A Printing Tradition: Sargent Brothers Press

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Cathy

Since our last visit with ever-charming Ben Sargent of Sargent Brothers Printers & Typographers, we toured his wonderful Texas-based printing abode. A few printing treasures and tools may have been moved around & added to, but Ben’s cheerful demeanor while printing on his C&P 10×15 Old Series has never missed a beat yet. We caught up again with Ben between ink runs to see how the printing tradition still runs strong in his family (like father, like son), why the down-home feel of a good letterpress print shop can’t be beat, and scored some nifty inking tricks to use on an older platen press.

INK IN THE BLOOD I was born and grew up on the windy plains of the Texas Panhandle, where I learned the printing trade from my father. After getting a journalism degree from the University of Texas and putting in a few years as a reporter, I spent the next 35 years drawing political cartoons for the Austin American-Statesman. Retirement from that job gave me ample time to pursue my original trade, and I am enjoying it hugely.

TEXAN TREASURE I’m fortunate enough to have a big enough property in South Austin to have built a nice little house (my one architectural accomplishment) as a home for the printing shop, and it is very satisfying to have a space built just for printing, not in the way of anything else. (Okay, it does also include a model-railroad layout along the walls above the type cabinets.)

FOR THE LOVE OF LETTERPRESS My father and his brother (the original “Sargent Brothers”) took up the trade as teenagers in Fort Worth in the ‘20s, and while newspaper careers took them both away from printing for many years, my dad got back into the trade when I was 12 years old. He purchased a Kelsey outfit with which he taught the craft to me and to my brother. Three years later, he brought the C&P 10×15 Old Series job press of his boyhood back home, and that is still the press I use today.

DESIGNED TO PRINT I enjoy designing printing, especially if it’s with metal type, but for almost all my commercial jobs I defer to the excellent creative efforts of the several graphic designers with whom I work.

FULL TIME Since my schedule is my own these days, I guess one could say that printing is not only full-time, but 24-7, since I can take care of a client’s needs whenever fits their schedule. It’s been thus since I left regular syndicated cartooning a year or so ago, freeing me up to devote more time to the trade.

PRINTING FEATS I see that as the goal, however imperfectly achieved, of every job we do, to give the customer something we’re proud to stand behind. Still, there are certainly some pieces we’ve done over the years that do stand out, and I have a particularly fond regard for the various little handset books we’ve published (including two editions of our specimen book, and a brief history of the platen job press, published to commemorate the centennial of my press back in 2005).

BOXCAR’S ROLE Oh, goodness, since almost all my commercial jobs are printed with Boxcar plates, it’s fair to say Boxcar is the sine qua non of our business. The plates themselves are always flawless, of course, and the service always timely, but by far the best part is the personal touch by which the staff, particularly Rebecca Miller, are always available and cheerfully willing to help us through the occasional digital-file nightmare, etc. I know you must have other customers, but I am always made to feel like Boxcar is there just waiting to meet Sargent Brothers’ needs. Thanks!

FIRST PRESS I learned the fundamentals on a Kelsey 5×8 Excelsior.

SHOP TIPS I think every printer, particularly one such as I who mostly works by himself, probably comes up over the years with dozens of tricks and techniques as he puzzles his way out of particular problems and situations, until they become just part of the craft, and he forgets they were once experimental innovations.

I can think of a few we’ve come up with, and they are probably worth some separate blog entries, so I’ll just cite one we’ve been having some luck with lately. Everybody who uses one of the older platen jobbers such as ours knows that the relatively unsophisticated inking system sometimes requires a little ingenuity in the case of relatively broad inked images. (Not big, huge color floods….with those I have learned the wise adage of one of my colleagues that “in letterpress, sometimes it’s okay just to say no.”). But for reasonable-sized bold areas, I’ve found they can be conquered with a couple of drops of something like Smooth Lith in the ink mix, and with providing a soft place for the impression to land, either by putting a couple of sheets of newsprint between tympan and pressboard, or even pasting some newsprint directly on the tympan (particularly if one is just trying to cover some limited areas). Also helps to “skip-feed” the pieces, so the ink has a little extra time to recover between impressions, and in some cases to go to the trouble of making the design into two press runs, one for the bold areas and one for the finer images. And I’m always receptive to anyone else’s ideas for this conundrum!

WHAT’S NEXT Job work has reached a fairly steady and comfortable level over here, and we look forward to getting the word about our offerings further out by word-of-mouth and our website. I’ve also had the privilege of working with a few young newcomers to the trade, and hope to continue in that way to keep letterpress thriving and growing.

A mighty round of thanks go out to Ben of Sargent Brothers Printers & Typographers for letting us take another peek into his sublime printing paradise.

Letterpress inspiring hope this holiday season

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

Rebekah Tennis of Wild Ink Press says it so simply, “The wonderful thing about printing for a cause is that you can spur others on to action as well.” Rebekah is one of our spotlighted printers who incorporate their creativity and presses in the art of doing good. These printers firmly believe that they benefit as much as their receiving charities in their enjoyment and satisfaction with making a difference. Whether it’s a global cause or a local one, these printers lend their talents and hearts and urge others to take on a non-profit to help out.

Smock

A few years ago, Smock launched a Change the World card series, where 100% of profits from card sales are donated to specific environmental charities. The latest card in the series is the Rainforest card, and 100% of the profits from this card are donated to the Amazon Conservation Association to help protect the rainforests. The cards are sustainably letterpress printed on Smock’s bamboo paper, and are paired with 100% post-consumer recycled, FSC-certified kraft envelopes. Smock also offers Sunflower, a card that benefits the Pesticide Action Network; Fracking, a card that benefits Earthworks; and Fin, a card that benefits the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. Smock also donates 1% of sales to environmental organizations as a member of 1% For the Planet.

