Foil Blocking: Wedding Invites

My old mate and local print deity, Simon Goode has recently been very kind enough to offer his foil-blocking skills for a little project of mine. His quick thinking and steady focus was the perfect antidote to the antagonistic and grumpy commercial printers I’ve tangled with in the past and furthermore it was a good chance to stand by and watch the whole process for the first time. I probably got in the way a bit, but it was nice see it all happening.

I’m getting hitched this Spring and for our little party I decided to create a fairly flat design in illustrator that reflected the time of year and which also had some interesting resonance for us both as a curious pastoral icon.  The Maypole is a funny old thing really… It smacks of the sort of diluted folky Paganism that English popular culture neither venerates nor scorns anymore. The Maypole’s confusing routines are at best a novelty reserved for the ‘village fete’ these days. But for some reason, I find it quite a mesmeric bit of apparatus. It’s got a bit of charm and to most people it certainly does suggest ‘May’, which is what I was after.

The process was very stimulating indeed. I sent PDF files of my designs to Simon; he had the blocks forged (a mystery process to me); he then did some testing and positioning trials. After a few minor stock issues, he began to use the heated blocking machine to make the imprints through the chosen foil into the card. The result was a satisfying impression of my original design in a lovely rustic sort of green gilding. Trés fun indeed and exactly what I imagined. Cheers Simon and sorry you’re missing the party!