Author Archives: cynthia

Poutine According to Anthony

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Along with being our esteemed pre-press expert in our platemaking department, Anthony is also our resident expert in all things poutine. Wondering what poutine is and how you can enjoy some of your very own? Anthony is here to the rescue. Poutine is a traditional Canadian dish, originating in Quebec and it involves three basic ingredients near and dear to many people’s hearts – fries, cheese and gravy.

Now, our sources tell us that the best place to get poutine is in Montreal, naturally, at a place called Peel Pub. While you can get poutine in Upstate NY, our restaurateurs are sadly not up to par with the Canadian originators of this fine delicacy. If you’re in Syracuse, you can check out Empire Brewing Company, where they serve up poutine that Anthony gives a rating of “okay”, but he notes that their fries are sliced too thickly. Therein lies the secret to good poutine, folks – thin cut steak fries.

Bearing that in mind, Anthony suggests you cook up some poutine of your own instead of risking a run-in with bad poutine out in the wild. You’ll need steak fries, remembering to ensure they are thinly sliced so you have more surface area to coat with your cheese and gravy. On top of the fries goes a big pile of shredded cheddar cheese – Anthony prefers mild although he notes you might want consider sharp cheddar if you’re into that kind of thing. Drench your cheese-topped fries with beef gravy and you’ll have awesome poutine in no time. Anthony’s secret is that you’ve really got to have warm fries, cold cheese and then warm gravy on top, in that order. If you’re wondering, yes, it’s imperative that your cheese be cold in order for the flavors to meld properly. Traditional poutine often uses cheese curd, so you could give that a whirl, too, but Anthony suggests you give the shredded cheddar a go first. Hungry yet? We are! The entire Boxcar office is now thinking about poutine.

Oh, if you’re not already, you should probably be following Boxcar Press on Twitter where Boxcar Press founder Harold Kyle happily shares endless insight into all things letterpress and occasionally, on days like today, poutine as well.

{Photo from Splitbrain.org}

From Our Print Shop – Letterpress Marketing Materials for Corinna Raznikov Photography

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Printing these super cool letterpress marketing pieces for Corinna Raznikov Photography, designed by Sharon Bartholomew, was a treat. It was also a big challenge, but a really fun challenge we couldn’t wait to tackle. The primary map card has a combination of large letterpress solids and hundreds of tiny dots, which required some crafty printing to get just right. The result is a collection of really bold letterpress pieces we consider pretty awesome.

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The letterpress correspondence card, letterpress pricing card and letterpress promotional card feature calligraphy by Debi Zeinert of The Blooming Quill. All of the pieces were printed in a bright red ink and blind deboss with a hit of transparent white to make the colors pop. In combination with the striking illustrations dreamed up by Sharon Bartholomew and created by Pier Gustafson, and the old school script calligraphy, the pieces are a bit of a study in juxtaposition, something we think is especially sweet.

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This set quickly became a crowd favorite around Boxcar and it’s pretty easy to see why. We love getting to letterpress pieces that are innovative and unique and this set definitely fits the bill.

From Our Print Shop: Cool Letterpress Business Cards for Salt & Syrup

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These letterpress business cards, printed for Salt & Syrup, are simple but really cool. We love the combination of blind deboss with a cool green ink. They have a clean Scandinavian feel, perfect for this fun Swedish stationery line.

Boxcar Plates in Action: Letterpress Invitations Featured on Mint

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We think it’s beyond cool when people decide to tackle letterpressing their own wedding invitations. Like Lindsay, Beverly and Neil, a graphic designer and an architect, designed and printed their own letterpress invitations. We love the hands-on approach! These were featured on Mint earlier this week – the couple used photopolymer plates from Boxcar Press and Neenah paper, and got to take over the printshop of their friend Amos Kennedy of Kennedy Prints. How sweet is that? Beverly and Neil printed invitations, thank you notes and all of the corresponding envelopes, then added a cool textile inspiration by sewing the invitations.

You can read more about these invitations on Mint.

photo via Mint

Boxcar Press Letterpress Platemaking – Free Shipping, Faster Service + Your Feedback

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There are some exciting changes going on here at the old Boxcar – we’re now offering free shipping and faster service to better serve our platemaking customers. Hooray! And while we’re at it, we’d love to get your feedback! Tell us what you think: take our high tech, 4 minute survey and we’ll happily plant a tree for every survey participant. (Oh and you can now follow Boxcar on Twitter, too!)

Free 2-Day Shipping

Be gone, shipping charges! That’s so 2008. We now offer free 2-day UPS shipping on all domestic platemaking orders over 90 square inches.(Edit: As of August 15th, 2014, our minimum platemaking eligibility is 120 square inches) That’s less than 8.5 x 11, if you don’t have a calculator handy! (View our international or other shipping charges)

One Day Turnaround On All Orders!

