Hitting the Mark With Ted Ollier

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Cathy

A whirlwind of creative energy, Ted Ollier of the Bow & Arrow Press & Mindhue Studio is a creative tour-de-force who loves blending art & education via letterpress (and with gusto we might add). When he’s not getting students and the letterpress-curious up to speed at the Crash Courses and Open Press Nights found at the Bow & Arrow Press at Harvard University, Ted moves deftly from part-time teaching to pursuing his own fascination with typesetting, designing conceptual artwork, playing bass, and the enjoying the thrill of finding type still wrapped in foundry sealed wax paper. We caught up with Ted amidst the fun to see why the fascination with printing still reigns supreme.

PRINTING DEXTERITY I was born in Toledo, moved to Austin during the 80’s Rust Bowl, and moved to Boston in 2008. I have a BA in Liberal Arts from the University of Texas at Austin, a BFA in Studio Art and Communication Design from Texas State University, and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. I’ve been a designer, prepress technician, type designer, printmaker, photographer, bass player and artist at various times in my life, sometimes all at once. My BFA concentration was in metalwork and fine art printmaking, and I worked prepress and design in a small offset litho shop in Austin while I was getting that degree. That dual experience — seeing printing both as an art and as a business — definitely has come in handy dealing with letterpress.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT A friend of mine was running the Bow & Arrow Press, a letterpress shoehorned into the basement of Adams House, a residence hall at Harvard University. When I moved to Boston, he asked me if I’d like to take it over, as he had other projects coming up. I did, and the rest is history.

THE PRINTING BEAT IN BOSTON We’re shoehorned into three-and-a-half connected rooms in the basement of the Adams House Residence Hall. Odd corners, protuberances, closets and shelving are just part and parcel of the Bow & Arrow experience. We have a Vandercook No. 4, a Vandercook SP-20, an old Vandercook roller press, a C&P Pilot tabletop press, a Charles Brand intaglio press, and two museum pieces: a C&P windmill press and a Pearl treadle press. The Pearl is, alas, too fragile to run and I don’t really trust the C&P around so many inexperienced people, so they stay quiet. The Charles Brand intaglio press is our most recent addition, donated by a printmaking colleague of mine, and it’s nice to be able to demonstrate forms of printing even more obsolete than letterpress.

Our type is old and has not always been handled properly, but that doesn’t stop people from setting amazing things with it. Some of my favorite faces in our collection are a nice selection of Futura Light, a nice selection of Stymie, a case of New Century Schoolbook, and a case of Kennerly Italic. We also have more than 500 printing plates and linoleum blocks in our library.

We have the full complement of rubber-based PANTONE inks, and have an uncoated guidebook for mixing custom colors. We use California Wash, NTT type wash, and Super Rubber Rejuvenator. I’ve heard there is some controversy about SRR in letterpress circles, but judicious use over the last five years has kept my rollers looking as smooth and matte as the day we installed them. We have a small manual Challenge guillotine cutter, and the usual complement of composing sticks, pica sticks, leads, spaces, coppers, chases, quoins, keys and other ancillaries.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS I’m both a designer and printer. It depends on if it’s for a commercial job or for my own artwork. The commercial jobs tend to be relatively straightforward: legible type, minimum of ornamentation, some judicious color if that’s what the client wants. These days it’s an uphill run explaining the concept of spot color or the limitations of the letterpress to people who are used to immediate CMYKOG inkjet printing, but it usually works out to everyone’s satisfaction. I definitely subscribe to the idea that design is there to facilitate the transfer of information, rather than a chance for an art director to demonstrate some faddish stylization or pointless gingerbread.

My own artwork, on the other hand, is heavily conceptual and very intellectual. I spend quite some time tweaking and mulling the concepts that I find intriguing and compelling, and then thinking about what’s going to end up on the paper. That said, I try as best as I can to distill things down so that someone seeing the images for the first time will find them interesting enough to explore the concept further, rather than be put off by a hermetic sterility or ivory-tower isolation. My main intention is to get people to see these ideas in the same fascinating light that I do. This desire to show and share interesting information about the world keeps me from getting too far into outer space — at least that’s what I hope.

