Ensemble Cast: Publicide and Sally Lapointe Gear Up for NYFW

The frenetic pace of our in-house printing schedule is not unlike the exciting bustle of design studios anticipating New York Fashion Week. The New York Times recently profiled downtown fashion designer Sally Lapointe, giving readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of her impending collection's fittings. Behind every designer lies a letterpress and print company dependable enough to produce business cards, letterhead, invitations and presentation folders to be handed out at moment's notice.

At Publicide we specialize in transcribing the shifting moods and influences of our neighboring New York fashion luminaries into sumptuous and gratifying print materials. Our expertise in printing CMYK lookbooks is exemplified in the lifelike atmospheric and runway photos of Lapointe's Spring 2012 collection, printed on sleek semi-gloss ultrawhite cover stock as seen below.

Black letterpress on solar white duplexed thick business cards hold court with atmospheric full-color lookbook

Tactility is crucial to the realms of fashion and printing. Smooth, semi-coated stock makes a perfect canvas for vast swathes of full-color CMYK printing. Business cards and letterhead on eggshell, uncoated stock lend themselves beautifully to gently-kissed letterpress. We yield to ingenious multi-fold layouts, too: Lapointe's look book opens initially to brooding, in-profile scene-setting runway images, and when opened further reveals the entirety of her stunning collection in frontal view. 

21st Sentry Fox: An entrancing sylph in Sally Lapointe stands guard over the designer's custom letterpress stationery

Naturally, we can't divulge the Spring 2014 runway collection, but rest assured that Publicide is hard at work printing and lettepressing her newest print creations.

Playing Games with Foil

When preeminent online gaming impresarios High 5 Games needed new business cards—a special set made expressly for their Chinese team—they had two objectives: The cards needed to be as eye-catching as the fantastical imagery of their games. And they called for a palette of red and gold—colors that symbolize good luck and wealth in China.

From their cool metallic glyph logo to their bevel-and-emboss game signage to the points of light glinting off the innumerable precious metal elements and fantasy scenarios in their gamescapes, High 5 Games' branding calls for the shine and depth only foil stamping can provide in identity printing.

So many eye-popping gold gradients and glowing jewels;

so much dazzling digital gold leaf. 

The best way to translate 3D metallics and gradients from the digital realm to an IRL product is to print with a metallic foil stamp. Rather than printing out a full-color facsimile of a computer-designed gradient—which can look a little unconvincing—printing with a foil stamp provides an interactive element that brings the "hardware"to life. As you turn the card back and forth and see light hitting the foil from different angles, the gradient and the shine springs alive, glinting off the opaque metallic material heat-stamped into the paper. 

In addition to its shine and dimension, foil stamping's natural debossed quality also contributes to 3D effects on a business card. When you run your fingers over a foil stamp, you can feel how the foil actually pressed down into the paper—and since it's an opaque, separate material that sits on top of the paper rather than an ink that absorbs, it has a texture that feels precious, substantial and unlike any other printing technique. (Foil stamping can be combined with embossing for an extra raised and shiny effect, of course, but it stands on its own to luxurious effect.)

For this run of cards, the High 5 design team chose to pair their gold foil stamping with brilliant red Touché paper, a specialty matte stock with a suedelike finish that works stunningly with foil. It comes in a few extra-thick versions and can also be duplexed to any weight, as seen here in this double-thick duplexed incarnation for High 5. 

Well played, High5—this thick slab of velvety texture with luxury gold stamping is sure to turn heads in any country. 

Project Gravitas Launch

Congratulations to Project Gravitas on last week's launch! To mark their official debut, Manhattan's newest purveyors of the perfect LBD transformed the Site / 109 Gallery with an exhibition illuminating the process of crafting their made-in-NYC dresses. 

With an ironclad concept and a beautiful website in place, all Project Gravitas needed was custom business suite printing to complete their identity launch. They tapped Publicide to translate their designs to print with a personalized corporate branding kit, including these crisp 2-color letterpress business cards. 

We love helping translate passionate ideas to print, and we get a special thrill from working with startups, local businesses and NYC manufacturers like Project Gravitas. Nothing beats a fresh letterpress calling card for making a startup feel official!

Die Cut the Shape of Your Printing Visions

Bust out of that typical rectangle and let Publicide die-cut your calling card into any shape you dare. 

