From Brush to Pixel to Press
The folks at stamen.com figured out how to incorporate hand-painted textures and algorithmic rule sets to create a series of gorgeous digital watercolor maps. We were asked by Jason Kottke to translate one of these maps into a letterpress printed piece, to be sent out to Kottke's Quarterly Co. subscribers.
Our letterpress printed translation of a Stamen map of central Paris
The process required some digital manipulations of our own; we broke the map down into 4 color separations and created screens in order to replicate the color variations naturally produced by the watercolorist. Our four colors– brown, yellow, blue and purple– were printed out on our digital printer and matched with custom Pantone mixes.
Brown letterpress print, along with the suite of digital images to match
Inking up for the yellow run
Yellow (printed on top of brown)
Adjusting the blue plate
Emma confers with Pat about the blue run
Blue run complete. Bring on the purple!
Detail of the final print
Shout It From the Rooftop!
For the past six years, we have had the honor of designing the Summer Program Guide for Rooftop Films. Each year, we've kept the grid, layout and styles consistent. But this year we changed it up by making the guide much smaller.
We had to translate the same fonts and blocky, flexible grid system to a much smaller template. To allow more breathing room on our smaller pages, we cut the content on each program page down as much as possible. Keeping only the most necessary bits of information, meant giving more weight to what is most important and removing content clutter. And in order to give our smaller newsletter size pages as much visual punch as the big newspaper size we added color.
See you on the rooftop!
Sleep No More
Our collaboration with proprietor M. Martell of the McKittrick Hotel has been fruitful indeed. We've been busy adapting the set of playing cards we designed for the McKittrick's special events to produce an ongoing series of Limited Edition prints for sale in the hotel's online giftshop.
Illustrated, designed and letterpress printed in house, these prints allowed us to apply the full range of our skills.
Stay tuned for more royal characters coming soon! Currently in the pipeline are an Ace of Diamonds and a King of Hearts. Here's a sneak peek...
The Swayspace LetterPress Kit
Are you a member of the press, an event planner, or a design studio? Interested in getting a copy of the Swayspace LetterPress Kit? Drop us a line.
The LetterPress Kit, designed and printed at Swayspace, contains information about the history of our shop, how to get in touch and, of course, is filled with samples of our letterpress work.
If you or someone you know is interested in obtaining a kit (or discussing a potential project), get in touch. If you're requesting a kit, let us know a little about who you are– it will help us customize your kit to suit your interests.