FULL TIME FUN I also teach part-time, and have a day job doing scanning and Photoshop work, along with some intermittent design. I’ve taught printmaking and intro graphic design, and recently I’ve been able to use the Bow & Arrow Press to teach letterpress and intaglio. That’s wonderful because I’m able to keep the Press busy and engage students in a more formal teaching environment than our informal classes and open press hours. Plus, the heightened visibility of the Press has allowed us to work with people from all over campus, including the Harvard Summer School, the Harvard Extension School, the Graduate School of Design, and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. Printing is only one of the several hats I wear, but I’d love to do more of it.

PRINTING FEATS When I got to the Bow & Arrow Press, it was somewhat underutilized and chaotic, and although I had printmaking experience, I didn’t have much printing experience. In the last six years, with the help of many of the people who run Adams House, I’ve been able to grow the Press into a bright, busy, organized place. Since we reside in a undergraduate dormitory, we are required to have Open Press Nights where students (and others) can come to see what this obsolete printing process is all about. Through weekend Crash Courses supplementing these Open Press Nights, we’ve enabled the Press to accrete a growing population of people who keep coming to explore not only typesetting, but also bookmaking, relief printing, engraving and drypoint, page layout and imposition, and many other things. Through all of this, and probably because of it, I’ve also been able to find my way toward gaining experience as a letterpress printer. Nowadays, I’m very pleased that I can run multi-color tight-registration jobs with a reasonable throughput on both our Vandercook No. 4 and Vandercook SP-20.

PRESS HISTORY The first press I ran was the Vandercook No. 4 that has pride of place at the Bow & Arrow Press. It’s still my favorite. It’s small, but it’s bulletproof, and I’ve been very pleased with the registration I’ve been able to get on what is supposed to be a proofing press.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Boxcar Press has been an integral part of this whole thing from the very beginning. I know that letterpress people are supposed to extoll the romance of cold lead type and disown anything digital, but when you’re running a four-color design with modern typefaces, complex line art, and a final emboss, it’s time to examine one’s base assumptions. It’s the final product that really matters. Designers can be just as obsessive with thousandth-em kerning in Illustrator or InDesign as they can be with coppers or brasses, and with OpenType glyph sets, you have more ligatures, swashes and ornaments than you really know what to do with. That’s not to say I don’t bliss out when sitting down to typeset with the font of Standard Italic 18-pt that I found at Letterpress Things in Chicopee still wrapped in foundry-sealed wax paper and binding string, but one has to recognize that there are things that formalized lead typesetting cannot do.

Since I have an extensive technical background in prepress, I haven’t needed the help of Boxcar Press in solving problems, tweaking designs, and fixing trainwrecks as other people might, but I think that’s a bonus for both of us. I think of Boxcar just as I did about the service bureau where I used to get film positives and offset printing plates made back in the day: I send you my files, you process my files, you send me my plates, and I run them. No fuss, no muss. In the five years I’ve been using your services, I’ve only ever had one hiccup in the process, and that was dealt with swiftly. I can’t think of higher praise to give.

SHOP TIPS Running a Press with a substantial public component takes patience and care. At any given time there are probably three or four people in the shop who have never touched a piece of lead type in their lives. Although I have Student Pressmasters and kindly regulars to help smooth over the bumps, the Crash Courses that I started teaching in 2009 have really kept the worst kinds of newbie mistakes to a minimum.

WHAT’S NEXT Recently, some of my regular Open Press attendees and I were able to purchase a Vandercook SP-20 for a joint-use project. We’re still looking around at lease options and way of organizing the business, but our intent is to take some of the lessons learned at the Bow & Arrow and pursue them in an independent venue. Will it become a full-time printing gig? We shall see, as I still love the Bow & Arrow and everything that surrounds it.