When your printing vision calls for high-end customization, die cutting is your secret weapon. Nothing stands out from the business card deck like a thick slice of cardstock personalized with a perfectly smooth rounded edge or eyecatching cutout. Invitations alchemize into statement pieces with wild-card custom border shapes; business cards get figurative with bespoke shapes; paper coasters go baroque with elegant scalloped edging.

Flaunt dangerous curves, make supple rounds and shed excess corners by teasing the sublime out of the surface. Puncture at specific places to make your point, or outline what your business is all about by creating a custom object silhouette. No need to break a sweat: Publicide’s die-cutting workout will turn heads.

Perfect set of 4 die cut rounded corners with gold foil on ultra heavy black stock

A single die cut sloped corner helps push this extra thick business card forward

 Letterpress and gold foil party invitations elevate to keepsake status with splashy, graphic custom die cutting

Duplexed paper gets a perfect die-cut circle with the subtlest scalloped edge for a classic offset printed coaster

 A foil-stamped kraft business card die-cut in the shape of a luggage tag shows you what this travel writer is all about

Design Shoutout: Combo Printing for Golden Throat Lozenge

Packaging shoutout! We love this technicolor combination-print lozenge box from Guangxi Golden Throat Co., Ltd. —any lozenge promising something as elemental as “dispel[ling] wind and heat" should be packaged with flair that can back up the claim, and Golden Throat designed accordingly. 

This box pairs 4-process color printing with a hint of metallic foil flash to spectacular effect. The CMYK allover print goes for broke with full-color gradient stripes, and that Cooling Soothing waterfall graphic on the back is what CMYK photorealistic printing was made for. Gold foil stamped logo adds fancy finishing and accents the “Golden Throat" brand nicely. As a counterpoint to the riot of color, an impassive, unnamed spokesman keeps everything grounded in black and white. Branding success.

GET THE LOOK:

Paper: 110# card stock, gloss coated, scored + die cut

Printing: CMYK + Gold Foil Stamp

Ian Gerson at A.I.R. Gallery

Here at the Publicide headquarters, we're constantly trying to push the limits of paper production magic–we're always on a quest to perfect the ways duplexing, foil and gilding can transform paper into precious-looking objects.

Accordingly, we're big fans of the artist Ian Gerson, who works a LOT of paper magic realism into their practice. Ian specializes in creating meticulously detailed environments, frequently businesses or booths—like the temporary travel agency they installed in an empty Italian ice parlor or the faux park ranger booth they built at Socrates Sculpture Park. Gerson builds structures out of wood and found materials and fleshes them out with uncannily real cardboard renderings of everyday objects—all right up our alley since we are fools for well-executed office accoutrements as well as anything made from chipboard. 

Cardboard office set complete with old-school PC and telephone 

Paper tape dispenser, paper clock and paper pencil sharpener

This park ranger booth looked so real that a procession of park-goers stopped by every day to ask for information, not realizing Gerson's desk was kitted out with a fake cardboard telephone, tape dispenser and pencil sharpener.

Gerson's current solo show, Rock Jetty Deli & Food Corp, deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Rockaway, Queens, where they live. After watching the storm devastation from their apartment by the ocean, Gerson chose not to evacuate and instead immediately began working with their neighbors to rebuild the ravaged community. This meant living for months with no heat or electricity, scarce transportation, and frustratingly slow-to-nonexistent response from would-be relief organizations and the city itself. In the seven months since Sandy hit, Gerson helped run a soup kitchen, got involved with a bevy of grassroots relief efforts, and worked towards their goal of "knowing every person who lives in Rockaway."

Gerson drew from these life-changing post-Sandy experiences to create Rock Jetty Deli & Food Corp, an immersive tableau recreating the scene in Rockaway after the storm.

A boarded-up bodega, an ATM indefinitely out of service, a scattering of debris and a brown highwater mark painted on the walls—along with projections of footage from Rockaway and Gerson's interactive performance as bodega vendor—take the viewer straight to the beach in Queens in the months after the storm. In this exhibition, Gerson's trademark cardboard office accoutrements give way to a different kind of working object--here the trompe-l'oeil cardboard pieces incude a range of post-Sandy leitmotifs like a generator, a solar panel, and gas tanks.

