Please visit the author’s regular website at:

nancysharoncollinsstationer.com

Engraved Stationery and Color

Hand engraved stationery presents unique printing issues when working with color papers and inks. This is why Nancy Sharon Collins recently authored three articles published in PRINT magazine about dealing with color reproduction. The series presents a brief punch list of best practices, for clients, printers and designers, when dealing with color on press. It also discusses differences, and challenges, of evaluating color on the screens of our devices versus literally going on press with the printer to watch what happens with ink paper in real time.

Example of hand engraved social stationery photographed and used in advertisements and on the internet. © 2016 Nancy Sharon Collins, Stationer.

1. The first article introduces the notion of color matching systems for print, specifically for one-color jobs in low-tech processes such as stationery engraving. This article goes into the history of color matching systems, too.
2. The second article talks about color responsibility and explains some of the best practices summed up in the final article... 
3. The final article elaborates best practices and lists them. These include discussing your print job with (depending upon who you are) the printer, designer, and or client. Sharing expectations with each other, sharing printing specifications, and going on press.

Color Matching Systems II: Color, color matching systems, and best practices.

(Above is the author’s late model color viewing system.)

Color management, how do we do this? PRINT magazine uncovers best practices for printing color in a series of articles by stationer extraordinaire, Nancy Sharon Collins. Check out articles #1. and #2 .

Article #1 covered basic color management history. In the second article, Collins discusses best practices in printing color, how stationers (and printers) deal with color management, including expectations and challenges...on both the client and designer side. Article #2 offers best practices for  matching and talks primarily about this in for non-4-color, RGB, or CMYK applications.

Town & Country Features Nancy Sharon Collins, Stationer

Nancy Sharon Collins, Stationer’s onion skin letter papers are featured in April Town & Country magazine (page 80).





Once the paper of choice for discerning letter writers, statesmen, and socialites, onion skin stationery is less than half the thickness of regular computer paper and just a tad heavier than tissue.

True onion skin has not been manufactured in this country for approximately 40 years. Lucky for well-healed letter writers that Mrs. Collins had the foresight to purchase and store thousands of white, water blue, canary yellow, and orange sheets and is once again creating gossamer stationery for contemporary use.

In this luxury line, each envelope is made by hand and fully-lined in the European tradition. Because of its cotton rag content, onion skin is magnificent when hand engraved, and especially suited to bespoke hand engraved monograms (for which Mrs. Collins is so well known!)

Contact Nancy Sharon Collins, Stationer directly for details about creating onion skin stationery of your own hand engraved with a couture (bespoke) monogram. And if your in a hurry purchase our packet of 5 folded onion skin notes and matching, completely hand made envelopes.

Onion skin in Garden and Gun

Winter 2015 Garden & Gun magazine features onion skin stationery by Nancy Sharon Collins, Stationer.

Turn to page 58 for a look at Nancy Sharon Collins, Stationer LLC hand engraved monogram on our very proprietary onion skin letter papers.

Not only is the monogram first drawn by hand (with a real pencil a real paper), it is then engraved—by hand—onto a half inch thick steel die. After this, a 2-hour “make-ready” is required on the engraving press. Each incredibly delicate sheet of onion skin is placed in the press—one by one—individually and by hand.

Needless to say…this process is not for the faint of heart. The results, however, are absolutely unique and astoundingly beautiful.

Available now is a hand made Packette of 5 onion skin envelopes and matching , french-folded sheets exclusively available here! (Monogram and engraving additional.)

Stationer Extraordinaire Nancy Sharon Collins Relaunches

The new, improved website about bespoke hand engraved social stationery!

Engraving and Type

Intellect Quarterly covers Engraver, communicator of content.

12/18/12: The Complete Engraver in Baltimore

December 18, 2012, The Society for History and Graphics (SHAG) in Baltimore, Maryland, hosts The Complete Engraver at Homewood Museum, part of the Johns Hopkins Museum campus.

A hands-on workshop was presented along with a talk about the book, followed by a book signing:

Engraving Demos and Book Signing New Orleans 10/20/12

Saturday, October 20, between noon and 3pm, the Hermann-Grima Historic House in New Orlean's French Quarter is hosting engraving demonstrations and a book signing for The Complete Engraver by author Nancy Sharon Collins.

Demonstrations of real, hand engraving will be by Yvette Rutledge and Vince Mitchell, and Emily DeLorge.

Its casual, free and kid friendly!

Hermann-Grima Historic House

820 Saint Louis Street

New Orleans, Louisiana

The Complete Engraver Book Tour Goes Viral

Nancy Sharon Collins is taking The Complete Engraver on the road, as a book tour.