Huge round of thanks to Ted for letting us get a sneek peek at both the Bow & Arrow Press and Mindhue Studio!

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.

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!

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!

Absoloot-ly In Love With Letterpress

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Rebecca Miller

Plunked down in the vibrant heart of the entrancing Hungarian capital of Budapest (and a easy stroll from the Danube River) sits the thrum and hum of the Absoloot printshop. The sunny, spacious shop houses laughter, good cheer and a heaping dose of the ever-alluring smell of ink and paper. Andrea Hermann, one of Absoloot‘s founders, shares with us stories about the true worth of a good night’s sleep and the irresistible appeal of paper & design.

(from left to right: Judit, Andrea Hermann, Juci & Reni)

PRINTING HERITAGE We are two gals, Judit & Andrea, who live in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. We love paper, we love design and in 2011 we thought about starting our own business involving paper & design. That’s how Absoloot was born. We wanted to work with talented young artists, so we emailed and invited them to participate in our business. They receive a percentage of our sales, so you are an investor in their future with each purchase.

IN THE BEGINNING We believe in everyday luxury that you can feel. We bought an Adana table press for our first range of notebooks, but then we found out it would be too small for our ideas. Then we got to know some letterpress printers over here – there are only a handful. One of them is an avid collector of these machines and he sold us a more than 100 years old Joseph Anger und Söhne platen press. We had to renew her a bit and still need newer rollers, but it’s awesome!

HUNGARY FOR LETTERPRESS We have a nice studio with an industrial feel to it. It’s more like an office where we work on computers, but of course our printing presses have their own corner (we do everything ourselves, unless the job requires different machines or higher volumes) and this is where we hold workshops or exhibitions, since it’s quite spacious, more than 100 square-meters. We love to work for others, to create a nice design and fulfill customer orders, but the focus is on the products of our own brand.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT We are working with a bunch of young, talented designers and illustrators from Hungary and Europe, so we can always help out a customer with the design. We send out the project to our friends and anyone who’s interested sends us a price and some references and the customer can choose from them. It’s a good opportunity because you have multiple choices.

FULL TIME FUN Yes, but we do a lot of other things, too… Organizing workshops, exhibitions, designing our products, going to design markets and so on.

PRINTING FEATS We haven’t really advertised ourselves, yet we’ve got very good reviews from our customers and thanks to this word-of-mouth, inquiries are coming in from all over the world! Our products are starting to gain international recognition, so we’re actually looking for an investor to work on expanding our business.

SHOP TIPS Well, we’re beginners, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned: if you’ve been trying to set up the press for hours in vain, that means you’re tired and you should stop trying and get back to it after a good night’s sleep.

WHAT’S NEXT Workshops and a series of exhibitions, finding an investor, expanding our brand worldwide, hiring new colleagues and interns and getting new machines for the print shop.

Big round of thanks out to Andrea, Judit, Juci, & Reni for letting us get the skinny on the fine presswork of Absoloot!

Tasty Printing Treats At The Hungry Workshop

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Cathy

Beginning on one hot, summer night in Brisbane, Australia, lightning struck as Simon and Jenna Hipgrave decided to take the plunge into letterpress. Flash forward through clouds of contagious printing enthusiasm, a shop full of charm & character, and bucket-loads of unusual printing methods and you’ve got The Hungry Workshop in full force. The pair sat down with us to laugh over their craft’s peculiarities, rich history and one of Australia’s most talented printers.

PRINTING IN PARADISE I love design, print and making things. Either for myself or for other people – it doesn’t much matter. Making things real, that’s what we love about letterpress.

