Specialty Papers

Printing is a tactile medium. When you pick up a print book, your fingers respond, even if your conscious mind does not know what’s happening.

This can be particularly useful for a number of reasons, some of which are functional, some aesthetic, some promotional. Here are four different kinds of specialty papers you might want to consider for your design and/or print buying work, as well as some descriptions and considerations for each.

Seed Paper

There are actual seeds bound within the fibers of these papers. You can plant them and they will grow. Such promotional products as seed paper project a brand’s environmental awareness, given that they can be printed "on 100% post-industrial, recycled paper and dyed with all-natural vegetable-based pigments" ("Top 10 Promotional Product Trends for 2022," by Patric Black, president and CEO of perfectimprints.com, 01/19/2022).

These promotional products provide a sense that "the world can be restored" ("Top 10 Promotional Product Trends for 2022").

Here’s my personal experience with this product, although I’m certain there are many suppliers offering similar seed papers.

About ten years ago I was asked by the promotional department of a local Washington, DC, magazine to suggest a unique paper for their invitations (to a banquet, if I remember correctly). Most of my small-format, short-run printing work at the time went to a mom-and-pop print shop in Richmond, VA. They had an HP Indigo, high-end laser press. Unfortunately, they could not get the seed paper I wanted, so I went online and found a source. It was three quarters of the United States away in the West, in Colorado, I think. I coordinated with the paper manufacturer and the printer on the East Coast to ensure compatibility.

That said, when the pressman (the owner of the shop) went to produce the actual job, the paper gave him fits. It kept jamming up the HP Indigo, so he wound up with an inordinate amount of spoilage. Fortunately the magazine’s promotional department loved the completed job on the seed paper.

Here is what I learned from this experience. Keep this in mind if you specify seed paper.

Although the overall effect was tactile and truly satisfying (since you could feel as well as see the seeds, and since the color and texture of the paper gave it a primitive, hand-made look and feel), the uneven surface of the paper and its uneven thickness caused paper jams.

How can you avoid this if you buy printing for a similar job? First of all, have the printer buy the paper himself. He will be more qualified to predict runability and printability issues and address them directly with the paper manufacturer.

Also, there are a number of ways to print anything. My specific printer in Richmond produced the job on HP Indigo equipment (a high-end laser printer that works with toner particles suspended in a liquid fusing oil).

Perhaps offset printing would have been better suited to the job. Or letterpress. (A more physical and less electronic and chemical process like letterpress would have looked great as well.) But it depends on the kind of equipment your printer has on the pressroom floor, so it might be wise to shop around. Letterpress, for instance, is a specialized and very old technology that relatively few printers (which are often very small shops) have.

In all cases get samples of the seed paper, and have the printer do a test before the actual job comes in. In my case, the amount of paper I had sent the printer in Richmond far exceeded the necessary quantity, so there was room for undue spoilage; however, the printer was not happy with the paper jams. So it will pay for you to learn from the mistake I made. Slow down the process and have the printer test your chosen seed paper.

That said, on an aesthetic level, seed paper is gorgeous. Moreover, when you’re done with the printed invitation, I’d encourage you to plant and water it. The paper will decompose, and you will be left with the flowers and the reminder that life is a cycle.

Parchment and Vellum

These are not the same thing. Parchment used to be made from animal skin. In fact it is still made from animal skin for the hand copying of the Jewish Torah and other ritual documents. This specialty substrate, which is known as Klaf (Wikipedia), is made from the tanned skin of a kosher goat, deer, or cow. Unlike paper parchment, which can last a long time, actual parchment like Klaf can last thousands of years. The Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, were hand written on parchment.

In contrast, paper parchment is often a great choice for announcements and invitations. It has a mottled surface formation (intentionally) to make it look like the original animal skin paper, although it comes in many more colors now that it is paper-based.

According to Wikipedia, vellum is slightly different. It is a finer quality parchment made from the skin of calves and lambs. Again, this was a long time ago. Now vellum is also paper-based. It has a hard, smooth surface. You may have seen it at art supply stores. It is usually translucent but not completely transparent. Many times I have seen it used in old books (let’s say from the late 1800s) to cover engravings in the front of the book between the frontispiece (the illustration on the left-hand page facing the title page of the book) and the title page. Its translucent nature slightly reveals the image below.

If you print on paper like vellum, keep in mind that it has a hard surface. Your printer will need to make sure it can run through his press, and that the hard paper surface will accept ink without any problems with smearing (perhaps UV inks cured with UV lamps, since this kind of ink doesn’t need to seep into the paper fibers to dry).

Synthetic Paper

Most contemporary paper is made from wood fibers, even including the synthetic vellum and synthetic parchment noted above (although other plants can be used in addition to trees). Some other papers have a linen and/or cotton component as well. (These include the paper used to print currency, which contains 70 percent cotton and 25 percent linen.)

Even fine writing paper has a cotton component. You can find 25 percent cotton bond at stationery stores. Cotton (or rag paper, when it is actually made from scraps of cotton textiles) is especially good for insurance policies and stock certificates or any other legal documents that have to last an exceptionally long time. These papers have more longevity than wood-based stock.

But it’s possible to go in an entirely different direction and produce paper that is synthetic. This is paper based on plastic, and the first time I saw it, the sample of printed stock was tethered to a weight in a fish tank. Unlike wood-based (or cellulose-based) paper, plastic paper can be printed and then totally immersed without decomposing or losing its dimensional stability.

The paper I saw in the fish tank looked as pristine as the day it was printed, since it was water resistant and tear resistant. If you do some research, you’ll find that it is also an environmentally friendly choice for printing paper (it is "tree-free"), and it can be folded without cracking. When I got my first printer samples of this product, it was made by Yupo, although by now I’m sure there are many other brands as well.

If you’re specifying synthetic paper, however, I’d suggest that you ask about the printer’s familiarity with the printability of the product. It has a hard, non-porous surface. I know from my reading that special inks can be formulated to be effective on such a hard surface. These may even include UV inks. But the best thing you can do is ask your printer for samples he has produced on synthetic substrates.

Your printer may even have suggestions about halftone preparation, since synthetic papers, some of which are rough as well as non-absorbent, can have a higher potential dot gain than usual (10 percent higher, according to japan.yupo.com). Therefore, you may need to adjust your halftone images so they don’t appear too dark or heavily inked when printed.

Again, your printer is your greatest ally in making such a project a success.

[Steven Waxman is a printing consultant. He teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, brokers printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the printing industry for thirty-three years working as a writer, editor, print buyer, photographer, graphic designer, art director, and production manager.]