it ate up lots of time trying to get the stamp covered with ink from a pad that was slightly too small. Once we figured out our method, we set up shop in the back of a local coffee house with long tables and lots of natural light and got to stamping.