Richard Benefield, the Museum’s executive director, enjoys handing out his business cards. He says, “Almost without exception, when I hand someone my card, I hear remarks like, ‘What an elegant card,’ or ‘This is the most tasteful card I’ve seen in ages.’ And I, personally, love writing notes on the correspondence cards. My fountain pen glides over the paper.”
Frank Kofsuske, founder of Emdash, has a simple formula for most successful print jobs: Fifty percent of the job is the integrity of the information, and the other half is the beauty of the physical materials.” He adds, “For the Museum, we wanted to marry their bold mark with tactile stock.”
One Heart Press recommended custom-match inks for both the yellow and the gray. Frank comments, “Colors that have less chroma in them seem to be more difficult to work with. You are trying to get more out of less. The yellow ink is basically transparent white base with some yellow and red pigments in it.” Val Simonetti at One Heart confirms, “We work with three variables – the ink formulation, the amount of ink on the press, and the amount of pressure we use. This color, if run too heavy, went reddish; if run too light, it went pale. The fact that the mark includes thicks, solids, and fairly fine reversed type added to the challenge.”
Richard sums up, “In developing the stationery for the Museum, I wanted something that was very uncorporate in appearance, to distinguish the Museum and the Foundation from The Walt Disney Company. Since the Museum and I believe very much in being as ‘green’ as possible, we insisted on printing on recycled paper. I also want something of quality – beautiful design, excellent paper, and quality letterpress printing – because Walt Disney himself never compromised on quality.”
Paper: Strathmore Writing, Wove, Recycled Bright White, 110cb, 24lb
Printer: One Heart Press, San Francisco, California
Design: Emdash, San Francisco {stationery} and Pentagram, San Francisco {mark}
Production: Letterpress 2/0. Envelopes printed flat and converted.
