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Letterpress Only Design Guidelines

Available for Select Creators

Letterpress products offer a level of tactile quality that sets your event stationery apart. The process has specific requirements that differ from standard digital printing, and following guidelines closely is important to ensure a smooth customer experience and to keep your designs moving through our mandatory approval process without delays or rejections. 

These products are available to a select group of Creators due to the technical design limitations and printing process. We're currently not accepting application for these products but hope to in the future. 

You can apply to design on Letterpress + Plus photo cards, here. 

Letterpress-Only Products

  • Flat card (Intention: Invitation) 
  • RSVP Card 
  • Enclosure Card 
  • Folded Thank You Card  

Core Concepts

Letterpress has a long history and it works very differently from digital printing. Modern letterpress is similar to a traditional book-press operation where an etched die, coated in an ink, makes contact with the paper.

The ink is spread onto the letterpress plate and the paper is pressed into that, depositing the ink into the fibers of the paper. This also leaves a small impression (a slight depression) in the paper where the raised areas of the plate have compressed the paper.

  • The raised areas of the plate (die) is coated in a colored ink and then pressed into the card, impressing the ink into that region. For designs using multiple colors, multiple plates are used with the specified inks.

 

Solid Ink Coverage (Avoiding Mottling)

Large solid-fill areas will produce an undesirable mottled, "orange-peel" texture. This is a natural effect of the letterpress process and is one of the most common reasons designs are rejected. Solid ink areas more than ~5-10pt in thickness may show this effect.

 

Designs with a smaller, dispersed ink area produce a cleaner, more consistent letterpress result. Avoid large areas of fill when possible. 

The image below shows how the ink is not dispersed evenly across the element. 

 

Photographic and Continuous-Tone Elements

Photographic images and continuous-tone graphics, including gradients, are fundamentally incompatible with letterpress. Even with halftone filters applied, subtle tonal variations and fine details will be lost or unpredictable in the final print.

Avoid any graphic elements that rely on smooth tonal transitions. Do not use photograph templates for letterpress designs. They will be rejected.

 

Letterpress Alignment (Registration)

Combining two separate printing processes makes perfect alignment challenging. We must expect a registration tolerance of 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch.

Adding extra space between elements of different colors will help if there are any miscalibration issues.
 

Mandatory Gutter: A minimum empty gutter of 1/8" (3mm) is required between any two separate letterpress elements. Overlapping elements are not permitted. In the Zazzle design tool, a 9pt border setting is a reliable reference for this gap size.

Note: Unlike Letterpress Photo Flat Cards, standard letterpress products do not allow any overlap between letterpress elements, even colors that appear neutral. Customers can select any available ink color, which can produce unexpected results when elements overlap.

 

Minimum Detail and Line Weights

Very fine or densely packed elements will not print with perfect consistency from card to card. Small elements can work beautifully in letterpress, but some variation between prints should be expected.

For best results:

  • Use stroke or line weights of 0.5pt or thicker (and no more than 5–10pt for fill areas)
  • Keep line screen patterns below 30 LPI (lines per inch)
  • Leave adequate spacing between fine details

 Example:

Fine details will come through, but letterpress printing is never an exact reproduction and is different from digital printing. Some variation is expected.

 

Typography and Font Selection

Typography is where letterpress limitations show up most. Bridging between letters and loss of fine detail are common, especially in script typefaces.

  • Use larger, bolder typefaces wherever possible, particularly for Blind Deboss
  • Use wider tracking and kerning to add space between characters
  • To be safe and depending on the specific typeface (or font) being used, 9pt or 10pt is considered quite small, with 8pt being the absolute lower limit.
  • Keep text to short phrases rather than dense paragraphs
  • Avoid distressed fonts. Despite their visual similarity to letterpress aesthetics, they reproduce poorly in the process.

 

Color Offering 

A set of color swatches is available to help you compose letterpress artwork in external tools. These are close approximations, as actual letterpress ink may vary slightly from what you see on screen. The letterpress flat card also offers deboss only (no ink).

*Note, we have removed previous Violet and Grannyapple colors from the Letterpress offering

 

Product Merchandising 

To make sure your designs look their best in the marketplace, restrict the Orientation option to match the orientation you designed in.

Because Letterpress products are more complex than standard products, customers won't be able to edit them in the design tool. That means product merchandising must be set to "This orientation and process only." This prevents customers from accidentally switching off a second color, or trying to add one, when editing isn't available.

This setting is required for design approval.

Your templates will ensure that letterpress elements will not overlap second impression elements, typographic issues are resolved with templated text, fine-line details and spacing are meticulously handled, and letterpress tonal elements are minimized or omitted as needed. 

 

Product Approvals

Your product will be posted for sale in the public store as soon as it has been approved by our Content Review team. You will be notified as soon as your product goes live. We make every effort to review all submissions within 4 business days.