What's the Story Morning Glory?
Two Color Letterpress Greeting Card
Two Color Letterpress Greeting Card
For my final project in Letterpress, I was going to get to try photo polymer. Meaning I got to do the design completely in the computer and then I got to watch it being made into a polymer plate back in our light tight room in our Center for Printing Arts at Madison (Area Technical) College. For this assignment, the idea was to create something that would have retail value and could therefore contribute to the running of the print lab. My class voted on greeting cards (available Fall 2013 for purchase in the school bookstore!) To save on polymer usage, we had four different card designs per plate and you could do your design in either blue and yellow with a nice green overprint, or in organge and magenta. As you can see, I went with the blue and yellow color scheme.
Once I had decided on blue and yellow with the green overprint, I started to think of things that are these colors and came up mainly with morning glories... and I guess smurfs... but I'm not going there. This also led to me thinking of the old saying 'what's the story morning glory' which is a cute saying by way of greeting. Also, this could work for a greeting card too. It's a general 'what's up, how're you doing' kind of greeting. I wanted the morning glories to be very stylized. Very graphic and clean. I spent a lot of time looking at the shape of the flower and the leaves to make sure that while styalized, they still read clearly as morning glories.
The hardest part of this process was printing the second color. Getting the blue to print perfectly over the yellow, and therefore creating the vines, was a stressful day for many reasons. Also because of the other cards and the byline on the back needing far less ink, my card didn't get to have the full vibrant color coverage it could have had. But I still love how the flowers have this kind of weathered look to them. Once again, the wonders of Letterpress. Nothing is perfect, every one is different, and they are all beautiful.
The hardest part of this process was printing the second color. Getting the blue to print perfectly over the yellow, and therefore creating the vines, was a stressful day for many reasons. Also because of the other cards and the byline on the back needing far less ink, my card didn't get to have the full vibrant color coverage it could have had. But I still love how the flowers have this kind of weathered look to them. Once again, the wonders of Letterpress. Nothing is perfect, every one is different, and they are all beautiful.
The finished card, front and back.
The finished card flat, so you can see how the design carried over onto the back.
Look at that registration!
Initial sketches.
Initial sketches as to how to stylize the flower yet maintain it's identity as a morning glory.
The original illustrator file.
The full sheet before the cards were cut out.
A more vibrant ink coverage that sadly filled in the back too much, so a lighter coverage was used.
