Snowy Evening Press Sheet 19" × 13"

Four Flakes

The covers of our our “Snowy Evening” edition feature 99,999 unique snowflakes. While mechanically printing consecutive numbers has been possible for over a century, there is no way to swap artwork files on an offset press running at 300 sheets per minute. Digital printing makes such sorcery possible, and it also looks great when printing white ink on colored paper.

As you might be aware, commercial printing jobs are generally printed by ganging up multiple copies on a larger sheet and then trimming them down. Field Notes covers are usually “18-up” on 26" × 40" sheets, but that can vary depending on the size of the book, the design, and the press and paper used.

Digital presses are smaller than 6-color sheetfed printers, in this case we used 19" × 13" sheets. Each features four covers, and four different snowflakes.

From the 99,999 unique numbered variations (you can read about the design process here) any sheets lost during setup (called “makeready”) were tracked and their numbers were re-entered into a database and reprinted. The press sheets we’re offering for sale were pulled from this reprint of lost numbers.

To clarify, these sheets are not copies of finished books, they were pulled from production and each press sheet features four unique covers that were not bound.

We like to make a few press sheets available when they’re attractive, and these are among the most attractive we’ve seen, plus, each one is unique! We have a limited number available and they’re $24 each.