Cardboard generator and gas can

A cardboard power strip so real, people try to plug their phones into it

The installation is so faithful to Rockaway that Rockaway residents tend to become emotional while viewing the show and revisiting their experiences after the storm. Gerson observed gallery visitors trying to plug their phones into a power strip made out of cardboard—a triumph of scene-setting AND paper arts.

The show is up at A.I.R. Gallery in Dumbo through this weekend, with a closing party this Sunday the 23rd from 4-6pm.

Scratch Off

  After playing around with some super-secret processes we have perfected the art of the scratch-off, shown to great effect here in lustrous metallic silver on EP download cards for Jet Boy Records. 

It works just like a lottery ticket— you scratch off the lovely silver circle with a coin to reveal your prize, which in this case is a link to download an EP from Jet Boy. Each card is printed in full color with its own edition number. 

RECOMMENDED: Support Rockaway with SHORE SOUP

We told you a little bit about our friends at the Shore Soup Project back in December, when we started printing labels for their Rockaway soup delivery relief effort. Now they're planning on opening a pay-as-you-can sustainable restaurant in Rockaway. Their soup is some of the most delicious we've tasted, so we're pretty excited that they're planning on expanding. Shore Soup has dedicated infinite time and energy trying to rebuild the battered community of Rockaway in a direct, person-to-person way--all the more important given the lack of government relief that still plagues Rockaway months after Sandy. They've set up an exceptional Kickstarter to help fund this goal. It's a really cool opportunity to help a one of a kind team fight for their neighborhood in the wake of Sandy. 

The Rockaway boardwalk, pre-Sandy

The backstory: Robyn Hillman-Hartigan and Lillian Gerson moved to Rockaway about a year ago and launched Shore Fruit, a roving tricycle fruit stand on the boardwalk. If you visited the boardwalk at all last summer, you may remember the sight of Lillian  hawking fruit and ready conversation up and down the boardwalk, peddling a cart equipped with a giant fruit skewer sculpture.

L-R: fruit customer, Robyn, Lillian

After spending the summer on the boardwalk, Robyn and Lillian witnessed its total destruction, watching from their windows on Beach 59th street as the storm decimated Rockaway.

Committed to staying in the community that had become their home, Robyn founded the Rockaway Rescue Alliance and Shore Soup the day after Sandy hit and immediately went to work. At that point, no one even knew how badly their help would be needed. Homes were flooded, structurally compromised and covered in black mold. There was no electricity, no ATMS, no transportation off the island, no heat or light at night. There was no cell phone reception. The peninsula felt forgotten.

 For the first three months after Sandy, Shore Soup delivered an average of 800 free, healthy hot meals door-to-door daily, reaching neighbors across the peninsula including home bound seniors, families without access to healthy food, individuals living in public housing, and affected renters and home owners. As Robyn put it: "Everyone truly needed the basics: hot food, warm conversation and a roof over their heads." 

Trike delivery system

Thumbs up to soup

Many were displaced, including Shore Soup; though they couldn't live in their home for over 2 months, they still traveled to Rockaway every morning to run their kitchen off of propane and generators. Robyn secured and coordinated donations from organic farms to ensure that they were serving the healthiest, most restorative food possible--super important in helping people keep going during the cold months. With the help of hundreds of volunteers, Shore Soup has served over 50,000 meals since Hurricane Sandy- a true community-based effort.

They want to build on their efforts with a pay-as-you-can food truck this summer and, if they can keep raising money past their goal, they can begin work on a mortar-and-brick restaurant. Robyn is adamant about creating a community hub where everyone in Rockaway can come together; with the boardwalk gone and most of the familiar restaurants and gathering spaces washed away, Rockaway needs this. A $50 pledge gets you four meals from Shore Soup-- a bargain, as we can personally attest to Shore Soup's incredible cooking prowess.

See you @ the beach?

Design Shout Out: The Cleveland

Business cards we printed for The Cleveland, a new restaurant in Nolita, combine classic letterpress on the front with dreamy full-color printing on the back. 

timeless, elegant black letterpress on white eggshell stock on the front...

Black letterpress on fancy white stock never goes out of style and is an excellent pairing for this minimalist logo.  We love how they added an unexpected twist to the proceedings with a beautiful wash of abstract, full-bleed CMYK color on the reverse side, echoing the sun-drenched garden feel of the restaurant itself.

full color CMYK sunset on the back side


the space: The Cleveland