Behind the scenes - A print house tour at Star-Offset in Helsinki
The first batch of the oracle cards was sold out so fast we decided to print a bigger run! The digital printing is perfect for smaller print runs but for a larger edition we could afford the traditional offset technology. I’m that old school I always jump in joy when “proper” printing can be used – that’s also visible in the oracle card pouches where silk screen printing was the natural choice…
In Helsinki area we found a few printers that still have offset machines and got to know a family owned business Star-Offset. The company was founded by father Antti in 1975 and they’ve seen through many phases in the print industry through the decades. Today his son Marcus is leading the team in their facilities in Tattarisuo where now-retired father Antti still likes to hang around. Family business at its best! We talked about history of printing and how the style of our oracle cards is inspired by old Finnish national romantic era and Japanese woodblock prints and ended up talking about which childhood books made biggest impression on us. (Mine was Elsa Beskow’s picture books!)
You would think printing card decks would be straight forward, but we learned from the first edition there’s a lot of things that you need to take in to account: the paper stretching in digital printers, challenge of precise die-cutting and toolmaking to the very last finishing touches…
(We were told many times we should order from China where there’s print houses specialised only in cards, but stubbornly decided to keep production local as long as possible…)
Star-Offset team took the challenge bravely and relentlessly took care of all details for us. It took a bit longer we anticipated but the cards are now ready and available*!
Riikka
*See link to our webshop or visit Fiskarsin joulunavaus on 23.-24.11. or see the shops at HAM and Unio Magica in Helsinki, Onoma in Fiskars and Mainoa in Rovaniemi.
