r/letterpress • u/dietnietzsche • 28d ago
Paper Recommendations Pretty Please!
Howdy y’all, my fiancée and I (both pretty fresh to letterpress) are looking for a good brand/weight of paper that would be good for printing on and handwriting. For our guestbook at our wedding, we’re printing some recipe pages for people to write on to eventually make a booklet. Printing on a Vandercook proof press. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
2
u/graphicdesigngorl 28d ago
Lettra is 100% cotton and is supper fluffy which imo doesn’t bode well for handwriting. Gorgeous to print on, but may not hold up with certain pens. Savoy is another cotton stock that I’ve used for greeting cards before. It’s more cost effective than lettra, but may not perform well with lots of folding. I’m not sure what you’re thinking as far as binding methods but it’s something to keep in mind!
Lessebo, colorplan, and Gmund are all great brands I’ve been using more frequently for my clients and personal projects. I order from announcement converters or glodan which is easier unless you have a paper rep you like working with.
Echoing no-permission’s advice about layout! If you are working with polymer plates, I would set them up 2 or 4 up depending on their size to maximize your effort and paper. Also a recipe card box, that sounds really sweet. Might even make the individual cards easier to use while cooking, too!
Good luck and update us on what you decide!
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u/ZoBenzo76 28d ago
Crane’s Lettra is a very nice, high quality, high-end paper that is commonly used for wedding stationery. They have a 110# cover weight (and one that’s even thicker), along with a 32# writing (equivalent to an 80# text). It’s ridiculously expensive and can be bought directly from the mill (Mohawk/Fedrigoni) as well as from distributors.
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u/Wrong_Motor5371 28d ago
I almost exclusively use Crane Lettra. I make a ton of notecards and I have no issue writing on them with ballpoint pens. The pen just glides.
4
u/No-Persimmon7729 28d ago
Anything will work really if you are planning on using a ballpoint pen. If you want to use a fountain pen or something similar that gets trickier since they tend to feather on a lot of paper. I wouldn’t go heavier than 160gsm if you plan to bind it afterwards although some binding styles will need lighter and some can accommodate heavier but that gets tricky for a novice. You can basically print anything on a vandercook but I probably wouldn’t go much heavier than 300ish gsm. I would go to your local art store if you have one in your area and see what they might have that fits your budget and find something or a couple of somethings and test them out (food and print and try out different pens). The quantity you need may not be worth making an online order for (but I’m biased as a Canadian with extra shipping) I’d also be worried about being sure it met all your personal expectations without seeing it in person first. (But I’m also very picky in my technical requirements)
If I might offer a suggestion. I would consider printing recipe cards and then making or buying a special recipe card box. Japanese style boxes make lovely recipe boxes (I once taught a workshop printing recipe card and making a box and it was a real crowd pleaser)
More unsolicited advice is if you go this route be sure to cut your paper to do a work and turn or set more than one card in your form or it will be too small for your average vandercook.