That Grace Restored – Kate McGaughey

At Atlanta, Georgia based That Grace Restored, we collaborate with women who have been exploited in the commercial sex industry to make fine quality handmade journals and letterpress products with the purpose of seeing the women reach self-sufficiency and renewed personal dignity. Our product itself speaks to the healing and repurposing of each woman’s life – we craft handmade paper out of used, seemingly unwanted scraps of paper and make them into beautiful, unique pieces. Letterpress enhances the quality of our product while complementing the texture and character of the handmade paper.

That Grace Restored is a social enterprise of Serenity’s Steps, a 501c3 in metro Atlanta that helps women step out of the sex industry. That Grace Restored was launched as an employment and vocational development opportunity provided through Serenity’s Steps in October 2013. We currently employ two women at approximately full-time hours and two women on a contract basis. We print on a Vandercook 215, a Vandercook SP15, or a Chandler & Price Old Style platen press 8×12.

We are selling holiday cards currently. We keep our designs simple and elegant to allow the marriage of our printing and handmade paper to tell a story. Each product speaks to the beauty found in the imperfect. We use rubber-based inks. Our paper is soft and takes on beautifully deep impressions well without straining the relic machinery. By purchasing this product, our women have an opportunity to receive a fair wage as artisans and achieve goals through vocational development.

May Day Studio – Kelly McMahon

In the fall of 2011, Hurricane Irene swept through the state of Vermont, causing the water levels in all of the rivers to rise, and subsequent widespread flooding and massive destruction. A few months after the hurricane, Kelly McMahon of May Day Studio was driving though one of the hardest-hit areas, and was astounded that entire towns still seemed destroyed and abandoned, fields of flattened crops where thriving farms once were, and the amazingly new wide and deep rocky paths of the rivers. Many of Vermont’s towns are built on rivers–which makes them lovely to live in, and terribly dangerous during high waters.

Kelly saw patterns in the destruction and out of this, designs were born, She started with small, simple sketches, thinking that a little card line or something would come of it…but the designs couldn’t be contained! They are now 18″ x 24″ hand-carved linoleum blocks which she has turned into gift wrap and tote bags. She calls her design Field print, which represents Vermont’s gorgeous fields of thriving crops.

It seemed a natural leap to think of the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund and donating 10% of her sales from these items to this organization particularly because it was founded by Vermonters, for Vermonters, in a time of great need.

She prints her wrapping paper on a Vandercook SP20 at Green Mountain Letterpress in Fairlee, Vermont, since her little Vandy SP15 isn’t big enough. The wrap is printed from linoleum blocks, onto Mohawk text weight paper using Van Son inks. It’s available online through her Etsy shop and in stores around the country. Her design has also launched a screen printed tote bag whose sales generate a donation to the Vermont Foodbank.

Bristol Letterpress – Tracy Oakley

Working small and from your kitchen table can also reap donations to worthwhile charities. Tracy Oakley runs Bristol Letterpress from her studio (kitchen table…) at home, working on a vintage 8×5 Adana letterpress machine, which is gorgeous but sometimes temperamental.

Tracy sells through her Etsy shop, local shops, craft fairs and Cappuccino Cards. Cappuccino Cards is an online shop selling a fabulous range of beautiful artists cards and prints, all of which donate to charity. Helena Golunska, a good friend, runs this business – they set it up together, along with Bristol Letterpress, and so both are involved with each venture.

The letterpress Christmas cards printed this year are generating funds for Bowel Cancer Research and St. Mungo’s – the more money the charities get, the happier they are. Bowel Cancer Research is a cause dear to our hearts as Helena and Tracy have both come into contact with the disease through close family and friends. St. Mungo’s does some great work supporting those affected by homelessness – an issue that is particularly hard to deal with at this time of year when winter nights are cold and long.

When Tracy is not printing, she’s quaffing endless cups of tea with her South West England based Home Working Collective – a group of like minded people who work from their residences. Many of their items are sold through Cappuccino Cards, which is based on the principle that every card you send, all year round, could make a difference to a great cause. Each card sold on the site donates a whopping £1 to charity (a third of the price) and the customer gets to pick from 12 well deserving causes. Prints donate 10% of the retail price – so everything you buy on the site does some good!

Wild Ink Press – Rebekah & Matt Tennis

Over on the West Coast in California, Rebekah and Matt Tennis live their cause – Orphan Care. All three of their amazing children were adopted internationally, as orphans, so this cause is very personal and dear to their hearts. There are over 150 million orphans in the world. “Orphan” doesn’t just mean a boy or girl who has lost one or both parents, but it can describe a child who faces the world without the provision, care and nurturing that a family provides. There are also many ways to help the orphan – not just adoption, but also fostering, feeding, mentoring and providing for health and education. She and Matt give each year to several wonderful organizations with services that include foster care, feeding, education and clean water for orphans in the birth countries of their children (Pakistan and Korea).

“People love to be generous, I’ve found, which is wonderful. So, instead of Matt and I just giving money towards orphan care ourselves only, we can do that, but we can also say ‘here, let’s do this together and we can raise even more and make a big difference.’ It’s been great to involve other people in the cause.”, says Rebekah.

Rebekah’s four card designs are very influenced by the cultural heritage of her sons. They are from Pakistan and Korea, so the notecards were inspired by an intricate wall pattern found in Lahore, a tile pattern from Islamabad, as well as a lovely Korean celadon vase pattern, and lattice wall from a temple. She has interpreted and hand-drawn the pieces, and printed them in cultural colorways. It’s fun to have these pieces to show her boys their heritage. The notecards are sold as boxed sets of six and a little over $2.25 of each boxed set goes to orphan care – it adds up quick!

In their recently expanded and renovated digs — which used to be an old soda bottling plant — they print on three Heidelberg Windmills, old style Chandler & Price 10 x 15, a 1912 Golding Jobber, and a Vandercook Uni III.

Many thanks to these inspiring printers for sharing their cards (and causes!)! Are there some charitable letterpress cards that we missed? Share details with us in the comments section below!