Support her efforts to get the word out about stationery engraving.

A fantastic article was just posted on The New York Times website (though its written as if both MOMA and Clinique are active clients of Mrs. Collins—which they are not—correction forthcoming... ).

FREE fonts were developed by Terrance Weinzierl, Monotype Imaging, from antique engraver's lettering styles just for the project. (The photo on top shows Terrance holding an engraved trade card advertising the fonts. It was engraved by Hart Engraving in Milwaukee, and numbered individually in New Orleans on a Heidelberg letterpress).

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, The Complete Engraver Finally in Print!

The Complete Engraver: A Guide to Monograms, Crests, Ciphers, Seals, and the Etiquette and History of Social Stationery published by Princeton Architectural Press in September, 2012 and is now selling at Garden District Books in New Orleans, and at a book seller near you.

FREE, in conjunction with the launch, download two fonts—JMC Engraver and Feldman Engraver—developed for the book by Terrance Weinzierl and Steve Matteson, Monotype Imaging, based on original engraver’s lettering styles.

Research for the book was been presented at the 2012 Type Americana conference in Seattle, and will be at the Typecon conference in Milwaukee (August) and the American Printing History Association conference in Chicago (October).  Here are some sample spreads:

“This is for those who love everything fine.” —Marian Bantjes

“As we praise high-resolution screens, we notice that sharpness is not a virtue in itself. Digital is cold. We can swipe a screen, but we cannot feel it.

This book rediscovers the art of engraving, which makes us appreciate paper as the three-dimensional object that it is. … Digital may rule, but analog is far from dead.” —Erik Spiekermann

“If typography has a poet laureate, Collins may well be it.”—Jessica Helfand

“This billet-doux to the elegant and sensual art of engraving is a must for anyone interested in the lost art of fine printing, design, and graciousness.” —Louise Fili

“I’m hopeful that, with this book, young designers will be inspired to create contemporary applications for engraving in contemporary graphic design.”  —Steff Geissbuhler

Engravers Meet in New Orleans

Sunday, March 18, 2012 on Charming Magazine Street in New Orleans, printmaker James Ehlers gave a workshop about engraving. "James Ehlers has been the Engraving Arts Professor at Emporia State University since 2007. It is the first and only program in the world to offer a BFA in engraving arts. The program focuses on engraving as it relates to sculpture, metals, glass, found objects and printmaking. He remains active in exhibiting work and has been in over a combined 100 national, international, touring and solo exhibitions around the world." —from his blog.

As a contemporary engraver, James is particularly interesting because he teaches print engraving in the print making tradition, along with bright cut engraving (used for reflective work for jewelry, flat wear and etc.,).

After demonstrating the GRS pneumatic engraving system during the 2012 Southern Graphics Council conference in New Orleans, James treated the Louisiana Engravers Society to his "push" (traditional) engraving methods, techniques, and philosophies at Mystic Blue Signs shop.

Along with the newly acquired mini-intaglio press, Yvette Rutledge, Mystic Blue's intrepid proprietor—and herself a master engraver—shared her space, wisdom, hospitality and good will. Also in attendance, and thoroughly engrossed in the workshop, were fledgling engraver Emily DeLorge, and master engraver, Sam Alfano, Michael Deas (famed realist illustrator and creator of well known U.S. postal stamps as well as the Columbia Pictures icon), master printer, Cordell Louvier, and this author (the engraving lady).

The following day James gave another small workshop at Loyola University New Orleans with the GRS system in Bill Kitchens' printmaking studio on the Broadway campus at Loyola. James shared more of his work, and that of his students. In response, Bill shared his own amazing specimens of the intaglio process. James gave a final New Orleans engraving workshop the following day at Tulane University.

Type foundry digitally preserves vintage stationer’s lettering styles

[Guest editor: Tamye Riggs]

The Sweet collection is composed of typefaces based on the engraver’s lettering styles that came into fashion at the beginning of the twentieth century. The collection is anchored by Sweet Sans, Mark van Bronkhorst’s interpretation of the engraver’s sans serif (kin to the drafting alphabets popularized in the early 1900s).

A type designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Van Bronkhorst had long been a fan of these historic faces, many of which had all but disappeared from use. A few cuts of the engraver’s sans style existed in digital form, including Sacker’s Gothic (Monotype Imaging) and Engraver’s Gothic (Bitstream), but these interpretations were somewhat limited in their scope.

