In addition to our letterpress printing services we also offer other styles of business cards that are equally as eye catching. This particular business card produced for Chad at Activate Psychology showcases our white printing and duplexing skills.
You will notice that one face of the card is black and the reverse side is white. Traditionally this card would have been printed on white paper. The black side would have been flooded with black ink and the logo would be reversed out. In other words the text is white because it is the colour of the paper.
Advances in white printing have come along in leaps and bounds in the last few years. White printing allows us to print directly onto coloured papers, like black in this example. And because the paper is colour all the way through, it looks black from all angles.
The back of the card is white with black text. So did we print white onto black paper again Well, no. Instead we printed the reverse face of the cards in black on an entirely separate sheet of white paper. We end up with this scenario;
Card fronts - white printing on black paper
Card backs - black printing on a separate white paper
We then fuse the fronts and backs together in a finishing process called duplexing. When the cards and trimmed down you achieve alternating layers of colour. I call this the Licorice Allsorts effect.
If we had simply printed the front black all over on a white card and then fused those layers together we would not be able to achieve that same result. This is because the black ink would sit on the top of the paper only. Therefore white printing has opened up a world of possibility for us.
Just a little side note - a few designers have been asking us about the paper used for our duplexing jobs. Almost 90% of the duplexed business cards we produce are printed on Ball and Doggett's range of Colorplan Papers manufactured by GF Smith. Colorplan is our 'go to' paper stock for these jobs because there is a wide gammit of colours available in that range and they duplex beautifully.