Printing Festivities at Fitzgerald Press

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

If you are looking for a printer to work elbow to elbow with and soak up some letterpress magic, consider John Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald Press in New Orleans. John works solo in his shop down in the Deep South, but he recently opened his doors for us to see his creative and functional printing workspace.

COMING BACK TO THE BEGINNING. Let me introduce myself by saying that I feel like I occupy a place in the ever changing print scene. When I was in Junior High School I took Print Shop. I was drawn to printing even earlier after seeing my older sister’s art class lino cuts. This was the 1960’s and the last of letterpress was still hanging on in the commercial print world. In Jr. High they still started us on letterpress, even though the advanced students were doing offset lithography. By the time I got to trade school it was all offset as was my career in commercial printing, until the digital takeover. By the late ’80’s jobs were getting harder to find and I never really liked offset printing anyhow. I’d always done little lino cuts and special letterpress jobs on equipment that I scrounged from old letterpress shops and could fit in the garage. So I turned to letterpress printing as a full time job as the ‘90s began. All this to say that I saw commercial letterpress die and be re-born as high craft. I never went to art school and my orientation is towards production. Still I treasure the artistic side of the trade and find myself right at home in this revived letterpress world.

PRINTING CHIC DECOR By far my favorite thing in my workspace is my old cherry wood handled copper riveted ink knife that I’ve had for 30 years. My space has two big windows that let in natural light. I also have an overhead fluorescent fixture and use these with a combination of clip lamps and floor lamps. I think of my shop as a working shop, and decoration is definitely an afterthought. I have prints and posters from friends and colleagues on the walls but that’s about it. Equipment and workspaces line the walls, and I have an island in the middle, that includes the proof press, pilot press and galley.

MEET THE FAMILY I have five presses – a C & P Craftsman, an original Heidelberg 10″ x 15″ (Windmill), a C & P Pilot 8″ x 10″, a Printasign Duplicator Model 40 Sign Press (that I use as a proof press) and a Kelsey 3 x 5″ (that I use to bring to shows for demonstrations).

HEAVY METAL HOME I rent space in a one story cinderblock building, on Saint Bernard Ave, in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans, between the Treme and Saint Roch neighborhoods. My space is a 18′ x 25′ rectangle, and the rest of the building is occupied by the owner (Red Metal) who is a blacksmith artist.

DRESSING THE PRESS My most valuable tool is my C and P Craftsman 12″ x 18″ press. I have two Boxcar bases, one thats 7.5″ x 4.5″ and one thats 12″ x 9″. I use a jet 94 FL plate and I’ve been using this set up for about 8 years now.

GOLD IS THE NEW BLACK I use regular commercial offset inks (Zip Set). I mix custom colors using the Pantone system. My current favorite color is an improvised mix of dense black and 875 gold. This makes a super dense, warm and delicious black.

PROTECTING THE EQUIPMENT For clean-up, I scrape as much ink off the disk as I can, then run the press with a little kerosene to loosen things up. I do my major cleanup with kerosene and then finish the rollers with a roller wash (Varn V-120). I don’t like to use mineral spirits because it’s too strong. Kerosene leaves an oily residue that doesn’t seem to hurt ink colors and helps protect metal in this humid climate.

A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS TYPE I have no pied type! Over the years I’ve rescued a lot of type – much of it is now stored in gallery trays, but I keep it all sorted. Pied type is an offense!

SYSTEM THAT WORKS FOR ME In terms of organization, the main problem I have is that I’m a solo operator and I fly by the seat of my pants. Every active job has a file folder in a rack on the wall, so I don’t lose track of things, but that’s about as far it goes for organization.

PROPERLY ATTIRED When I come into the shop, the very first thing I do is put on my apron. It’s like being in costume – I know I’m here to work.

YOU HEARD IT FROM ME “Be attentive to ink roller height” is the best advise I have – getting the ink to contact the form just right is the key to good letterpress printing. I’d been printing for years before I really understood that.

Huge round of thanks to John for letting us take a tour of his wonderful shop!

Burning Bright At Small Fires Press

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Cathy

New Orleans is the home of soulful jazz, the po’ boy sandwich, and a famous pirate or two. And sure, it is frequently steamy-hot, but that is the chosen locale of the letterpress print shop Small Fires Press. Husband and wife team Friedrich Kerksieck and Gabrielle Trimm took to New Orleans like true natives and have set off some major sparks in the growing letterpress community of The Big Easy. Step into their workspace and you may smell something unexpected blending with the usual print shop aromas…is that pie? To celebrate their one year anniversary of printing and bookbinding, Friedrich and Gabrielle gave us a peek inside their studio – take a look.

Bienvenue En Louisiane Our studio is in the front parlor of our New Orleans shotgun style home. The windows and natural light are a necessity and favorite feature. We have overhead lighting, but mostly use a 3-bulb floor lamp by the press and let the sun do the rest. We keep it simple to maximize space, but keep a California job case drawer on the wall to house little figurines and some framed art for inspiration. The red handles on the paper cutter and guillotine serve as ‘pops of color.’

Streetside Studio Our building is a pink double shotgun in the Saint Roch neighborhood in New Orleans. The studio is set up in the first room and we live in the other three rooms of the house. The studio is 14×13’.

Better Than Gumbo Our most valuable tool has gotta be our Vandercook #4, of course.

Dressing the Press We’ve been using a 13” X 19” standard Boxcar base I got when I purchased the press five years ago. I generally stick to the KF95 plate.

Fluorescent Favorites I bought a set of blue, magenta & yellow neons not too long ago. I don’t usually get much call for them in the job work I do for clients, but whenever I’m doing a creative project I usually go right to those cans.

Green For Clean I put a little bit of vegetable shortening to loosen the ink up & use some shop rags to wipe everything down with. Then I go over everything again with some simple green or mineral spirits depending on what color is going on the press next.

Loose Bits I don’t have any pied type any more – the small bit that was left got abandoned when we moved from Memphis last year, but I’ve still got a few drawers of type that need to get reorganized.

