Best Papers for Letterpress Printing

Here's how the papers I get asked about behave under a letterpress plate.

Most printing lays ink on top of the paper. Letterpress pushes it in. The plate, a raised relief of your artwork, is inked and pressed into the sheet hard enough to leave a recess, usually somewhere between 0.2 and 0.6 mm deep. So the paper isn't just a surface here. It's half the print.

That means three things about the paper decide the result: what it's made of (how evenly it compresses), how thick it is (how deep you can go before the back gives you away), and whether it's coated (a coating fights the plate). Get those right and the type sits in soft little valleys you can find with your thumb. Get them wrong and letterpress looks like flat printing that cost too much.

Cotton paper (old printers call it rag) is the gold standard for letterpress, and it isn't snobbery. Cotton fibres are long and flexible, so the sheet compresses evenly under the plate and springs back around the edge of each letter. You get a deep impression with a soft, pillowed shoulder and no cracking.

Wood-pulp paper can be letterpress printed, but the fibres are shorter and stiffer. The impression is shallower and the edges can tear slightly rather than fold. For business cards, I'd choose cotton every time; for a large run of something that will be glanced at rather than held, a good smooth uncoated sheet is a fair way to save money.

Thickness decides how deep we can go before the impression shows through on the back. Paper is measured in points (thousandths of an inch); a credit card is about 30pt.

One more thing about weight. Mills sell heavy cotton by basis weight in the US ("110 lb cover", "220 lb double-thick cover") and by gsm in Europe. Neither tells you thickness directly, because cotton is bulky for its weight. When you compare papers, ask for the caliper (thickness) in points or millimetres; that's the number that predicts the bite.

Here's what I'd call the best letterpress paper for each job, in order.

For business cards: 48pt 100% cotton as standard, with 32pt also orderable. This is the sheet behind our letterpress business cards and several of our letterpress case studies. Thick enough for a deep bite, soft enough that every line has a rounded shoulder.

For two paper colors, or printing both sides: duplex cotton. Two sheets bonded back to back, one color each, with a stripe of the second color showing on every edge. See duplex cotton letterpress.

For a color-led brand: a through-dyed sheet such as Colorplan. The color runs all the way through, so the impression reveals more of the same color and reads carved rather than printed. Firmer than cotton, and only dark inks show on the deep colors. See letterpress on Colorplan.

For something rustic: heavy kraft. It takes a good impression; inks print a little darker on brown, so we proof the color. Our General Bakeshop cards are maroon letterpress and a blind wheat pattern on kraft.

Cotton letterpress paper usually comes in three whites with the same texture: a natural white that leans slightly warm (that's just the raw fibre), a processed bright white, and a creamier ivory. It's a feeling decision, not a quality one.

The thing to know is that letterpress ink is translucent, so the paper tints it. A blue on ivory goes a touch greener; a red on natural white warms up. We match your ink from the Pantone Uncoated book and proof it on the shade you choose, so you see the shift before the run.

Yes, with one rule: letterpress ink is see-through. Dark inks on colored or mid-tone paper read beautifully. White or pale ink on dark paper looks chalky, because the paper shows through it. For light-on-dark we use white pigment foil instead, which stays opaque on any sheet.

On black, a blind impression (no ink) is very quiet: it reads only when light rakes across it. That's lovely for a mark people discover; it's the wrong choice for anything that has to be read, like a phone number.

On a single sheet, a deep impression on the front shows as a faint raised mirror on the back. Sometimes that's charming. On a card with type on both sides it fights the back. There are two fixes: press lighter, or bond two sheets after each is pressed (duplex), so each face takes its own bite and the mirror hides in the glue line. For deep impressions with nothing showing through, we use 32pt duplex or heavier.

• Coated and gloss papers. The coating is hard and smooth; the plate skids and the impression is shallow or cracks.
• Laminated and soft-touch cards. The film is too stiff to take a clean impression. On soft-touch, the tactile move is raised UV or foil instead.
• Plastic. No impression is possible; texture on plastic comes from raised UV or foil.
• Metal. Steel is etched, engraved or color-filled, never letterpressed.

If you love one of those materials and want texture, tell us and we'll suggest the version that works on it.

Letterpress pairs well with three things.

Foil, beside it, never on top. Foil won't bond to ink, so we knock the ink out where the foil goes and keep a 1 mm gap. If you want the look of metal pressed into the paper, that's a foil-stamped deboss: the foil and the impression are struck together by one die, on bare paper.

A blind impression. A mark pressed with no ink next to letterpress type is a combination I recommend often. One technique carries the information; the other carries the mood.

A painted edge. Any thickness can be edge painted: on 16pt it's a hairline, on 32pt a clear line, on 48pt a band. Matching it to your ink ties the front, back and edge together.

Two techniques on one face is usually the sweet spot. Past that the card starts shouting.