Designing on translucent paper

Back in 1994 when we developed our first line of translucent printing papers, Glama Natural, the art of designing with translucent papers was pretty rudimentary. We found that graphic designers worked with theses more opaque papers as if these papers where not translucent at all. You would see typical process printing on the surface of the paper without including any of the translucent dimension of the paper into the design concept.

Our first Glama Natural swatch book had a printed sample with a simple opaque white ink printed on the translucent paper representing fog rising from a lush forest which was depicted on the coated sheet below. The show through and the effect of the interaction of the two images were outstanding. From that point forward we saw many graphic designers taking the first steps towards utilizing the interactive nature between translucent paper and the opaque papers below.

CTI Paper USA penned a recent article which gives a more detailed overview of how to create effective design using translucent papers.