Less Is Better I’ve found that I work better with a little less tabletop space. I tend to fill up what ever is available and am bad about putting projects away unless I have to. In Memphis I had a folding table set up in the middle of the space to work off of and the top of my flat files collected odds and ends. Now I’ve ditched the table 95% of the time & just work off the flat file. Now there’s a lot less to knock over or walk around.

Studio Cats Working from home is convenient and comfortable. It’s nice to be able to do some slow cooking or pie baking in the kitchen while there’s ink on the press. We can trade off on household tasks and printing tasks when needed and everything is all in one place. Our two cats keep good company. Bip has a bed right at the end of the press & he sleeps there while I’m printing away.

Collaborate For Inspiration I think that the very best practice is to print every day. Nothing will keep you fresher. That, and always be curious – especially with visiting other presses and print spaces. I love that in New Orleans there are so many new and established printers. My favorite thing to do is to go print a project with someone else and see how they work – what they do for makeready & the rest of the process. Everyone does things a little differently and you can always pick up a good tip or two.

Our thanks to Gabrielle and Friedrich at Small Fires Press for the southern hospitality; continue to let the good times roll!

Step Right Up to the Letter Haus

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

When you step over the threshold and into the clean, modern interior of Letter Haus, the alluring smell of printing ink and cheery natural light filtering in above through the windows draws you in further to an elegant display of letterpress and passion. Lillian Barbosa, of Belo Horizonte, Brazil gives us a tour of the cozy space and remarks on her letterpress journey from blogging about the want of having a dream job to realizing it full force.

FINDING LETTEPRESS Hi! I’m Lilian. I’m from Brazil. Born in Rio, lived 15 years in São Paulo, and now am living in Belo Horizonte. I studied advertising in college and then worked for two years as an art director at an ad agency.

In 2012, a friend and I started a blog about people who gave up their unhappy professional life to chase their dream jobs: we interview people who graduated with a certain degree, worked and found out that it wasn’t what made them happy, so they decided to leave everything behind to follow their hearts and found work that fulfilled them. With the blog going on, last year I found out that what I was doing wasn’t making me happy, so I decided to look for what I really wanted. Then I found letterpress.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT I fell in love with the art, the beauty and what printing represents to people. So I decided to research a little bit about it: the presses, the material, paint, paper, everything. I found a beautiful Heidelberg Windmill here in my city. In January I bought it! For 2 months I had a printer to teach me how to setup my press, but now I’m on my own and I’m having a lot of fun!

BEAUTY IN BRAZIL I found a place in an 8-store gallery next to my house in a really nice neighborhood with a lot of trees, nice houses and stores that was perfect for my press & me. It has a mezzanine where I made my office, and the production floor is downstairs. At the back I have a room that stores paper, ink, oil, tools and all the messy stuff!

PRINTING INSPIRATION I got really inspired when I was about to start my letterpress business with all studios I could find and follow on the internet. A special thanks to you guys at Boxcar, 9th Letterpress, Sugar Paper LA, Press Haus La, Studio On Fire, Iron Curtain, Printerette, Clove St. Press, Ladyfingers, 1canoe2, The Hungry Workshop, Thimble Press, Bespoke Press, The Alphabet Press, Ink Meets Paper, Gus & Ruby, and many more. You guys don’t know me, but you were really important! In Brazil we don’t have as many studios as you have in the US, so I found really beautiful prints, cards, wedding suits, and decided to create beautiful things as well!

DESIGNED FOR PRINT I’m the woman in a one-man studio! I create when the clients don’t have their design, I answer e-mails, I print, buy supplies, everything! When I design, I always try to meet with the person over at my studio, we find references, and I create based on our talks as well as on the event or the person’s style.

FULL TIME FUN I do print full time. It’s been 4 months already since it all got setup here at the studio and it’s been a really fun challenge!

PRINTING FEATS I’m really proud to have my studio opened. It’s been a lot of work and improves everyday. Since I’m new to the letterpress business everyday is a new challenge – a hardworking, but rewarding challenge!

PRESS HISTORY My first was my Heidelberg Windmill. This complex beast prints beautifully. I’m loving it!

BOXCAR’S ROLE When I got my press I was a little bit lost and by reading some of the posts on your blog I got a lot more confident with my business. Your videos made me understand when at the time it didn’t make any sense to me. And just knowing that if I have any questions you guys will happily answer me is a relief. Letterpress Commons also came up and with the studio map I’m actually planning a letterpress trip!

SHOP TIPS Pay attention! Always. Listen to the press’s noises, its movements, and understand all of its German mechanics. Try to keep your hands clean and don’t panic when something is not going the way you expect. Try to keep focused, put some nice music on and start over.

WHAT’S NEXT Hopefully 2015 will be an awesome year, I’m planning on going to NY to meet some printers over at NSS. I’m creating greeting cards lines with really nice partners and I expect to print beautiful invitations, business cards, and stationery. I’m looking forward to have a nice year full of colors and prints!

Huge round of thanks & applause out to Lillian for letting catch a glimpse at Letter Haus!

What to do with excess paper

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Cathy Smith

Letterpress printers get to work with some of the most luxurious, gorgeous paper on earth, but what’s a printer to do with all the extra paper that piles up after a job is finished? We asked letterpress printers from all over the country about the unique ways they’re giving new life to paper scraps, discontinued products, printing goofs and excess inventory, and we’re feeling particularly inspired by the answers!

Here at Boxcar Press (also home to Smock and Bella Figura), we move excess paper and product in a variety of ways. Beyond our regular green printing efforts (we have a weekly pickup from the Empire Recycling Company and we reuse paper scraps in the office for notes), we have a few events to move out excess product and sell items that would otherwise just gather dust. We started hosting a Sidewalk Sale to sell slightly imperfect cards, notebooks, gift wrap, boxes, and more at extremely low prices. Partnering with local food trucks has been a great way to boost attendance and make the event really fun! If you’re near the Syracuse area, our 2014 Sidewalk Sale will take place on Wednesday, August 13 and Thursday, August 14 from 11am-5:30pm.

