Blind Pass

Ah, the elusive blind pass. A staple for letterpress printers, the achievement of a deep impression without the use of ink. It can create a show stopping element in your paper goods. But, it’s not for every design and it doesn’t always yield the result you would like. Let’s dive into it.

What is a blind pass?

Blind pass is a technique used by printers to create an impression in the paper without ink. For letterpress printers, it’s a simple as omitting the ink when we are setting up for print.

When can you use a blind pass?

Technically you can blind pass anything you are letterpress printing! But that deosn’t mean you should. I recommend blind pass to be reserved for secondary details, or bold headlines. Small details, like the info on a business cards, will not be very legible if printed with a blind pass. Details of that size and importance should be very clear and easy to read, a blind pass will make it difficult to decipher that information. Now, a bold heading on a card, a strong logo, or a floral detail would be perfectly suited for blind pass! Because those elements are typically printer larger, or they are simply adornments to a design, they are likely to have more success as a blind pass.

What paper do you recommend?

For a blind pass, the thicker the better! A blind pass is made legible by the shadows cast, so the deeper you can make the impression, the deeper the shadow, the more the impression stands out. I always recommend a 220# paper when working with a blind pass, anything of a thinner weight will not produce the desired effect. It’s not impossible on a thinner paper, just not ideal. Inky offers 220# paper as our letterpress standard, we know that our clients choose letterpress for the deep impression and 220# paper is the way to achieve it!

Double sided printing

Now, this goes for inked printing as well as blind pass, but it’s worth noting. When you are printing a design that is double sided, you won’t be able to get as deep of an impression as you would a single sided design. When you’re pressing a design in to one side, flipping it over and pressing on the back, you have to insure you aren’t pushing the front side back out. This illustration may help:

Does a blind pass cost more?

When creating a quote, a blind pass does count as a “color” addition to your design. While it doesn’t require ink, we do have to setup the press and print the cards exactly as we would if it had ink, we basically just skip the one step of adding ink. However, you will get a small break on the cost of ink so it cost sliiiightly less to add a blind pass than a color of ink.

Examples

These are all wonderful examples of designs that incorporated a blind pass!