ABC National News came to DUMBO on Monday, December 29th to film a segment on the making of the Presidential Inaugural Invites.

Printer Crafts 1 Million Inaugural Invitations
Under Deadline, Excited Workers Make Product of a Lifetime for Obama’s Inauguration

By DAVID MUIR
Dec. 30, 2008

Inside a small, printing factory, the printers at Precise Continental in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been working around the clock.
NYC print shop to crank out 1 million invitations by New Year’s Day.They’re under a deadline of historic proportions — printing 1 million invitations for President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Martin Diaz has worked at the company for 25 years, but he said he’s never seen a project like this.

“I’m very proud,” Diaz said. “I’m very proud of what I’m doing.”

Inside a Gritty Brooklyn Factory,
Potomac Fever

A million inaugural invitations and one grateful printing firm.

By CAROLINE H. DWORIN
Published: December 19, 2008

ON Thursday, Dec. 11, Jim Donnelly got the call at his office on Jay Street in Dumbo for the biggest job he had ever had. Emmett Beliveau, the executive director of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, told him that Precise Continental, Mr. Donnelly’s 26-year-old printing company, had won the bid to produce one million gold-and-black engraved invitations for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
Mr. Donnelly put out dozens of calls for rush orders of paper, ink and the like.

Mr. Donnelly gathered his staff for the announcement, and a cheer went up. “They were ecstatic,” he said. “They wanted to be a part of history.”

To meet the Jan. 2 deadline, Mr. Donnelly’s 65 employees have to work around the clock. But no one was complaining, Mr. Donnelly said, and he put out dozens of calls for rush orders of paper, ink and the like.

According to Mr. Donnelly, Precise Continental was selected over rival printers because it is a union company, it uses recycled paper and it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which promotes responsible forest management. Although Clark Stevens, a spokesman for the inaugural committee, would not confirm that those factors were decisive, he did say, “These are issues that President-elect Obama campaigned on and that have concerned him throughout his career.”

Several days after the phone call, the snow fell heavily on the cobblestones in Dumbo, and trains rattled over the Manhattan Bridge. Inside Precise Continental, there was an almost poetic combination of mechanical repetition and human industry, all on an enormous ink-stained wooden floor. It could have been the 1800s.

The first order arrived by truck on Monday, from Neenah Paper, a Wisconsin company. Ink came on Tuesday from BuzzInk, in Chicago.

With clean hands, the workers inspected each invitation at each step in the process, and fed great machines moving back and forth. “This gentleman here can feed by hand as good as the automatic press can,” said Mr. Donnelly of a man he called Bobby, who was seated in front of a massive instrument moving sheets of paper from his left hand to his right.

Precise Continental prints stationery and specialty items, like certificates for Fordham’s million-dollar donors and invitations to an Emmy after-party sponsored by TV Guide. As for the inaugural invitations, they are being printed on recycled paper called Classic Crest (“It’s a distinguished cream color,” said Bernie Hennessy, area sales director at Neenah Paper), with an inaugural seal at the top in gold. The curling black script, modified versions of Shelley Allegro and Kuenstler typefaces, begins, “The Presidential Inaugural Committee requests the honor of your presence. …”

Mr. Donnelly’s plant will hum 20 hours a day, with the workers in two shifts, to complete the project. “Our goal is to get as much done before Christmas Eve,” Mr. Donnelly said, “so they don’t have to work the day after Christmas.” He would not say how much the invitation project will cost.

A small, dark-haired, steady-handed man named Augusto Lovato, who speaks more Spanish than English, hunched over a drawing board in a quieter room off the main floor, a dusty lamp nearby. Peering though an old magnifying glass at a copper plate, he expertly cleaned the serifs and curls.

“This is a real economy,” Mr. Donnelly said of the printing business. “This is not that bogus economy of Wall Street. This country used to manufacture things.”

Mr. Donnelly does not believe he will be asked to attend the inauguration. Of course, he has not finished printing the invitations.

Link to Article on NY Times Website

We have received great feedback on this year’s Thanksgiving Card.  This year’s card was engraved, embossed and mounted.

Thanksgiving Card and Envelope

Manufacturing Details
Card - 105# Neenah Esse Smooth Cover - Pearlized Cocoa Engraved in Brown
80# Neenah Esse Texured Cover - Espresso  - Engraved in Copper with Register Emboss
Mount Pearlized Cocoa to a filler sheet and then mount the 2 ply sheet to the Cocoa Sheet.

Envelope - Neenah Esse Pearlized Cocoa Envelope  - Engraved in Brown

Copper Dies used to engrave the card

Crane & Co, one of the original stationery engravers in the country, has created a movie walking us through the engraving process from start to finish.

These processes were meant to APPROXIMATE the selected color of how it will look when printed. Unless you have gone through an extensive color calibration process these devices each shows colors differently. You can take the same image on 5 monitors and it will look different on all of them. The same will occur when printing out to 5 different laser/inkjet printers. Each device has different degrees of calibration that are possible.

A monitor displays color in RGB (red, green blue). Colors are created by adding red, green and blue light (additive process). Offset printing will typically be either CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) or PMS Colors. Inked paper absorbs or reflects specific wavelengths (subtractive process). Cyan, magenta and yellow pigments serve as filters, subtracting varying degrees of red, green and blue from white light to produce a selective range (gamut) of spectral colors. PMS Colors are specially formulated colors that don’t always have CMYK or RGB equivalents.

Both RGB and CMYK can only represent at best a relatively small part of the total color space, and there are some colors that can be produced in one but not in the other and vice-versa. The range of color that a color space can produce is called the gamut.

Another element that affects the way the color will look when printed is the stock. An uncoated stock will absorb more ink creating a heavier image. On a coated stock the ink will typically sit more on the top of the surface. The coating on the stock had a different reflective property creating more vibrant images. If the stock has a color to it the inks will be affected by the color. If you print a light blue on a cream stock that light blue will have a tinge of green to it. When using special or colored stocks it is best to ask for ink drawdowns on the actual paper. This will give you a better idea of how the actual color will look. Something to remember with drawdowns - an ink draw down is created by putting the ink onto a paper by hand without water — when you actually get on press and add all the other elements in there can be a slight variations when on press.

For CMYK offset printing we recommend a matchprint proof to show how the color will print on press. The matchprint device has been calibrated to match the printers press. Each press will print a little differently (some may be heavier reds, some may be heavier cyan.) Matchprints can be calibrated to show the difference in what happens to an image on Coated vs Uncoated stock. This will help to eliminate any surprises on press.