In addition to the Sidewalk Sale, we also invite teachers from the Syracuse City School District to come in and stock up on papers for their classroom projects during our annual paper giveaway in October. We save excess envelope liners, paper scraps, and envelopes throughout the year, and the teachers stock up and put these offcuts to good use.

Igloo Letterpress of Worthington, Ohio — We are part of a few neighborhood Facebook “freecycle” groups and every time we have a stack of extra cardboard, paper scraps, or even unused furniture or supplies, we post a picture on Facebook and let people know they can come grab what they like from a shelf on the porch. We are very connected to a few elementary schools and the local preschool in the neighborhood, so we often bundle up boxes of usable scraps and pass them on. There are also some great arts companies, guilds and groups in Columbus that call us every once in a while to see what we might have – we are never short on paper to give away!

With our seconds, we organize them into our bathroom-turned-sample-room and are generous in giving them to future clients. We love being able to send clients home with a stack of beautiful letterpress items to remember us by. For discontinued items and styles, we clearance them in our retail shop, and gift them to lucky customers as a bonus for a sale on other items. It’s always nice being able to use a few extras to smooth over a rough transaction, and fun being able to offer a bonus card for a large online order.

Sugar Paper of Los Angeles, California — At Sugar Paper, we take recycling very seriously. All scraps that result from die cutting or misprints on the letterpress machines are recycled on a weekly basis. We have 2 bins in the pressroom dedicated to recycling. Any extra inventory or discontinued items are all part of our sample sale that occurs in the spring right here at our Los Angeles studio (and they are sold with crazy low discounts!) If we have paper that we haven’t used and will no longer need for any of our products (think extra envelopes or discontinued paper stock), we post the news of extras on our social media channels and give local schools and programs a chance to come pick them up. The photos below are from our sample sale last spring.

Jenni Undis of Lunalux in Minneapolis, Minnesota — I am thrifty and resourceful by nature, so we reuse as much as we can at Lunalux. We’re lucky to have a retail boutique and a letterpress studio in the same space – we can re-purpose even the smallest scraps and off-cuts, and sell them directly to the paper-obsessed people who will appreciate them the most. If we end up with extra stock from a custom project, or big-ish scrap, we print whatever suits our fancy and turn it into a little product on the shoppe. The shelves here are full of small-run notecards, notepads, bookmarks, and tags. Odd bits of blank paper are bundled with bakers twine and sold for a dollar (perfect for DIY gift tags, place cards, etc.) Make-ready, mis-print and over-print posters are reincarnated as notebook covers. We’ll even trim the decorative elements off old invitation samples and pair them with tiny envelopes – fancy, limited-edition gift cards! If it ends up in the recycle bin, it’s pretty dirty, small, non-descript, or otherwise useless.

We recently had a “Paper by the Ounce” sale. We pulled out boxes and boxes of discontinued wholesale products and sold them for $1 per ounce. People bought pounds. A nice way for us to send useful, cute stuff out into the world and make room on our shelves.

Haute Papier in Arlington, Virginia — Scraps take on a whole new life once they become the skinny strips that are left after we cut our papers down for liners. We use the “bands” as we call them to wrap our boxes of stationery before they ship out to our stores. And because we have WAY more strips than we could ever use, we also donate them to elementary schools for their art programs.

Since we never make mistakes, we don’t have seconds…. just kidding. We often use these in house for writing notes to our stores and sending little treats along with our orders. For discontinued items, we sell by the bundle, give to schools, and try an inventive sale idea.

Smudge Ink in Charlestown, Massachusetts — We schedule paper giveaways for local teachers, art instructors and community leaders. They come for a 3 hour period and clear out our excess paper and envelopes. This is usually posted on social media. We also have a yearly holiday Sip and Shop and have a few bargains for people in addition to our new products. Some of the proceeds from that event go to the Greater Boston Food Bank, so we have the satisfaction of helping, too.

Matthew McNary of Hammerpress in Kansas City, Missouri — We recycle the majority of our paper scraps on a weekly basis. Occasionally, our folks get creative inspiration and repurpose the scraps for interesting things (like dog jewelry) or personal projects. If the scraps aren’t too small (and are somewhat uniform in size), we’ll store them and reuse them for projects that fit smaller press sheet sizes (like business cards or hang tags) or for our own small printed materials. For example, our last run of business cards were printed from scraps of a postcard project.

Twice a year, we gather all our misprints, make-readies and discontinued product for a big sale. All cards go for $1 and larger sheets sell for $3-$7. It’s proven to be a great way to offer some great deals to our customers while giving us the opportunity to open up some storage space and generate a little revenue from paper that would otherwise be gathering dust or taking up space in a landfill somewhere.

Joey Bordega of Mama’s Sauce in Orlando, Florida — We do lots of recycling. In fact, we’ve got a 4 yard dumpster specifically for recycling that gets picked up weekly. All of our excess, unusable paper goes in there. Sometimes, a project will leave a usable amount of paper left behind. If it’s one of our house stocks, we trim it down to one of our commonly used sheet sizes (maybe 4UP or 16UP business cards) so that it’s ready to go next time we need it. If there’s something left from a more uncommon paper order, we’ll add it to an internal inventory at a highly discounted rate so our consultants can try to use it on an incoming project that could benefit from that paper. On occasion, we’ve given leftover paper to a local school teacher to use for art class. We love paper and try to use every square inch!

What does your shop do to help move excess paper? Share your tips in the comments section below!

Fantastic Prints at Foxhill

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

Less than five miles away on the sunny and serene campus of Syracuse University in the spacious Comstock Art Facility, Landon Perkins is layering fine arts printmaking with hand-set type, letterpress, and relief cuts with a touch of mixed-media curiosity. Between ink runs, we caught up with the graduate student on pursuing his MFA, his love for combining a hybrid of old-school printing techniques & the buzz of photopolymer plate technology, and his work at Foxhill press.

