How do you handle bind the swatch, do not describe it?

Every model will happily invent a blue. Named colours drift, and Colorplan has forty-nine of them that all read differently under a raking light. A real swatch photograph bound as a reference for each of the ten, so the render composites the colour and the felt tooth rather than guessing at them.

How do you handle one era per paper, deliberately?

Give a designer ten papers and the same brief and you get ten pieces that look like one piece. Assigned each paper a market and a period: Swiss modernism on Adriatic, 1925 deco on Amethyst, Bauhaus on Azure Blue, an 1880s trade label on Bagdad Brown, 1967 psychedelia on Chartreuse, 1790 neoclassical on China White. The paper had to hold up against a typographic argument it did not choose.

How do you handle duplex where the reverse has a job?

A dark flood on the reverse of a coloured stock never matches the face, and it cracks on the fold. Bonded two Colorplan sheets instead: Adriatic over China White, Bright Red over Bright White, Chartreuse over Amethyst. The edge shows the stack, which is the honest way to prove a duplex.

Design exercise · Business cards · Peppermint

Ten papers, ten eras.

A materials exercise. We bound real GF Smith Colorplan swatches as references and built one piece per paper, each in a different design era and market, to see whether the stock colour and felt tooth survive a finished render.

Business-cards for Print Peppermint design exercise with letterpress, blind emboss, , painted and gilded edges foil stamping, 10 gf smith colorplan papers, duplex pairings across seven of the ten and one design era per piece, 1790 to the 2020s.

FoilsYellow Gold · 101, Deep Copper · 115-2, Rose Gold · 117-3, Silver · 120 TechniquesDeboss, Die Cut, Duplex, Painted Edge, Emboss, Hot Foil, Copper Foil, Gold Foil, Rose Gold Foil, Silver Foil, Letterpress StocksColorplan Adriatic, Colorplan Amethyst, Colorplan Azure Blue, Colorplan Bark (formerly Bagdad Brown), Colorplan Bright Red, Colorplan Bright White, Colorplan Chartreuse, Colorplan Limestone (formerly China White)

The idea

Every specialty printer says they hold colour. Almost nobody shows you the swatch next to the finished piece.

Three rules

01Bind the swatch, do not describe it
02One era per paper, deliberately. Assigned each paper a market and a period: Swiss modernism on Adriatic, 1925 deco on Amethyst, Bauhaus on Azure Blue, an 1880s trade label…
03Duplex where the reverse has a job. Bonded two Colorplan sheets instead: Adriatic over China White, Bright Red over Bright White, Chartreuse over Amethyst. The edge shows the…

Why we ran this

This was a test with a real answer: bind ten actual Colorplan swatches, build one finished piece per paper, and put them side by side. If the render drifts, the pipeline is not fit to quote from.

The design part was the control. Ten different eras and ten different markets, so the paper is doing the work rather than a house style.