LETTERPRESS WEEKEND My wife, Jenna, stumbled across a historical village on the Queensland coast through a neighbour. Two old chaps, Bob and Ken, were collecting presses and were super keen to pass on the knowledge of their craft. They had spent their whole lives working on these machines and in an industry that was disappearing. Jenna was heading up every weekend and I eventually went and checked it out. Bob and Ken’s enthusiasm was contagious to say the least, and it went from visiting every second Sunday to every Saturday and Sunday. They couldn’t get rid of us. Until one day they offered us one of the presses.

AWESOME IN AUSTRALIA We have a shopfront with our four presses, two Heidelberg 10×15’s near the back and our Asbern Proof Press and Chandler & Price pressed up against the window. Behind the shopfront is our studio, where we do our design work and then a third section which is a store room, with our stock and our guillotine and other bibs and bobs. Above the store room is a small one bedroom apartment where Jenna and I live!

The area itself is located in a suburb just north of Melbourne CBD. The strip we are on has the tram stop right out the front, and a tattoo shop next door. Head out either direction and you’ll run into a pizza shop and a bunch of other restaurants. A little further up the hill is a great pub that is renowned for live music. It’s a great spot. A bit out of the way, but still full of charm and character.

PRINTING MENTORS Bob and Ken taught us everything we know.

DESIGNED TO PRINT We are designers first and foremost and print definitely came second for us. Jenna and I met studying at Queensland College of Art. I worked in advertising and Jenna worked in a boutique design studio for six or so years. I think our creative background really informs the way we print. We really like to experiment and play with the press. Sometimes finding unusual ways, methods or approaches to getting things done.

THE CREATIVE FLOW It’s always about the brief. Bucket-loads of research, design development and the evolution of ideas are the most important. Once we’ve got a direction locked tight we then move on to execution, which is a much simpler affair if the ideas are tight.

FULL TIME FUN We run the business full time, which is a mixture of print and design. Typically there is something going on the press. We have an employee, Adam Flannery, who we think is the second best letterpress printer in Australia. Jenna is number one, and I rank much, much lower. We’ve been doing this for about 3 years now.

PRINTING FEATS I think transitioning from a feeling in our guts on a hot summer night in Brisbane to running a business, full time 1500+ kilometres away in Melbourne is the achievement I am most proud of. Hiring our first employee was another big step for us.

PRESS HISTORY Our first press was a Heidelberg 10×15 platen.

BOXCAR’S ROLE We use the Boxcar Base to get our plates up to type high. It’s a great system and without it we probably wouldn’t be here. Also, when I was getting started with printing I scoured the Boxcar site devouring as much information as I could. You’ve got some really excellent articles and videos!

SHOP TIPS Take your time – as quickly and efficiently as possible.

WHAT’S NEXT We have a surprise or two up our sleeves for 2014 but I don’t want to jinx it, but we’re most definitely going to stay hungry.

Huge round of applause out to Simon for letting us take a tour of The Hungry Workshop!

Walking Through The Red Door Press

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Cathy

Striding through The Red Door Press brought us to the warm & welcoming cheer of Tammy and Adam Winn, shop owners that love soaking up every little morsel of printing they can. The printing duo shared cherished printing advice (and stories!) with us from the Great Northern Printer’s Fair, the Ladies of Letterpress and with the Amalgamated Printer’s Association. We caught up on the tale of their first press (a rescue mission) and what makes their shop oh-so-charming.

PHOTOGENIC PAIR We have been married for almost four years, but have known each other for almost fourteen. Our studio, The Red Door Press, was officially founded in 2012. We had been tinkering with presses and type for a few years before that, but decided to make it official. We became known as “The Red Door Press” because every year we go to the same red door to take a photo. We plan on carrying on this tradition until we’re old and gray.

IN THE SHOP We currently have seven presses – an 8×12 C&P New Series, a 10×15 Windmill, three 5×7 Kelseys, a Vandercook Model One, and a showcard press. We spend most of our studio time working on prints and greeting cards, but also keep a fairly steady stream of clients wanting business cards, wedding invites, and other custom projects. We’ve only just recently started doing craft shows, and are enjoying the experience tremendously. It’s a great joy to be able to share our work with the public at large.