Van Bronkhorst sought to study the original forms in depth. As a graphic designer, he had worked with an engraving house in the past, and was aware that stationers and engravers used “masterplates” as lettering patterns, tracing letterforms with a pantograph device to manually transfer the forms to what would become the printing plate. He began hunting for masterplates, but found that most had been destroyed as engraving shops converted to digital typography. The majority of these shops had abandoned the tedious masterplate-tracing process in favor of more expedient photographic processes where “pretty much any digital font would do,” Van Bronkhorst says. He decided it would be a good idea to preserve the masterplate lettering styles—some good, some bad, some ugly—as they seemed otherwise destined to disappear unless interpreted as digital fonts.

After doing some digging, Van Bronkhorst discovered a stash of antique masterplates. With Linnea Lundquist, he commenced work on the first typeface in the Sweet range—Sweet Upright Script—likely the first digital version of this vintage social engraving design.

Van Bronkhorst then turned his attention to the engraver’s sans. Sweet Sans hearkens back to the same or similar masterplates as Sacker’s Gothic. Upon close inspection, various masterplates of what would seem the same letterforms varied considerably. The process of interpreting the design was one of selecting various forms and characteristics while leaving others out. The engraver’s sans was typically a cap-to-small-cap combination, yet a lowercase model did exist. Van Bronkhorst decided that Sweet’s interpretation would be broad, including lowercase and small caps, and in weights from Hairline to Heavy, with true italics. The result is a nine-weight sans family that pays homage to the charm and dignity of its model.

Encouraged by the positive response to the first releases, Van Bronkhorst is expanding the Sweet Sans family with a slightly modernized version, and plans to continue to gradually introduce more vintage stationer’s lettering styles in digital form. His goal is to carefully build a collection that accurately represents the genre while offering type users a variety of styles to suit their needs.

The Sweet collection of fonts is available at http://mvbfonts.com.

Resources for Engraving

This list includes some resources and information about American commercial engraving and engraving for social stationary, it is by no ways complete. However, it is the beginnings of a more robust reference for intaglio engraving, and commercial engraving for stationery relevant to today: Some universities still have intaglio areas in their print making department for fine art etching and printing, one of these are great places to start.

There is a fully restored engraving proofing press in the graphic design department "dirty room" at Loyola University New Orleans. Small plates and dies, prepared commercially can be printed on it. Here are links to the entire, several year journey of the engraving proofing press:

http://typophile.com/node/61604
http://typophile.com/node/59459
http://typophile.com/node/58983
(Sample of the 1/2" thick steel dies for which the press was designed.)
http://typophile.com/node/51189

Photo-engraved* (etched) copper plates, art must be in vector, saved as Illustrator CS3 or earlier, or EPS:

Beaver Creek Engraving
P. O. Box 766
660 Creekside Drive
Dobson, NC 27017
336-356-8760
beavercreek@surry.net
rdoby@beavercreekengraving.com
http://www.beavercreekengraving.com/

Intaglio (copper) plate, ready to draw-on, comes with etching needle (to draw with—you have to draw flopped, as in backwards or mirror image). He etches, pulls a print, and ships it back to you (as in “print and ship”:

PrintShip
PO Box 86583
Portland OR 97286
503.348.9214
info@printship.net
http://printship.net/PS/Orders.html

Commercial engraver, (primarily a pressman—the guy who can take your commercially genegrated intaglio plate or die and print it) can provide plates from your vector art, as well as paper and the actual die stamping**:

Hart Engraving
4928 North 29th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53209-5407
414.445.5555
http://hartengraving.com/

International Engraved Graphics Association website includes their directory of commercial and stationery engravers:

http://www.iega.org/

A brand new online engraving community underwritten by Crane & Co. and Neenah Paper:

The Beauty of Engraving

http://thebeautyofengraving.com/

Another full service engraving shop, independently owned by a lovely married couple (she's the engraver and he's the pressman):

First Impressions

900 East Jefferson Street
La Grange, KY 40031
(502) 265-9821
www.firstimpressionfse.com/

Pneumatic engraving system, developed for engraved jewelry, guns and fine knives, GSR is working with University of Kansas at Emporia on intaglio engraving for print:

GRS Tools
900 Overlander Rd.
P.O. Box 1153
Emporia, KS 66801
1-800-835-3519 or 620-343-1084
http://www.grstools.com/

The first [program] “in the world” to offer a BFA in engraving arts.

http://www.emporia.edu/engravingarts/instructor.html

Contact:

James Ehlers
The Don & Mary Glaser Distinguished Professor of Engraving Arts
Emporia State University
astronautlover@gmail.com
jehlers@emporia.edu
http://www.jamesehlers.org/