PRINTING NEIGHBORS My name is Landon M. Perkins and I also go by the press name “Foxhill.” I’m a printmaker and designer currently pursuing an MFA in printmaking at Syracuse University in New York. I’m a native to Tallahassee, Florida, where I attended Florida State University and achieved a BFA in Studio Art in 2014.

LETTERPRESS LOVIN’ I first became aware of letterpress when I visited Denise Bookwalter’s SCAP (Small Craft Advisory Press) in Tallahassee, Florida. I was immediately drawn to letterpress because it seemed to be a hybrid of my favorite mediums of silkscreening and relief printing. I interned at SCAP earlier this summer for a few months and learned how to make photopolymer plates as well as helped assist book artist Jessica Peterson in letterpressing an edition of artist books she was creating.

EXCITEMENT IN THE EMPIRE STATE The printshop I currently work in is the Comstock Art Facility at Syracuse University. We have so much great equipment it’s hard to list it all! I think what really stands out about our printmaking facility is just the huge array of presses available. You can literally walk 20 feet and pass various presses ranging in relief, intaglio, litho and letterpress. We also have some of the original Goudy type in our letterpress room!

PRINTING MENTORS I’ve always been a “do-it-yourself” kind of person. I used to think I was only good at design work and was afraid to dive into the fine art field, until one day, I grew bored of simply creating designs on a computer and then printing them out on standard size paper with an ink jet printer. I had no control over the quality of the paper and ink fed into the printer. I felt like I was doing myself an injustice by not knowing how to really print the designs I was creating at the end of the day. This all changed when I met Denise Bookwalter at Florida State University. She taught and mentored me in the field of printmaking until I graduated from FSU in the Spring of 2014

THE DESIGNER & PRINTER I am currently a printer and a freelance designer. To me, design and print go hand in hand with each other; you can’t successfully do one without the other.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS My process normally begins with some type of light bulb or thought going through my head regarding the general work I am creating at that moment in time. I then try to sketch out what’s in my head and translate that to paper. Sometimes it works out, often times it doesn’t. Once I get past that initial phase and like the direction that my general design is heading, I open up Adobe Illustrator and re-draw my design, which can be eye twitching sometimes, but as the saying goes, “the devil is in the detail.”

Once that’s finished I normally drag that design into Adobe Photoshop and tinker away, changing little things I’m not sure anyone else would even notice at the end of the day. The hardest part about design for me is realizing when you’re at a stopping point and when something is finished. I find that simplicity is key when making a good design and that’s often the hardest thing to do as a designer.

FULL TIME FUN I am currently printing full-time as a graduate student and couldn’t be happier about it! I’ve been working in the field of printmaking now for three years and feel like I am still learning something new everyday that makes my jaw hit the floor and realize, “you can do that in printmaking!?” My ultimate end goal is to one day become a professor teaching in the field of printmaking.

PRINTING FEATS While I don’t have a lot of accomplishments yet (as I am only beginning to work in the field of printmaking), what I am most proud of right now is just to be given the opportunity to work towards an MFA in printmaking at Syracuse University. My heart sank for a while when I was applying to graduate schools and looking at the statistics of applicants accepted into any given school.

The other accomplishment I am very proud of is finishing a three-month long piece for my graduation thesis titled “Metropolis III.” It is the largest piece I have ever worked on, weighing 200 pounds and measuring 5 ft by 8ft. For three months, I layered a giant custom-built piece of wood with relief prints I created, papers of different textures, sizes and colors and miscellaneous items. I was working to mimic the complexity of a city district building on top of itself. I am very much interested in the marks humans and machines are leaving in the world. The destruction of the human environment you find in most cities is just as important as its construction.

PRESS WISH LIST I have yet to own my own press, as one is not rolling in money as a graduate student. But I hope to one day buy a Vandercook 219 and if need be, refurbish it on my own as a do-it-yourself project.

BOXCAR’S ROLE I first learned about Boxcar from Allison Milham who is a printmaking teacher at FSU and, long story short, she told me all about Boxcar Press and their very quick turnaround with photopolymer plates for letterpress. Funny story, I’m actually in the middle of designing and ordering my first plate from Boxcar to letterpress some business cards!

SHOP TIPS The only advice I can share this far into my printmaking career is to work hard and don’t be afraid to try new techniques and fail at them. I like to consider myself a good printmaker, but that’s only because I’ve failed a lot learning the practice and I know I am going to continue to fail as I work toward an MFA in printmaking. Hopefully if I fail enough, that one day I’ll become a great printmaker.

WHAT’S NEXT My plans for 2015 are currently to visit and explore Canada and various northeast cities in my free time, get the ball rolling on finding clients for freelance design work. I’m also planning on attending the annual printmaking convention at SGC in Knoxville, Tennessee for the first time!

Huge round of thanks out to Landon of Foxhill for letting us get a sneak peek inside his wonderful printing world!

The Printing Power of Archie’s Press

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

Sometimes the letterpress journey takes you by surprise. When we spoke to the incredibly talented Archie Archambault of Archie’s Press, he hinted at the curious turns printing has taken him. From humble beginnings of learning the value of patience & process to his travel-bug that combines printing letterpress maps and exploring new cities. We caught up with Archie to spill the beans on the best kept secrets in the cities he’s traversed through and what destinations lay on the horizon.

PRINTING IN PORTLAND My name is Archie Archambault. I’m a designer and letterpress printer in Portland, Oregon.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT I first learned letterpress during a short session in college. It was a really thorough 2 week course with Barbara Henry who was militant in teaching us the proper and methodical way to print. Being a rather messy person, I resented this at first, but in reality, learned the value of patience and process. I realized it was a passion when I figured out I could grow a business doing something with my hands.

