Learning how to Letterpress

With Verity and ready for acton in the print room.

Jen putting the next plate in place for print.

Over the past few weeks I have started joining Jen and Verity in the letterpress room learning how to letterpress on a beautiful Heidelberg machine.

Letterpress has become the go-to printing technique for greeting cards, business cards and wedding invitations. Invented in the 15th Century, it was the most reliable and widely used method of printing. This printing method originally involved manually arranging words and images before pressing them into high-quality paper.

Although this is still common practice for many designers, at Paper Dove, we create card designs digitally and have metal plates made from them to then print onto beautiful paper. 

It is great to design for letterpress, but it is even better now that I am learning to print for it as well.

Illustration Friday - Voyage

Here is a little post for this week's Illustration Friday topic 'Voyage'. I think everyone knows the story of Christmas, and that these two characters have a long voyage ahead of them!

These are two card designs that are part of a four pack that I created for Paper Dove last week. Creating designs for kids packs are my absolute favourite and it is quite nice that Christmas follows me throughout the year! 

I hope you enjoy these little fellas.

Paper Dove Studio

It has been a tough start to the year with completing my first picture book for Frances Lincoln Publishers. Whilst it has been a wonderful experience working with such amazing people, I must say that I am happy to finally be catching up on some sleep! 

It has obviously been a while since I updated my blog, so I thought I would start by sharing some of the recent artwork that the design team have been creating in the Paper Dove studio. Here are a few visuals of sketches and original artwork made in a variety of different media.

Illustration Friday - Spirit (of Christmas)

Here is a Christmas card design that I finished this week for one of our briefs at Paper Dove Company. I thought this was a perfect image to contribute to this week's Illustration Friday post with my representation of the 'Spirit of Christmas'.

I hope you enjoy this illustration and have a magical Christmas and New Year!

Holly x