Trade school for engraving the old fashioned way (James Ehlers, above, calls this “push engraving”) with graver or burin, though their instruction is for jewelry (which is right-reading. Remember, for intaglio printing you would have to learn to do this backwards.) This is one of the oldest continuously running trade schools in the country.

http://www.gemcitycollege.com/engraving.php

Master engraver (jewelry and fire arms, though doing only jewelry these days), Sam offers private lessons and instruction on the GRS machine as well. (Sam spent 3 years of his own time perfecting replicating engraved scroll work through vector art in Illustrator, check-out his website for this, great resources, too, though not for print) :

http://www.masterengraver.com/

Sam demonstrates engraving script:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s9hOGwUF-s&feature=related

Extreme close-up of engraving scroll work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dn5P98sWYw&feature=related

Fine shading and cross-hatching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck8Q6xJJB4I&feature=related

Master engraver (the old fashioned way for jewelry, primarily, but also collaborating with intaglio print makers). Proprietor Yvette Rutledge is also a master lettering artist, tell her I referred you. Through the Center for the Lettering Arts, Eve is trying to get together a class for print and metal engravers:

Mystic Blue Signs
2212 Magazine Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
504-525-4691
http://mysticbluesigns.com/

Beginning engraver, learning from her Dad, master gun smith Ed DeLorge:

J. Emily DeLorge
http://www.etsy.com/people/JEMengraving

Louisiana Engravers Society, fledgling organization of south Louisiana regional engraving practitioners and enthusiasts:

http://handengravedstationery.blogspot.com/
http://thesttammanynews.com/articles/2011/01/30/northshore_life/community/doc4d445fd9510c4232164706.txt

The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver 1480-1650, print engraving exhibit with online components, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (engraving demos in Flash, I think, and also a video—access video button is in the upper right hand corner on the navigation bar.)

http://www.risdmuseum.org/thebrilliantline/

* Also spelled “photo engraving” and “photoengraving”.
** Commercial engraving presses are actually die stamping presses or machines.

A new morning for mourning stationery?

This article published today in Mohawk Fine Paper's "Felt & Wire" (re-published here with their kind permission):

"[Tom Biederbeck] Nancy Sharon Collins thinks the time has come to revive a useful asset for our letter library: mourning stationery. Collins, a designer, researcher and writer about paper and print, says mourning stationery was intended to help the bereaved adapt to a new role in society. I asked her about her interest, how mourning stationery functioned graphically, and how it might have relevance for our time.

What are some of the ways we used to grieve when there were rules?

Mourning stationery was integral to the communication toolbox in the 19th century, and may have reached its apogee in the grief-obsessed Victorian era. In those days, women wore heavy black veils to separate them from the public. Most cultures allow for this outward sign of grieving to “protect” the mourners from the rest of society. A lot of these traditions have been lost, and these days it’s expected we just “get on” with our lives. I feel we are missing customs that could help those who are grieving heal.
How did you become interested in the subject?

I have some knowledge of bereavement customs from my family. My maternal grandfather founded a funeral home in Detroit still operated by descendants. So I know that bereavement acknowledgment cards are part of the funeral package — these cards are what the mourner sends to everyone who came to the funeral, sent flowers, helped out, signed the guest book and the like. I have an old, uncut flat of engraved acknowledgment cards from one of my engravers. I hope these are still offered by funeral homes in lieu of the online services provided by the local newspaper.

Not long ago, bereavement acknowledgments and other condolence-related correspondence would have been on the bereaved’s own stationery — or, ideally, the bereaved’s own mourning stationery.

Recently I viewed vintage mourning stationery, once offered by Strathmore, in Mohawk Fine Papers’ archive [shown directly above]. I’ve also done research at the Harry Ransom Center on the letters of famous authors like Edith Wharton and Mark Twain, some of it on their mourning stationery, with its distinctive heavy black borders.

When my husband passed away unexpectedly earlier this year [see Collins’ moving article], I was asked if I wanted to create my own mourning stationery [shown at the top of this post].

How did mourning stationery work, graphically?

The graphic trick or clue to real mourning stationery is the distinctive black bordering on each sheet and envelope. This sends an immediate message to the recipient: When you get one of these in the mail, you’re made aware that someone you know has passed.

There are stages of grief and mourning … grief comes first. The stationery, usually based on the owner’s regular personal stationery, had black borders diminishing in width with the passage from grief through the various stages of mourning.

Why should we be concerned with mourning stationery today?

I was chagrined to find that, of the stack of thoughtful condolence missives sent to me since my own husband passed away, only a couple were on personal stationery. The rest were commercially produced cards with sentiments written by copywriters. Mind you, most of these had long personal notes written in the sender’s own hand … but so few real notes or letters on blank or personal letter paper.

