WHO
In late 2005, Crane & Co.’s Terry Plummer met with Michael Osborne to talk paper. “He wanted to do a paper specifically for letterpress, primarily in response to the growing demand for letterpress printing from several card and stationery manufacturers and graphic designers,” Osborne explains. Plummer noticed that every year there were more and more paper products specifically developed for invitations, greeting cards, announcements, etc., and that Crane should develop its own line of papers for this market. “It’s right up their alley because they make an array of high quality cotton business and social stationery papers,” Osborne adds.

“Terry asked how I thought we could create an identity for Crane’s new paper that would match up well with the interests and needs of the design community. He wanted to create something that reflected the tradition of letterpress, but with a more contemporary style that would also serve to update Crane’s look,” he says. “He also asked me if the new product concept had sufficient commercial appeal—‘Are there enough printers that would work with letterpress paper?’ Of course, I said yes to everything.” In addition to running Michael Osborne Design (MOD) in San Francisco, Osborne owns a traditional letterpress shop, One Heart Press, so this project was a perfect match for him.

WHAT
Plummer and Osborne worked closely to develop a plan for launching this new paper to the design community and printers. “First, we needed to name it and do the branding. Then we’d develop the letterhead and send out specific letters to the design and printing communities to let them know this is coming. We also needed to do some sort of promotion piece—we wanted people to fight over it and for it to be frameable, like a piece of art,” Osborne explains. “My take on it was to also do something that was smart and informative, more than just print pretty stuff on nice paper. To really do something that would appeal on an intellectual level to designers and show the lovely printability primarily through typography. Crane developed this 100-percent cotton rag paper that is identical in characteristics to printmaking papers like Somerset, Rives, and Arches but at a more affordable price and more readily available. We needed to communicate that to the design community in a big way.”

WHERE
Osborne also encouraged Crane to develop a stand-alone website for the new paper, which was aptly named Lettra. “Initially Crane was hesitant to do a separate website since it already markets papers through www.crane.com, but once we determined the unique characteristics of Lettra it became obvious that it needed its own site,” Osborne notes. The new site, www.cranelettra.com, was created as a content-only site that talks about the genesis of the paper, the history of letterpress printing, the characteristics of the paper, a gallery of real projects, and where to buy it. The site also lists more than 100 letterpress printers. “It’s informational and the look and feel of the site is consistent with the marketing collateral we developed for Crane,” he adds.

WHEN
“Terry kept the pressure on us because his sales organization was already out preselling the new papers and early print results validated the unique properties of it,” Osborne explains. “Lettra was creating a real buzz from letterpress and designer chat rooms and websites. We were excited because we knew the materials would hit the market just as interest was building for the product.”

The Lettra marketing campaign was rolled out in April with a mailing to over 5,500 designers and printers across the U.S. and Canada. Other components of the launch include a broadside and a swatchbook to demonstrate the printability of the paper with a timeline of written and printed communication. “The artwork that runs throughout the swatchbook is progressive—we can show what a hit looks like with no ink on it (blind hit), then a single hit of ink, and so on—each pass builds on the one before,” Osborne says. “Eventually a single piece of artwork will result. It’s about old printing and new technology—the marriage of the first movable type printing capabilities with the latest technologies. Lettra prints typography beautifully which really harkens back to printing with moveable type 500 years ago. That’s why you see broadsides from that era with 10 different typefaces, and the print with the red and black—that was really risky back then.”

WHY
The reaction from Crane has been great. “I enjoyed working with Michael and his associates at MOD. It’s one of the best pieces that Crane has ever put out and it will go a long way toward showing the design community that there is an exciting new paper from Crane & Co. With our new Lettra campaign I actually believe we got out ahead of market demand for letterpress printing. Michael created a hot look that is only going to help make letterpress more popular,” Plummer explains.

Osborne adds, “They were a great client, because they had a clear business plan and shared their vision with us early in the project. We collaborated very well and as a result, they made very few changes to what we presented.”

MICHALE OSBORNE DESIGN | www.modsf.com | 415.255.0125
www.cranelettra.com

TOP: The Broadside developed for Lettra was letterpress printed at One Heart Press. Copywriter Alyson Kuhn painstakingly composed four justified paragraphs describing Bradbury Thompson's Alphabet 26 experiment.