Sure, the holidays are over in theory, but that doesn’t mean we still aren’t finding pleasure in cool letterpress holiday things….like this letterpress calligraphy ornament! Designed by one of our favorite calligraphers Debi Zeinert and letterpress printed & die-cut by Boxcar Press.
Zeb recently left us to go travel the globe (Vietnam, Australia, maybe a little China or India, etc.), but he promised to come back someday with swashbuckling tales of adventure (and some souvenirs too, we hope!). We wouldn’t let him go without allowing us the pleasure of profiling him on our blog!
Job Title: Finisher
Describe what you do at Boxcar Press in 10 words: Inspect, wrap, mix, edge-paint, print, ship, assemble, give, organize, fold.
This letterpress business card was just a pleasure to print and photograph (we took about 30 pictures total – we couldn’t help ourselves!). The design was perfect for (3 color!) letterpress….we love the colors and the little accent of red. The back was flat printed in two colors. Vibrant and just a pleasure to hold. Printed for Jodi Boss of In Any Event.
Letterpress sure can be pretty, but sometimes there’s a need for things that are more than pretty right now. To be pretty + meaningful. It is SO inspiring to see good political letterpress being made right now. We fell in love with a previous broadside collaboration by Jessica Spring of Springtide Press & Chandler O’Leary of Anagram Press back around election time, so we were thrilled that these letterpress masterminds are developing a broadside series called (only half jokingly) the Dead Feminists Set. Their latest broadside, “Victory Garden,” features a lovely quote by Eleanor Roosevelt. It was letterpress printed from hand-lettered typography on 100% rag recycled paper using 94FL plates and the Boxcar Base. Chandler writes, “This broadside was kind of a monster for registration, so that grid on the base really came in handy.” More broadsides are in development too. Hooray! The previous drop-dead gorgeous broadside, “Come, Come My Conservative Friend,” sold out in just a few short weeks, and within 2 days of publication, Victory Garden has already sold 2/3 of the edition. What a letterpress success story. Victory Garden has edition of 76 and is priced at $30. Visit the Anagram Press web site to order NOW before the broadside sells out! Great work, Jessica & Chandler!
We spotted Boxcar Press recently in:
*The Creativity Room (very cute calling cards for a big-sister-to-be)
*a sweet shout-out from Sycamore Press (we’re thrilled to be in their list of businesses that earned their loyalty, along with Green Paper Company and a cafe with the best veggie burgers in the world — cool!).
Thanks, letterpress friends!
Harold spent a few hours downstairs in the letterpress shop today taking some really great atmospheric photos of our presses and our printers. Nothing looks better to us than bright ink on a Heidelberg Windmill under dramatic lighting conditions! We’ll be posting more pictures from our shop’s photo shoot to Boxcar’s flickr account in the next week or so. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving! Today we’re being grateful for the creation of letterpress and cast iron, and also for you, all of our awesome letterpress-loving customers. We’ll be thinking of you all as we eat our tofurkeys! (By the way, our offices are closed Nov. 27, Thursday, and Nov. 28, Friday).
We love it when we get to letterpress cool things for Syracuse folks, so we were so excited to letterpress up these cards for the Everson Museum, our local art museum. They’re designed by the fabulous folks at Eric Mower & Associates, whose designers are just bright baubles of joy to work with. The cards are available for purchase via the Everson. Since, over the weekend, Boxcar Press & Syracuse finally got its first substantial snow fall (hooray!), it seemed the perfect time to post pictures of these letterpress holiday cards that make us feel all warm and cozy.
Boxcar Press subsidized a CSA organic farm subscription for Boxcar employees this year. It was an amazing experience (and really yummy too!), and we loved feeling connected to our community in this very real way. The growing season in CNY finally ended, and so our 20 weeks of organic vegetable delivery came to an end. Carrie, our officer manager who found a way to make our CSA dream work, has these thoughts.
“Besides yummy veggies and fruits, what did Boxcar Press take away from our first annual CSA participation? This is the question I asked myself more than once over the past 20 week growing season. Sure, the veggies are good, but was it worth the hard work organizing, maintaining, safeguarding and cooking 20 shares of veggies (well, we each cooked our own shares, but it was still lots more cooking than I’m used to!)? The short answer is a resounding yes!”
“Being involved with the CSA was a direct opportunity for Boxcar Press to become involved in our local environment. It allowed us to use our spending power to support local farms that practice farming techniques which take a stewardship of our land and create hope for a safe planet for our children and their children, too. For some of us, it introduced us to vegetables we had never experienced before and for others it reminded us of the wonders of nature and the bounty our very own upstate New York land can provide. Best of all, it allowed Boxcar Press to enrich the community by providing Syracuse with its first every downtown POD (Point of Delivery), which made veggie pickups convenient enough to attract 13 new CSA members this year! When it is all said and done, bringing goodness to many is what we’re all about. Now go eat your veggies! (P.S. If anyone out there wants to know how to organize something like this, I’d be happy to share)”
We were excited to see the Boxcar Base spotted in some cool places in the blog world lately:
*at Heart Fish, who used our base and plates in a letterpress class she’s taking (the photo on this post is from Heart Fish’s blog — a nice picture of our printing plates in action!)
*check out Marin Press, who used our base and plates to print invitations to “A Most Excellent Midwinter’s Feast,” hosted by the Ottawa Chapter of Canadian Organic Growers to promote their Growing Up Organic Project (how cool is that!);
*Lead Graffiti, who used our plates to letterpress certificates for the Art Directors Club of New York Grandmasters Award ceremony.
Thanks to you all for the Boxcar shout outs! Go letterpress!