As a society, we need customs that help people recover from grief and loss. Corresponding with friends and relatives plays an important role in mourning, and in recovering. Taking the time to sit down purely for the purpose of writing a personal note or letter is a wonderful act that allows ample time and attention to focus on expressing true feeling.

Adding mourning stationery to one’s wardrobe of personal letter papers is important when the unfortunate occasion arises. It’s good form and offers a formal catharsis. When I realized that mourning stationery is for the bereaved and not the deceased, it was a revelation … as if to say, “Oh, yes, now I have to make decisions for myself.” It was a big moment for me when it came.

Nancy Sharon Collins is known for her exemplary bespoke hand-engraved social stationery. She is a stationer; graphic designer; typographer; print history scholar; partner in Collins, LLC; director of special projects for AIGA New Orleans; and an educator for Louisiana State University and UCLA. She is working on a book about American commercial engraving. She also sells her work at Felt & Wire Shop; see all of her products here. And visit her engraving blog here.

08.11.10"

American Revolution Makes an Engraver from a Messenger

This country's most famous horse back rider, Paul Revere, was also an engraver.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year — a portion of "Paul Revere's Ride", first published in The Atlantic Monthly, 1861 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Its fairly common knowledge that Paul Revere, the subject of the now famous Wadsworth poem, was a silver smith who had followed in his father's footsteps in that trade. Even though he is most well known for that "midnight ride":

...the night of April 18/April 19, 1775, when he and William Dawes were instructed by Dr. Joseph Warren to ride from Boston to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the movements of the British Army, which was beginning a march from Boston to Lexington, ostensibly to arrest Hancock and Adams and seize the weapons stores in Concord. —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere, Revere was also a gold smith, and, come to find out, an engraver.

Engraved commentary, civic and fiscal communications, cultural iconography and satire have long been subjects, and purpose, for goldsmiths wielding the mighty burin, thus did Mr. Revere take up one of his engraving tools and, ummm, appropriate the scene of the historic Boston Massacre and sell an edition of engraved prints for his own personal profit.

Well, the craft in his prints is not beautiful, but I guess he may have made a few coins scooping the efforts of two fellow commercial engravers:

Documentation has come to light over the years indicating that Revere copied engraver Henry Pelham's drawings of the Massacre, produced his own engraving, and three weeks after the occurrence was advertising his prints for sale in Boston's newspapers. By the time Pelham's prints hit the street, Revere's print had flooded the market. A third engraving was executed by Jonathan Mulliken, who also issued prints depicting the event. Except for a number of minor differences, all three prints appear alike. —http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/winter96/massacre.html

Its interesting to note that the specter of easy money is sometimes the motive for highfaluting goldsmiths taking a less lofty professional turn into selling popular editions of prints. (See "History" section in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldsmith and "Cards" in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Playing_Cards.)

Macro-photography of Engraved Stationery Die

This image is an extreme close-up of a portion of a steel engraved die, the original image area you are viewing is but 15mm X 20.1mm, that's way less than one inch square, and the digital image is approximately 34 inches wide at 240dpi. (Needless to say what you are viewing has been reduced for use on the internet.)

Visible at this clarity (although we will soon be able to provide even clearer images at this degree of enlargement) are several factors that go into what is this die.

First, it is both etched and touched-up with engraving, the tell-tale granular texture of the bottom of the deep areas is because etching corrodes the metal, thus rendering it much less light reflective than engraving.

Second, notice that some areas (the tops of the arches at top, right) reflect light and look smooth like ice. The engraving tool polishes the metal so light bounces off of it like a jewel.

Other areas of interest are the rust not noticable with the bare eye and the very interesting texture all around the edge (left and bottom) made by the file that beveled the edges of this 1/2" thick steel die. Also, there are many surface scratches that would not print with an engraving press but look kind of spooky here.

While creating this image it was discovered that, at this extreme magnification, minute vibrations blur the image. So, now we will work on stabilizing everything for absolutely maximum focus (and we will be able to get closer, too.)

Odd Ball Short Story

While researching the International Correspondence Schools recently, I was reminded of the odd-ball J.D. Salinger short story, De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period, about a young man reduced by sad personal circumstances to take a job as a correspondence art course instructor.

I was researching the correspondence school to find out from where this technical text book came.

There’s a great article about correspondence art schools by Steve Heller in the 12.15.09 Design Observer, too.

"What if Edith Wharton Facebooked" in AIGA Voice

Read the article, "What if Edith Wharton Facebooked" recently published in AIGA Voice about life, love, marriage, notoriety, privacy and social media, engraving and writing letters long hand, too.