A LUCKY BREAK Tammy has a background in printmaking and design from her time at Colorado State University, and had long expressed interest in letterpress. Adam comes from a technical background which makes him incredibly handy to have around the shop. When an unexpected opportunity to get a press came up, Tammy didn’t think twice.

HEIDELBERGS IN THE HAWKEYE STATE The best feature about our shop is that it’s located about 15 feet out our back door. We converted a two-and-a-half car garage into our shop, so we’ve got plenty of space and it’s VERY close to home. We’ve learned that whenever we get a new press or lockers, we need to rearrange to make the most of our small space. Over the last year and a half our shop has changed quite a bit from acquiring equipment and type. We’ve also been working on getting a spiffy red door attached to our shop.

PRINTING MENTORS We have received so much great printing advice from all over. But since our journey into letterpress is fairly new, some of our most cherished advice is from a LOT of long-time printers in the Midwest, but most notably three names stand out: Arie Koelewyn from Michigan was the first person we met at the Great Northern Printer’s Fair in Mt. Pleasant in 2012, who has always been so helpful to teach us tips and tricks around printing. Jim Daggs, owner of Ackley Printing, who has been an invaluable friend to our shop as he helped to answer so many random questions and moved in our first Heidelberg. And Dave Peat, an avid type and print collector and long-time member of the Amalgamated Printers Association whose knowledge friendship has meant the world to us.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT We do both. It was Tammy’s love of design that got her interested in letterpress in the first place, so those skills have proven invaluable in our studio.

THE CREATIVE FLOW One of the most wonderful things about working with hand-set type is it forces you to remain flexible in your designs. You can’t be rigid about your designs when you find out that you don’t have enough of a certain letter in a particular size or font. Being forced to think creatively on how to complete a project has led us to create things that are far more interesting than our initial design started out to be.

FULL TIME FUN That’s the dream, but right now we both work full time. We run our studio in the evenings, weekends and of course have that occasional middle of the night print session. Some day we hope to have a full-time shop to be able to share all the great knowledge about letterpress that we’ve learned with the community.

PRINTING FEATS We’ve only been doing craft shows for a short time, but the response we’ve gotten from the community has been great. Every time someone is excited to buy one of our prints and take it home, it’s a great feeling.

PRESS HISTORY Our first press was our 8×12 C&P New Series – Tammy rescued it from the warehouse of an old pharmaceutical company. They were going to send it off for scrap when Tammy heard about it, and she wasted no time in whisking it away to the safety. Adam was in for quite a surprise that day when he arrived home to Tammy’s new-found hobby. We call her “Minnie” and she dates back to 1926.

BOXCAR’S ROLE When we were starting to put our studio together, Boxcar was our go-to place to get us started — from ink to a base and everything in between. Since our start we have continued to use Boxcar for our base systems and polymer plates. They have some of the best customer service, hands down. We love that they will answer our silly to complicated questions and are so flexible around our odd schedule.

SHOP TIPS The best things that have ever happened to our studio happened because we got involved in the letterpress community – there are so many great people out there who are willing to share experience and expertise. We’ve met so many great printers and designers over the past couple of years.

We have loved being a part of the APA (Amalgamated Printers Association) and the Ladies of the Letterpress. We’ve learned things from how the process of cutting wood type works to how use a sheet of newsprint when cleaning your press to help reduce the amount of cleaner you use. We love the opportunities of being able to soak any little bit of letterpress or printing that we can.

WHAT’S NEXT Now that we’re done with craft fairs for the winter, we’re just going to get back out in the studio and print as often as we can. We’re really excited about doing more prints and one of the big things we’ve been getting into is printing on different/reusable materials, so we’ll keep experimenting. We can’t wait to find some more events to participate in 2014 and really start getting our products out into the public.

Huge round of thanks out to Tammy of The Red Door Press!

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