Category Archives: Ephemera

Valentine’s Day at Boxcar Press

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The Boxcar Toddler visited our letterpress headquarters on Valentine’s Day, decked out in a very realistic USPS postman outfit. He didn’t have much time to chat as he needed to pass out over 50 Valentines throughout the old artist warehouse that we call home. Though Valentine’s Day is perhaps a little less romantic with two kids, it certainly is a lot cuter. (Who needs flowers when you have a toddler anyway?!) And okay, okay, we’ll admit the little Valentines weren’t letterpressed this year, but at least they were eco!

Emerging photographer captures letterpress printing at Boxcar Press

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The shop at Boxcar Press was surprised by the appearance of emerging photographer Jasper Kyle when he unexpectedly chased after his father (who needed to visit our Shipping & Receiving area). Once among the busy letterpress presses, he turned to his Fisher Price R7315 which he had previously been using to photograph the hallway ceiling. He first turned his attention to our Heidelberg KSBA, which was in the middle of a 3 color run of 6,000 cards. Bob frames the composition as he measures his press sheet for register.

Jasper Photographs the KSBA

Jasper Photographs the KSBA


Then he noticed Carrie pulling some prints on the Vandercook. This setting, as the Vandercook prepares to pull a print, resulted in a dynamic, powerful photograph through the lens of a three year old (below).
Jasper photographs the Vandercook Universal 1

Jasper photographs the Vandercook Universal 1


Vandercook photo by Jasper

Vandercook photo by Jasper


Before heading out the door, Jasper specifically requested to photograph a “dirty stinky press,” one “with oil on top.” He showed us what he was talking about: a Heidelberg Windmill. After noticing how dirty each one was, he settled on Bill’s press as the dirtiest—inspiration for another bold composition.
Windmill as seen by Jasper

Windmill as seen by Jasper


Reviewing the photo session.

Reviewing the photo session.


We were honored to be the focus of Jasper Kyle’s recent photo shoot and we hope that you enjoy the artistry of his work. Jasper is available for wedding photography, event photography, printing press photography, ceiling photography, blurry carpet photography, and calligraphy. Please contact Boxcar Press for more information.

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}

CSS @font-face flickering in Firefox, somewhat solved

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OK this is off the beaten track, but I’ve been trying to get one of our websites free from the Georgia/Verdana death grip through using CSS @font-face and Typotheque web fonts. I had some problems getting a CSS @font-face formatted text to look right in Firefox because it first loads in the fallback font; this is a Firefox issue that’s well documented, and I’m comfortable with how Safari and IE are loading the page. Since there are a lot of images on the page, it can take a few seconds before the text “jumps” into the right typeface. None of these tricks really improved the situation, so I decided to hide the content until the page loaded. Here is the code I’d used.

(all the examples assume that you're loading the jQuery javascript library)

$(document).ready(function(){
$("body").hide();
$(window).load(function(){
$("body").fadeIn();
});
});

Since the body was hidden while other scripts were running, though, other elements of the page broke (specifically a jQuery plugin and a YUI component). This wasn’t ideal either because the browser screen had to go blank between every page for every visitor. This code affects all visitors to the site when I’m really only worried about the 30% who use Firefox. So I came up with this solution which only affects Firefox users and which doesn’t hide the body elements (so that nothing breaks):

$(document).ready(function(){
$("body").css("-moz-opacity","0"); //this css is only used by Mozilla browsers like Firefox
$(window).load(function(){
$("body").css("-moz-opacity","1");
});
});

It doesn’t seem to be working when I use this “-moz-opacity” style in a “loading” CSS class (and then use $("body").addClass("loading") and $("body").removeClass("loading") to change the styling). Perhaps this is because Mozilla has deprecated this style. I also don’t like reading that Gecko 1.9.1/ Firefox 3.5 and later do not support -moz-opacity. By now, you should be using simply opacity. However, it seems to be working when jQuery applies this style with css. Just to make sure this trick works in the future, I’ll instead use the css opacity style after doing a jQuery browser detect:

In the stylesheet:
.loading{opacity:0;}

In the javascript:
if($.browser.mozilla){
$("body").addClass("loading");
$(window).load(function() {
$("body").removeClass("loading",500);//I'm using the jQuery UI animation here to fade content in, omit the ",500" if you aren't loading jqueryui.1.7.2.js.
});
};

Ah. This appears to be working and only will affect the Firefox users with the screen going blank. But once the fonts are formatted, the body will gracefully fade in. Your thoughts or suggestions are appreciated!

Happy Halloween from Boxcar Press!

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Halloween became so much more fun once we started having kids who wear cute costumes…after much debate (UPS Man? Mailman? UPS Man? Mailman?), the Boxcar Toddler decided to be a U.S. Mailman this year. He delivered hand drawn letters to lucky people all over the building. (and yes, there is, in existence, a very cute Boxcar Baby #2, who is dressed up as the letter “J” and even wore a Halloween bib….but we forgot to take a photo of her! Typical second child, right?!?!)

Boxcar Press plates at work: more gorgeous political letterpress from Anagram Press/Springtide Press

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We get so excited when we see Boxcar’s photopolymer plates & the Boxcar Base hard at work making really beautiful stuff! Thanks to Chandler for sending us pics of “Prop Cake,” the latest installment of the Feminist Broadside Series, designed by Chandler O’Leary of Anagram Press and letterpress printed by Jessica Spring of Springtide Press, using a Vandercook Universal One, Boxcar’s 94FL plates, and the Boxcar Base. The Feminist Broadside Series has been such a success — the last two broadsides are SOLD OUT (yay!), and this one is going fast too I’m sure. Jessica and Chandler will be speaking at the Tacoma Art Museum on May 12, and the power duo had a great mention in City Arts Magazine. To purchase the latest broadside, go to Anagram Press’s etsy store. Check out the first broadside and the second broadside in the series

Chandler writes about the new broadside, “Because we believe everyone deserves an equal slice of wedding cake, the next broadside in the series features a quote by Alice Paul: ‘There is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.’ ‘Prop Cake’ features an original illustration inspired by the architecture of San Francisco, epicenter of the battle over Proposition 8 in California. The broadside is printed from hand-lettered typography, on 10 x 18-inch archival, 100% rag, recycled paper, in an edition of 108, and is priced at $30.”

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 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.