One day rushes, get out of here! Our standard turnaround is now one day, which means:

* if you send in your order and your ready-to-go files by 5:59 p.m. EST, we’ll ship your order on the next business day. (see new turnaround chart here)
* same day turnaround rushes are still available if you submit your files by 1 p.m. EST (see pricing here)
* if your files aren’t ready to go, keep in mind this may delay your ship date (unless you request that we process your plate no matter what seems wrong with the file)

Questions about any of these changes? Let us know and we’re happy to help!

How to Reach Us (it’s easy, trust us!)

(A happy note: we have finally fired our auto-attendant for our phones. You now get to talk to a real live person when you call during our business hours, 9 a.m.to 6 p.m. EST. Hooray!)

Cathy Smith, Customer Accounts Manager
existing orders & ordering questions • pre-press file prep questions
letterpress printing questions • plate problems • troubleshooting • supply needs
cathy@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x12Anthony Allen, Prepress Manager
file problems on existing orders
anthony@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x13

Julie Salzar-Smith, Admin Assistant
billing questions or concerns
julie@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x14

Kim Stevens, Operations Manager
praise or complaints
kim@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x15

Cyd Converse, Blog Editor
get your print shop profiled on our blog
share good news and printing samples that we’ll post on our blog
cynthia@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x19

We like planting trees for you.

Remember, for every platemaking order you place over $100, we plant a tree with American Forests. Over its lifetime, each new tree planted will absorb roughly 740 pounds of carbon dioxide. Go trees!

Need coaching, tutoring, or one on one help for preparing your letterpress files?

We’ve been doing prepress for letterpress for a decade now, and we love helping out both new and old printers & designers overcome technical challenges to create the perfect pre-press files. If you’re new to the polymer world, or if you simply hate file prep, give Cathy a shout out (cathy@boxcarpress.com, 315-473-0930 x 12), and we’ll find ways to make the file prep process a breeze for you. (You also might want to take a look at our file prep tips and our FAQ’s on our web site).

We want to hear your thoughts (and we want to plant you a tree too)

We know Boxcar Press wouldn’t exist without you, so we’ll be honest—we love each and every one of you guys. We admire your enthusiasm for letterpress and we share your passion for cool heavy machinery. And we care a whole lot about what you think. We hope that you share your thoughts, great ideas, and disappointments with us whenever you can—but wouldn’t it be fun to also fill out a high-tech survey about how we’re doing? All you need to do is go here by August 8. It’ll take about 4 minutes of your time, and in return, we’ll plant a tree in your honor with American Forests. Thanks!

Get profiled on the Boxcar Blog!

One of our favorite things to do is recognize our platemaking customers and the great letterpress printing they create with our plates. We’d love to profile your print shop and your work on our blog! Drop an email to cynthia@boxcarpress.com if you’re interested, and check out previous customer profiles on our blog here.

At Boxcar, it’s all about letterpress and the printers who love old presses as much as we do…

Boxcar Press began 10 years ago, with a guy named Harold, a polymer washout brush, a tray full of warm water, a dream about an easy-to-use printing base, a few rescued presses, poetry, and a lot of caffeine. When employee #2 (Debbie, Harold’s wife) joined Boxcar in 2000, Harold was still hand processing plates himself in the basement sink of their Syracuse, NY house and keeping track of orders on a white board. There were no order forms (or auto-attendants either!). Our little company has changed a bit since then. We’ve learned a lot. We have order forms now. Our home is now 12,000 square feet of space in an old artist warehouse in Syracuse, New York, and we have a team of employees here that keep your happiness close at heart. We’ve processed tens of thousands of plates for thousands of letterpress shops internationally. We’ve fallen more deeply in love with letterpress and this cool printing community. And we’ve had the amazing experience of helping shops, both large and small, figure out how to get their hulking cast iron presses to print well. But we’re still the same friendly folks at heart who love coffee and who are doing what we do because we love letterpress.

Boxcar Sponsors Community Supported Agriculture

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Here at Boxcar Press, we’re always looking for new ways to support the environment and get involved with our local Syracuse community too. Last year, we started subsidizing CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) memberships for all employees — as well as hosting one of the weekly vegetable pick-ups for other locals. We’re thrilled that year 2 of our CSA adventure has begun! As a result, a good number of Boxcar employees can be found carting home large bags and baskets full of fresh, organic produce every Tuesday. Delivered once a week by local organic Grindstone Farm, fresh veggies and herbs are delivered here at the Delevan Center, the old warehouse we call home. We have found that half the fun is figuring out what to do with the unusual ingredients that tend to come home with us on CSA delivery days!

Typically, we get an assortment of great lettuces, kale, fresh herbs like cilantro and dill, broccoli so fantastic we never want to eat anything other than organic broccoli again, garlic scapes, cool daikon radishes that resemble white carrots, and lots and lots of bright red radishes. As the season is progressing, so are the crops, and the produce that arrives every week is changing, but we’ve continued to get a lot of radishes, which led a few of us to start looking into recipes that use radishes and ideally the radish greens too. After some hunting around, one of our letterpress printers, Carrie, who is one of the finest artisans we know to ever run an Original Heidelberg windmill, found and tweaked the following recipe that was fantastic. At a loss as to what to do with all of your radishes? Give this recipe a whirl!

