Here’s a little process we’ve been working on perfecting and wanted to share… Full wash letterpress cards.

SEE: The new incarnation of the Mama’s Sauce Business Card.
1-color black letterpress on 110# Florescent White Lettra duplexed to 140# Black Muscletone.

When you give the negative space in your design some room to breathe, surround it with enough coverage, and then build just the right counter you can really make a pillowy fluff that’s somewhat like a hybrid emboss.

All of the white type is knocked out from the plate, which affords us the chance to put as much ink on the plate as we want. That coupled with just the right impression allows us to get near 100% opacity on the color wash and create an inverted effect from the standard letterpress deboss. Had there been positive text along with the knockout, it wouldn’t be possible to get quality results on just one plate, as positive type can’t be slathered with ink. Why can’t we put as much ink on positive type as we do with knocked out? Science. We don’t know the science. It just is.

Lesson to take from this: Big color washes belong on their own plates. You can knock type or imagery out of that plate/color and not affect opacity much, but don’t even think about adding in positive area text or imagery on that plate/color unless you’re willing to either sacrifice opacity overall or severely bleed out the positive images… Want solid washes and good clean positive type on the same color? Then be prepared to pay to plate the two separately. There’s no wrong way to do it, I mean shoot, there’s something to be said for lowering the opacity on certain wash areas… We just want you to be prepared and in the know.

Signed,

-J. Walter Weatherman

We did it! We’ve finally thrown caution to the wind and decided to completely ignore the fact that we’re living in the new millennium! What does that mean you ask? Well, we’ve finally gotten to the point where we’ve shut down all things digital and henceforth will only be offering true boutique printing. Digital printers? Gone. Gang run flyers and promo material – not here anymore. We’re not saying that there’s anything wrong with modern printing methods or the need and/or desire to purchase them – we’re just saying that these products and processes aren’t for us anymore. Ours was a head over heels falling in love sorta thing with letterpress and serigraphy… While the falling happened quickly, it took us over 2 years to ween ourselves off of doing the actual digital processes that once paid our bills after deciding to do so.

Having made the switch, we feel more focused than ever. There’s a power to keeping processes to a minimum. It allows us to put sufficient time into what we love doing while staying the size that we want to be. It’s easier for us to manage a smaller foot print with less moving parts (unless you count all of the moving parts on a press!)

An example of our focused energy can be seen in the redirection of our website. Education, portfolio & connection have become this website’s primary focuses. Through our Tips & FAQ & Paper’s Explained pages, we hope to educate the good people of the design community on the specifics of designing for the processes that we handle – Letterpress & Screen Print. We hope that educating on these old world processes will help bring understanding and therefor breakdown any fear that may exist in the unknown. From there we hope that our portfolio (currently only visible on our quote page), will serve as inspiration for your designs. And then there’s connection. Of course we want to hear from you about working together, but we also want to continually grow our education sections – so please feel free to ask for tutorials to be added on anything relevant to designing for spot color work.

If you are at all interested in Screen Print or Letterpress, please take some time to visit the Tips & FAQ as well as the Paper’s Explained pages. Read them in their entirety. I dare you. If you do, I promise that you will a better designer, more education enthusiast, and/or satiated print nerd upon completion. If you’re not, then you’ll at least be able to tell us why not and what we’re missing. So there’s your invitation. It’s not pressed, but I do hope you take it, read it, and share it.

One of the best things about having all this fun printing equipment is that when time permits we are able to make fun things for ourselves. So, consider this your fair warning that in addition to printing your goods, Mama’s Sauce will also be producing all sorts of short run items for you to buy and to have. Whatever it is that we dream up and do – can and will be found on our Sundries page.

And, with the soft-launch of the site, we’ve already put a few things up for you.

The photo booth picture frame collection is a line that we’re pretty excited about.
As of right now we have a few designs up from some of our favorite artists, Rifle Paper Co. being one. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, these will make great stocking stuffers. They will also be available as a custom printed product after the site leaves beta and goes full on double live in December… Planning to have a photo booth at your wedding? Yeah, exactly.

Request a quote for your custom design idea here.
You can also buy these designs from our Sundries store here.

The other day we shut down early for a very special tour group; the amazing creative staff of Publix Supermarkets.