OREGON AUTHENTIC The studio where I print, Em Space, is in a beautiful old factory building with white floors, white walls, more than seven presses, 10 type cabinets, a board sheer, two guillotines and all sorts of fun equipment that I don’t know how to use. It’s in a great location with coffee and food nearby to keep us going when we have late nights printing. We have two Vandercook 219’s, a large C+P, a small treadle-powered C+P, three hand presses, a large sign press and a small sign press.

PRINTING MENTORS My printing mentors are: Rory Sparks (Director of Em Space) and Barbara Henry who taught me all the ins & outs of the process.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT I design minimalist maps that explain the major gestures and neighborhoods of cities. It has been a great blessing to find something that allows me to travel, design and print for profit.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS My process starts by visiting a city and meeting as many people as possible and exploring the city as thoroughly as possible. With feedback from the locals and hours on the computer, I create a conversation with the city until everything is in the right place for the utmost clarity. Although printing is only one aspect of the business, it can take up entire weeks at a time. I would love to get a Windmill so I can save my back a little. It really takes a toll on the body.

PRINTING FEATS I’m very proud to have finished 17 maps with plans to grow much more in the next year. I’m very proud to have built a great network in every city I visit and to have a completely self-sustained business that feeds me and helps me travel even more!

PRESS HISTORY The first press I used was an Asbern of all things. Asberns have this cool clutch thing on that gets the press into trip, and remains my favorite press to use. It also has a variable carriage so it’s super-easy to adjust pressure. I still don’t own a press, but as my business grows, I want to hunt down anything I can find. They’re going so fast!

BOXCAR’S ROLE The first time I tried to order a plate from Boxcar, they immediately called me and told me what I was doing wrong. That was invaluable!

The whole process was so painless and the customer service impeccable. That makes my life as a printer much, much easier.

SHOP TIPS My best piece of business advice is to decide early on if you’re interested in doing custom work or starting a product line. When people visit your website, they want to know what you do. Don’t half-ass either of them. A product line can take a lot longer to get going and is much riskier, but can sometimes offer more freedom in the long run.

WHAT’S NEXT I’m going on several mapmaking tours over the next several months including: Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Philadelphia, Portland (Maine), Montreal, Baltimore, Indianapolis and Columbus.

Big round of thanks and applause out to Archie of Archie’s Press for letting us get the full story!

Taking A Nibble Out of Sharp Teeth Press

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

David Johnston is not your average printer. As a part-time printer behind the crisp impressions of Sharp Teeth Press, David has deftly intertwined his passion for bookmaking, typecasting and letterpress printing into a solid printing mecca inside his Oakland, California abode. Armed to the teeth with a insatiable craving of perfection and creativity, we sat down with him between press runs to catch a glimpse of the fun.

PRINTING WITH A WILD STREAK I’m 28 years old and I live in Berkeley California. I grew up in Walla Walla Washington, a town that has an odd mix of intellectual, agricultural and, at the time, punk influences. So I would work on the farm after school and then go downtown to the punk shows. I was into skateboarding and snowboarding and didn’t really think about art till I went to college and met Jessica Spring. After graduating college I spent four years as a typecasting apprentice at M&H Type in San Francisco.

THE ALLURE OF LETTERPRESS I took a design class to fulfill a course requirement at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma Washington. The class was in the same room as the letterpress and book arts class, which are both run by Jessica.

I saw all the old stuff (a couple of C&P presses and some cases of type) and knew I had to learn about them. Jessica did an interesting thing with the class — she didn’t even tell any of us about photopolymer printing until the very end of the class, when I was trying to work out this complicated image and she let me in on the big secret. The whole class was handset type, carved blocks for images, and hand bound books. The coursework drew almost completely from an artistic and craft-based past, which I thought was an excellent way to be introduced to the field.

WEST COAST WONDERS My shop is in a large and crazy warehouse in Oakland. The building used to be the American Steel manufacturing plant, so it’s got lots of nice features like a few cranes and lots of power. The building is full of artists and entrepreneurs of all kinds. My equipment includes a Vandercook, Vandercook 1, Thomson Laureate, Challenge paper cutter, Monotype Composition Caster, Hammond Glider saw, Kensol hot stamper, and Potdevin glue machine.

DESIGN + PRINT The majority of my design is book design. Occasionally I do wedding and related stationery design for friends, and I do some large-format metal type and linoleum carving prints. But I do quite a bit of stationery printing for other designers.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS When designing for clients, I usually know them fairly well and can gauge what will please them, and draw from their personalities to direct the design. Designing for books is more fun, and carries a bigger risk because of the larger costs involved and the time it takes to make the things. I start with choosing a paper, typeface (I really only have a few that I can cast in-house), and an artist to accompany the text. Once those things are in motion, I can take a look at the title page and then the cover. It starts with the mundane and then I’m comfortable to work towards the interesting.

A 20,000 POUND HOBBY I do not print full time. I work full time for a construction company. I would love to print full time, but I’m still putting all of the pieces together to run an arts-based business. There are a lot of companies around this area that start off with a lot of capital and a product that may or may not make money. I’m trying to avoid that business model, building a company by first proving that it works as a business, and then trying to run it full time. It seems that when I reach some mystery amount of volume and velocity I’ll be able to take it on full time. ‘Til then it’s a 20,000 pound hobby.

PRINTING FEATS I’m most proud of the autonomy with which I’ve been able to set up a typecasting, printing, and binding shop. I took a small loan to buy my first press, which I had professional help moving into my garage. Since then, I’ve done enough business to buy all of my own machines, and I’ve moved a lot of large equipment. I’ve had a lot of help from friends, but I have a well-equipped shop that’s been set up by twentysomethings, including the plumbing and electricity.

BOXCAR’S ROLE The Boxcar bases are instrumental in nearly every print job that I do, be it books or stationery. I don’t have Boxcar make my plates because I can get it done locally by Logos Graphics. But the gridded bases are so key. I’d be such a mess trying to line up anything without them.

