Join Us For Art-A-Whirl

11 Friday May 2012

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Smart Set is proud to be a local business partner for NEMAA’s 17th Annual Art-A-Whirl, and we’re celebrating with a special art exhibition and open house! Stop by to check out a special show featuring Brian Aldrich, MFA, Smart Set’s Production Manager, Senior Designer, and two time Jerome Residency recipient. Brian’s show, RAZE, “larger scale paintings based on a layering of material and the partial removal and degradation of that material as a way to mimic the urban environment and the surfaces one encounters in that environment.”

Stop by for tours, digital printing and letterpress demos, and viewing of our corporate collection of local “outsider” art. Guest artist Scott Seekins will be stopping by, and we’ll have limited edition prints (printed by Smart Set) available for sale. Refreshments provided.

We’re also joining Maren Kloppman Ceramics in featuring the Frost Building during this year’s Art-A-Whirl. Located at 1209 Tyler Street NE, or J8 on your Art-A-Whirl map. Lots of free parking!

HOURS:

  • Friday, May 18th, 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm
  • Saturday, May 19th, Noon to 8:00 pm
  • Sunday, May 20th, Noon to 5:00 pm

Welcome to our new web site!

28 Saturday Apr 2012

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We’ve updated our website to give you easier tools, more current and topical information and a more interactive experience. At the top, you can get information on our hours and location and a map to find us, a list of our services and other useful information. On the sidebar to the left you’ll find links to our Facebook page and a handy link for uploading files to us. For our longtime users, we apologize for any inconvenience, but we hope you’ll quickly find our new site easier and more complete. For our new visitors, we’ll be adding more case studies as well as more in-depth profiles of some of the many services we offer. Another way to help you find creative solutions to your design and print challenges.

 

Letterpress Printers: We now make photopolymer plates!

05 Monday Mar 2012

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We’ve been making film negatives from computer files for longer than just about anyone else still in business. We were the first shop in Minneapolis to utilize a Postscript RIP connected to a Linotronic imagesetter way back in 1986. Some of our most dedicated clients are our letterpress customers, and we’re now pleased to announce the addition of photopolymer plate making to our range of services.

We can make plates up to 8.5×11 in size, and we offer two different heights of plate material, the KF95 for standard bases, and the KF152 for platen presses and deep relief bases. Plates come with adhesive back and a hard proof on our proofing press. Pricing is $15 for a 4″X5″ plate, $28 for an 8.5″X5.5″ plate, or $55 for an 8.5″X11″ plate. Turnaround is 1-2 days. (We do have a shop minimum of $25 per order.)

As we build our volume and offerings, we’ll be putting out more information, but for you early adopters, we’re set and ready to go. If you have any questions, contact Smart Set Production Manager and Master Printmaker Brian Aldrich at 612.339.7725.

Remember, we don’t do any letterpress printing ourselves, so you don’t have to worry about your client files at Smart Set, though with our 25 years experience as pre-press experts, we can help you identify problems before they cost you time and expense.

“It’s Not Easy Being Green”, or When Mr. Greenjeans did laundry, was it “greenwashing?”

27 Monday Feb 2012

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Watching a bit of TV over the weekend, I was jolted into alertness (disbelief?) to see Mazda promote a new SUV in a commercial cross promotion with the new Dr. Seuss movie “The Lorax”.  Really? Somehow, I just don’t think Dr. Seuss would have signed off on this while he was alive.

Many companies have jumped on the “greenwashing” band wagon. While Smart Set’s core values have always included long term efforts to reduce our environmental footprint, it’s only been in the last few years that 100% post consumer recycled papers that would print with acceptable quality on digital equipment have made their way to the marketplace. We’ve done extensive testing and now offer, as house stocks, a number of 100% post-consumer recycled waste papers.

Mohawk Color Copy PC100: From their website: Featuring Mohawk’s unique Digital Imaging Surface™, a new technology engineered by Mohawk to improve toner transfer and enhance color copy image quality. 100% recycled. Manufactured with windpower. We offer this stock in a 28 lb. bond/70 lb. offset and an 80 lb. cover.

Neenah Environment PC100: Made from 100% post consumer recycled waste fibers, free of chlorine chemistry, manufactured using non-polluting renewable energy. We currently stock 100 lb. cover weights in both white and natural, and an 80 lb. white text, though other options are also available.

