This is one of the trickiest images we’ve ever printed in a Christmas card. Entitled Caged Tree, England 2009, the card is an image of a tree adorned with coloured lights, as seen by renowned artist and Head of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, Richard Wentworth.

After considering a number of substrate options, we printed litho CMYK on Tullis Russell’s FSC certified smooth white board, 330gsm Naturalis Smooth Absolute White, and the end result was really pleasing. The image was low resolution, with vertical bars of reflected light and the midtones containing vital detail which we worked to keep open – particularly the pine branchlets coming in from the left.

Thanks to Octavia Reeve at RCA Publications for bearing with us as we proofed, reproofed, resized and debated different papers, only to find that some of the cards that were slightly skew whiff in the finishing – luckily they came out fine with a bit of tender love in creasing and trimming department. You can buy the cards here; all profits go to the RCA Student Fund.

Tags: card printing, CMYK, Naturalis, Richard Wentworth