There is nothing I love more then working with Paul and the guys at Tor Johnson Records. Every year I either design or print a project with them, and this year was no exception. Paul had this huge project that was years in the making. Tor Johnson, along with a few other labels, we're going to combine forces and release a double album complete discography for the band Moment, a much loved New England band that split up many years ago, leaving only a scattering of songs on different 7 in. and CD compilations. Everything was now being remastered from the original tapes and pressed onto some beautiful vinyl. Vinyl that needed a jacket. That's were we came in.
Stack one of two! The covers were 12x24 inch sheets of chipboard. They weighed a ton!
The order was simple and awesome: 500 chipboard album covers that needed the MOMENT logo letterpress printed onto them. The huge stack of covers showed up at the shop with the song titles and other information already screen printed on them from Teeth Like Swords printing. I had a letterpress polymer plate made, set up the press and got going.
I started by remaking the band's original logo in Adobe illustrator from some older examples of it provided by Paul. The logo has a rough rubber stamp look, which I knew would translate really well into a letterpress print.
Cleaned up image of the band's logo.
The logo is a crimson red color, which was in reality a pink colored ink, which when printed on the brown chipboard created the correct dark red. Deceptive ink!
The final printed cover. Look at that impression!! CRUNCH!
Pulling a print from the polymer plate.
The plate was very large for a traditional letterpress plate, so it required heavy inking and a ton of pressure. The whole project took about 18 hours.
Laid out and drying.
The really fun part was making the Test Press covers. Paul wanted 10 covers that were totally up to me. The logo could have crazy colors, weird effects, whatever I wanted. So, I tried out a new method of printing I've been messing around with. I call it "marble rolling". (I'm sure this method has been done before but I couldn't find any info on it).
Marbled Inking
The plate was rolled in opaque white, then dry rolled with Navy blue in a random pattern. I added flecks of silver and splatters of India ink and ran it through the press. Killer effect! Each one was totally different, as the logo plate gets wiped and re-rolled each time. Took forever but absolutely worth it!
HOT.
I blind debossed the inserts as well. They came already printed and I used the same logo plate to deboss the logo onto the front of them. A very subtly and cool effect.
Front cover of the insert.
The insert opened. That deep impression goes right through to the back.
As I post this, the vinyl is on its way from the plant to TJR and the album is available for PREORDER on their site. Take a look! Tor Johnson only release amazing records.
Thanks to Paul and all involved for asking us to work on this. It was a blast!