Digital printing in general is the most environmentally friendly method of printing you can use. The toner itself is non-toxic, inert, and safe for the environment, and only a small amount of waste is generated. The replaceable consumables are returned to Xerox for refilling and reuse. We recycle all of our paper waste from cutting, and we utilize our paper boxes as packaging for shipping. We’re not going to plaster psuedo “green” icons all over the place, not because we don’t care, but because we believe that actions speak louder than words. We print more jobs on 100% pcw recycled content paper than any other shop in the Twin Cities, and we’ll continue to do so. We believe so strongly that we absorb the add’l cost of 100% pcw recycled content so you don’t have to make the decision between price and helping the environment. It’s the least we can do …

Books, books and more books!

17 Tuesday Jan 2012

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We usually scramble for projects in January and February, but this year we’re off to a great start with a number of book projects:

• 3 different directories of minority-owned businesses and suppliers for Diversity Information Resources. Printing on Saproset tree-free paper made from Eucalyptus fiber, with laminated covers

• “This With My Last Breath,” a book of Meridel LeSeur’s last writings, found in her bed when she passed away, and published by her extended family. This will be a small format horizontal layout with 56 pages, printed on Neenah Environment 100% PCW recycled paper for the guts and French Paper Speckletone Cream Cordtone covers, with multiple signatures sewn into a soft cover. Not just a beautiful book, this is an important literary contribution to the canon of one of Minnesota’s great writers.

• Reprinting “Ukranian Style,” a coffee-table book about Ukranian art and culture and its application in the realm of interior design. This is a hard cover, case wrapped book that is in its second printing. Written by Linda Wicklund and Alecia Stevens.

• “Missing Mama,” an autobiographical story of sorrow, loss and healing by Amoke Kubat. We’re working on this project from manuscript to final printed product, including cover design and marketing materials.

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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Case Study

Alecia Stevens is an interior design writer who splits her time between Minneapolis and New York. After a recent trip to Italy she wanted to find a way to share some of her photographs with friends and family and create an attractive give away and leave behind for current and potential clients.

 CHALLENGE: Create a unique way to present photographs in a format that would be fun to browse and useful.

 SOLUTION: A postcard book that could be viewed as a book of images, but also used as individual postcards to send a message to a friend.

Alecia sent us 20 images from her trip with accompanying captions. The images were printed as standard postcards at 4.25″ by 6″, with a wrap-around cover.

 SPECIFICATIONS: Paper: Images were printed black and white on 110 lb. Classic Crest Solar White Cover. Each set was printed collated with slip sheets and manually duplexed with the caption and postcard mailing format on back. After printing two up, the sets were trimmed to size on the spine side only. We then applied pad glue to stacks of collated sets, then separated each book with our pad knife. The covers were printed on Wausau Royal Complements Tuscan Sun 100 lb. cover and double scored to accommodate the exact thickness of the book. We then applied double stick adhesive to each cover and wrapped the cover around each book block. The books were then trimmed to size to create a smooth, flush finish, and finally, they were shrink wrapped to keep all the pages intact. The result is a postcard book that hold together for viewing, but allows each card to be removed and used as a single postcard.

 

New Digital Press Installed!

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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After a bit of delay, we’ve got our new Xerox 770 Digital Color Press now installed and up and running. Our new press will be a great productivity boost, as it will auto duplex all weights of stock and run everything at the rated speed of 70 ppm. What this means to our customers is quicker turnaround and better pricing on volume jobs.

Continuing our tradition of maintaining state-of-the-art technology, our 770 was the first to be installed in the state of Minnesota. The 770 features Xerox’s revolutionary EA toner which is not only the most eco-friendly method of printer available, it produces a non-greasy matte finish which is nearly indistinguishable from offset printing.

http://www.fujixerox.com/eng/company/technology/ea/

Scary Guy TV commercial

14 Monday Dec 2009

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Quite a few years back, we worked with The Scary Guy on an ad campaign for Smart Set’s print production work. While we mostly shot stills, we did take a few minutes at the end to shoot a TV commercial for Smart Set. This never aired on any sort of TV, broadcast, cable, pirate or anything else, BUT, you can now view it on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/Ur2yQJc4GxQ

Welcome!

09 Wednesday Sep 2009

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Smart Set-RGBWelcome to our new blog/web interface. We hope we can convey some small sense of the exciting things we do here at Smart Set and create a more dynamic web presence including information about our services, helpful tips, and pictures of some of the great projects we get the privilege of working on.

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