A novel electroluminescent device is produced by printing an electroluminescent organic layer with a planographic printing process. Organic LEDs are formed in that the organic material is printed onto patterned electrodes on a substrate and the organic material is contacted by metallic electrodes formed following the printing process. Any of the accurate planographic printing processes is suitable, such as pad printing, offset printing, dry offset printing, letterpress printing, and intaglio printing. The resulting device may be a flat panel display with only a few discrete display fields or an intricate, pixeled multi-color or full-color electroluminescent display device or a light source.