Since most of us here at the Sauce were kids, we’ve been in love with the Florida-born grocery chain. They lure in the young with free chocolate chip cookies – no doubt the brain child of their genius founder, who could easily pass as the doppelganger for Walt Disney. If you FL people haven’t noticed that before, just check George Jenkin’s portrait in the front of your local Publix. You’ll also notice that 1920′s gentlemen have this cool about them that reigned until slayers like Cary Grant perfected the flow just a few years later.

I’m not going to lie, when Publix reached out about making a visit we were beyond flattered. Austin blushed for sure. We frequently nerd out on their incredible and clean branding, their packaging, and overall rad vibe that just owns here in FL… So needless to say, we were eager to put something special together for them.

As Publix has their own printing facilities that would put most commercial shops to shame, we decided to concentrate on the gaps that we would fill in. Our design aesthetic and unique print processes. We wanted to design something fun that we could print in front of them that they could have and use everyday. Coasters is was!

Enjoy some pics of the day and let’s do something like this together soon, ok?

Sketches from the desk of Brian at Itchy Illustration, he and Austin worked out the design.

Working out Publix’s pantone match

About to burn the white screen

The Publix team gathered around Wagner and Brooks

Loaded up in the letterpress magazine

All done. 2/0 Letterpress, Screen Print, and die cut for a live studio audience

Request a quote for your custom design idea here

Some people know how to do it right… I mean – how many sweet 16 party’s have screen printed invitations, show posters, and a touring band? Not enough if you ask me. Bring on the birthday parties and long live rock n’ roll.

We had a blast with designing and printing this piece. Gotta love it when a client gives you copy and a theme and then says do whatever you want.

Just wanted to share our latest sauce-designed/printed wedding invite.
1920′s Epherma-inspired.

Designer: Austin Petito of Mama’s Sauce
Printed using: Heidelberg Windmill
Paper: Holyoke Antique 140# Cotton
Envelope: French Speckletone Sand

New sauce stickers now shipping with every order…

Get the face of Mama sticker in our sundries store for only $1.00

Proof that we print stickers!

Some people know how to do it right… I mean – how many sweet 16 party’s have screen printed invitations, show posters, and a touring band? Not enough if you ask me. Bring on the birthday parties and long live rock n’ roll.

We had a blast with designing and printing this piece. Gotta love it when a client gives you copy and a theme and then says do whatever you want.

I have a confession.
It’s an embarrassing one. One that would be hard to admit, that is if I hadn’t had to confess it at least once a day for the past two years. I say again, two years… That’s how long I’ve been a printer without a business card. That is exactly how long it’s been since our staff of trained professionals, who specialize in creating these seven and half square inch handy (literally) little sheets of ink and reclaimed cotton and/or tree pulp, have been operating without cards of our own.

How does one in this profession get away card-less for so long? I can’t even imagine a dairy farmer without milk in his icebox, or a taxidermist without at least one moose head over his fireplace. But then again, there is that old adage, ‘The cobbler’s children have no shoes.’ I guess that applies to printers too?

Well not anymore. This cobbler’s kids got some shoes, baby. Some rad, letterpressed shoes. Clearly put, we finally carved out some time to design and print our own cards.

Being that it was a long time coming, we thought we’d go a little over the top. A two-color letterpress card duplexed (fancy talk for glued) to a chocolate brown french paper backing… Hit number one is a light hotdog colored kiss print, which is a slight graze of ink to the surface of the paper, leaving the surface’s original dimension in place. The second hit is a deep punch of light brown that ads the 3rd dimension, which the modern letterpress printing technique has become known for… The bite if you will.

Note the two-tone sides and brown back duplex.

We’re stoked on them…

Looking for a ‘one hit’ wonder? Check out the print we rocked right after the sauce card… A simple and elegant design done by and for our good friend Aaron Martin from Superwindy. Aaron has been wanting to do business cards since we met him ages ago… Being a designer – it took awhile to get it done. I guess we’re all cursed in this area? Working for others doesn’t allow us the time to do for ourselves? Well, It has finally happened for Aaron too – and word on the street is that he’s diggin on his new beasts.

When Steve and Rachel brought in a brightly colored, hand-dyed, silk scarf from Malaysia as a design inspiration piece – we knew that this was going to be a fun invite to do… Designed and printed by our very own Austin, this invite is as colorful as it is complex… A 4-color screen print, tri-folded, with a die-cut top – all on French Paper. Made from scratch here at Mama’s Sauce.

We have a few more invites in the pipeline that we’ll be sharing very soon.
Thanks to Anna for taking these great pictures for us.