Asian Hamburger Skillet

  • 1lb lean hamburger (although many of us are vegetarians so we substituted the Morning Star ground “meat” instead)
  • 1 medium red onion, sliced about 1/4? thick then cut into 2? lengths
  • 1 bunch of radishes, cut in matchsticks
  • 1 bunch of radish tops, cut roughly into 1? pieces
  • 4 carrots, julienned or cut into 1/4? slices
  • 1-1/2 tsp ginger paste
  • 2 tbsp fish sauce (although we’ve also tried General Tso’s sauce and it was delicious!)
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 lime (optional)
  • Freshly ground pepper, to taste

In a large sauté pan, cook hamburger (or meat substitute) over medium high heat, until just beginning to brown, breaking into small bits with spatula. Stir in onion and radishes and cook another 2-3 minutes. Stir in carrots, radish tops, ginger paste and fish sauce and cook 5-10 minutes until onions are softened and hamburger is cooked through. Sprinkle with lime juice (if using) and pepper, to taste. Serve immediately.

Boxcar Press’s Donated Letterpress Paper In Action

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Our practice of donating letterpress paper to local art programs and schools has become one of the most rewarding things we do, and it never goes unappreciated by the kids who benefit. Recently, we received a visit from a local teacher whose students used the donated paper to create books that they then read to children in the local area. The visit was a happy reminder of why we do what we do to help the kids in and around Syracuse.

As show of their appreciation for our recent donation, the seventh grade students at Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse made us our own book full of their praise and thanks. Each student wrote us a personal, heartfelt and touching letter. The book is absolutely one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen. It’s awesome for us to know that our donation touched these kids and that, in turn, the stories they wrote, the books they made and the time they spent with younger students, touched even more kids in a positive way.

One student wrote, “Dear Boxcar Press, Thank you for letting us use your paper. We got to touch many hearts with the books we provided for the children…”

Thank you, to the students of Jenny Albicelli’s seventh grade English class. We are so happy you enjoyed the paper and so grateful for your gift to us.

Letterpress Wedding Invitations Designed by Ian Koenig

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We loved printing these sweet letterpress wedding invitations designed by Ian Koenig because they are just plain cool. According to the bride, Lindsay, “We did not want to take the whole idea of wedding invitations too seriously…make them fun, non-traditional and have our personalities shine through…We live in the Pacific NW where beer rules all [plus the groom works for Deschutes Brewery] so we definitely wanted that to be showcased as well.” Printed with metallic ink on smooth chocolate brown paper from French Paper, these invitations definitely achieve the goal of being fun and a little offbeat. We love it when couples think outside the box and these invitations are one of our favorite examples of doing just that…


The couple is incorporating a lot of handmade details and a ton of mixed and matched textiles and cool old buttons, vintage salt and pepper shakers and whatever good finds they can score at the farmer’s market on the day of the wedding, which will be at The Gardens at Flying Diamond Ranch in Redmond, Oregon, so Ian took that into account when designing. “I just wanted to capture and compliment all of the eclectic odds and ends that will make up the guest’s wedding experience. We began with a mood board, and from there it was clear that the design opportunity was in the details. The best way to suggest this was through repetition and variation of little icons, the idea that the sum is greater than the parts.” We agree that the sum is definitely great!



Congratulations, Lindsay and Geof!

Fine Press Broadside: When Poetry and Letterpress Meet

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One of the coolest collaborations Boxcar is proud to be a part of is our sweet partnership with the YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center here in Syracuse. In 2002, the Downtown Writer’s Center launched a broadside series as fundraiser for their reading series. Two poets are selected annually and Boxcar’s own Harold Kyle takes the lead on designing and printing the broadsides in support of the series.

This recent broadside is for Jane Hirshfield’s poem, “Critique of Pure Reason” and Phil Memmer of the Downtown Writer’s Center calls it one of his favorites from the series. As Phil notes, “The detail in both the border and background is marvelous, and serves to echo the subject of the poem…and the careful way in which the poem itself is presented is simply perfect.” Phil also shares that the best commentary on the broadside might be from Jane herself, who gasped aloud when she first saw it – we love that!

You can check out other broadsides in the series in our letterpress portfolio. The Jane Hirshfield broadside, $25, and others in the series are available through the Downtown Writer’s Center by emailing phil@ymcaarts.org

Boxcar Plates in Action: Letterpress Wedding Invitations

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Around here, we certainly understand why brides opt for letterpress when thinking about wedding invitations. But a bride who wants to take on her wedding invitations as her first adventure in letterpress printing? Now that is something we can really appreciate!