PRESS HISTORY My first press was a Vandercook 32-28. Maximum sheet size is 32 x 28 inches. It’s as long as my car.

SHOP TIPS I usually mix opaque white to match Pantone colors when the swatches call for transparent. I’m not sure how those things are supposed to work exactly, but I get a lot better results with opaque.

Also, to help get those really bright, pale colors, I usually run white on the press and then clean it before putting on a delicate color. It’s an extra round of cleaning but assures that your colors will be as bright as possible.

WHAT’S NEXT The biggest plan for this year is to print a first-edition text completely from metal type with new illustrations on handmade paper. The text is by Kirk Lombard and the illustrations are by Martin Machado. The project is daunting and will be expensive, but if I can’t print new books on fancy paper then I don’t want to play any more.

Huge heaps of thanks out to David for letting us take a closer look at Sharp Teeth Press.

Printing Is Alive At Press 65

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

When you tour the sunny and smooth streets of Oakland, California, one spot in particular pops out at you in the fresh and thriving neighborhood: the hidden gem that is Press 65. Tucked away in the impeccably shabby-chic home of the husband-and-wife team, Paola Hurtado, the letterpress printing maven of the creative husband-and-wife duo, sat down with us to blur the lines between design and the art of letterpress.

IMPRESSIVE PRINTS I was born in Curitiba, Parana, in the south of Brazil. I moved to the States with my family when I was seven and have lived in various parts of California since. While in high school, I discovered my passion for art; and during my senior year I decided that if I passed the AP Studio Art Portfolio Review, I would take it as a sign that I should apply to art school.

With a passing score, I applied to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and began studying Fine Art. In 2010 I married a painter/photographer, Marlon of MH6 Photography, and in 2011 we founded Press 65, a husband-and-wife custom design and letterpress studio.

ARTISTIC CALLING When I started at AAU, I declared Fine Art Painting as my major, assuming this was the logical course for me. However, during my first painting class, the instructor constantly told me I was “rendering” instead of “painting”! This was a huge contrast with my Intro to Printmaking class, during which I found my artistic calling. Once I changed my Fine Art emphasis from Painting to Printmaking, I was introduced to letterpress by Megan Adie of Aviary Press. Megan was my first and only letterpress instructor, as I took her class 4 times!

CALIFORNIA CREATIVE Six months ago, Marlon and I moved out of San Francisco and into great Hoover/Foster neighborhood of Oakland, California, where we now run Press 65 out of our bright, shabby chic home. In the Press 65 space you’ll find what inspires us and what makes us smile: vintage books, mini succulents, Brazilian instruments, a His Master’s Voice gramophone, and our two adorable cats, Cezanne and Michelle Pfeiffer.

PRINTING MENTORS Megan Adie of Aviary Press will always hold the role of being the first person to teach me the art of letterpress printing. Currently, however, I look to the lovely Macy Chadwick of In Cahoots Press for inspiration, motivation, and mentoring. With a beautiful personality, as well as gorgeous letterpress and artist’s books that speak to my inner person, Macy plays a part in my drive to continue printing. I admire Macy more than she knows.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT For my prints and artist’s books, I design in the sense that I create compositions and book structures. However, I often tell people that I am an artist, not a graphic designer, because for me there is a clear distinction between art and design. With the bulk of Press 65’s business being wedding invitations, though, I am forced to blur the lines a bit and play the part of co-designer, along with my husband. At the end of the day, though, printing – with its complexities, difficulties, and ultimate beauty – will always be my favorite part of the job.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS In my personal work, design is a very introspective, quiet process that mirrors my introverted personality. I allow concept to inspire form. In Press 65’s commercial work, where Marlon and I share the role of designer, form often comes first, because that’s the way Marlon’s mind works. He is frequently very taken by a grandiose idea, as his imagination holds no bounds; and I tend to come in at a later stage to bring the concept and design back down to earth. It’s really a perfect design duo situation: he has the imagination to think up the big picture and I have the attention to detail to perfect it.

FULL TIME FUN Yes and no. I print full-time because I am lucky enough to print part-time for my mentor, Macy Chadwick, while Press 65 is currently run as a side business.

PRINTING FEATS I am incredibly proud to have had the opportunity to show my work in printmaking and book arts at various exhibits, both in the States and internationally. I remember my first purchase prize (into the University of Florida Book Arts Collection) as if it were yesterday; and most recently, I am proud and grateful to have had two of my letterpress artist’s books exhibited during the SGCI 2014 Conference. It is also an honor to have designed and printed wedding invitations for my little sister who is getting married this month.

PRESS HISTORY I learned to letterpress print on a Vandercook No. 4, and for that reason Vandercook cylinder presses will always be my equipment of choice. In the past couple years, I have grown more accustomed to the Vandercook Universal 1 than to the Vandercook No. 4, as I appreciate one less metal roller, as well as the efficiency of switching from Trip to Print with a simple tap on the gripper pedal. I’m happy to be on my way to acquiring a Hohner Model D platen.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Since the start of my letterpress career, Boxcar has been a go-to resource for letterpress. Boxcar has everything a letterpress studio could need; and most recently, Letterpress Commons has been added to the mix as a wonderful way to connect printers all around the country.

SHOP TIPS Always “measure twice, cut once.” Letterpress can be tricky business so it’s important to take your time. I’ve found that sometimes, if something strange is happening on the press and I’ve used all my problem-solving juices in vain, it works perfectly the next morning. So don’t be afraid to step away for a bit and come back to a project later. Also, make sure that you love your space: surround yourself with things that inspire you, and always have your favorite music on. Being in an enjoyable printing space allows you to fully delight in the letterpress process.

WHAT’S NEXT We have lots of exciting little plans for the coming year. One that we’re happy to share is a collaboration between Marlon and me. While we run Press 65 together, we have never joined our personal art forces before. We’re thrilled to start a project involving Marlon’s photography and my letterpress.

Big round of thanks out to Paola & Marlon of Press 65 for letting us take a look around!

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