My friend Marti approached me to create a very cool gift for a business partner of her husband's: personalized stationery! Her name is Gulnar, well, that is her first part of her long formal name, and she lives in Dubai. We wanted to create something that reflected the aesthetic of her culture, and her sophisticated personality. After a bit of brainstorming and lots of discussions with my fabulous printer, we decided to run these through two different presses using both letterpress and foil stamping.
Foil stamping is a printing procedure where heat, pressure, and a metallic paper (foil) is used to create an image on a surface. The pressure is created by using dies (or carved metal plates), to transfer the image. The die comes in contact with the foil and transfers a thin layer of the foil film onto the intended surface. As the metal plate is heated, the foil sticks to the surface only in the design of the plate and in the required areas with the desired imprint. The photo above is the metal plate (die) that was used for the gold damask pattern.
Here you can see the die sitting next to the final product.
We letterpressed her name on the cards in a bright peacock blue ink. The letterpress die is sitting here above her name. Letterpress is a very old process in which a raised plate or block is inked and then the impression (and ink) is "pressed" into the paper.
I love how these turned out! I am excited to use the plate again on another project using different colored foil and paper. Fun.