We loved seeing Jessica Hische’s awesome business cards featured on FPO this week. Jessica is a designer based in Brooklyn and we are huge fans of her work. Her sweet letterpress business cards were printed using a standard Boxcar Base and 94FL plates at The Arm – check out that cool shot of her Boxcar plates!
[Photos by Jessica Hische]
It just makes our week when we receive beautiful letterpress things from our platemaking customers, so we were thrilled to open our mail a little while ago and find some great letterpress pieces from Fitzgerald Letterpress in New Orleans, printed on a Heidelberg 10 x 15 windmill with a Boxcar Base and 94FL photopolymer plates.
Owner John Fitzgerald was kind enough to send us some thoughts on letterpress and printing in New Orleans. John writes, “I’m running a mostly one-person operation in the Bywater section of New Orleans. Things are still a challenge here, but they were before Katrina too. I do custom work like invitations and business cards, plus some note cards and art prints that I sell at a local art market and wherever else I can. The letterpress scene here is small. When I moved here in 2003 there was one artsy letterpress outfit (Hot Iron Press) and they have since shifted to a fine art focus and don’t take much custom work. This town is not really up to speed with the hip, new letterpress scene, which is fine with me because being hip is a lot of work. As it is, there are a few people who like the look and want letterpress. As more people see it and want it word spreads and some day New Orleans will join the scene (which by then it will no longer be hip and we can all relax.)”
“The original idea came to do a print depicting something like the “last supper” but inclusive. We call it “All Are Welcome.” Girls stand very close to girls and boys hold hands with boys, men hold babies, old fat skinny young – we are all here. My wife Katy Quigley made the drawing and I cut the block and printed on Crane Lettra 14 x 20. Then Katy hand tinted them. People like the image so I scanned a print (not tinted) and sent you a re-sized file. Then I ran about 500 of them on Cougar (Domtar) 80# cover, natural white. Then I scored and trimmed them to A-7 size and wrapped them with a matching envelope. I think I’m done running cheap paper. Next time I’ll go with something like Crane Lettra (they also have a nice matching envelope.) The run was smooth and trouble free once I got the feeder to cooperate. I did a version of Pantone 4625 with some 874 metallic gold thrown in for that extra opaque punch and subtle glow.”
Thanks so much for sharing your work with us, John!
Letterpress sure can be pretty, but sometimes there’s a need for things that are more than pretty right now. To be pretty + meaningful. It is SO inspiring to see good political letterpress being made right now. We fell in love with a previous broadside collaboration by Jessica Spring of Springtide Press & Chandler O’Leary of Anagram Press back around election time, so we were thrilled that these letterpress masterminds are developing a broadside series called (only half jokingly) the Dead Feminists Set. Their latest broadside, “Victory Garden,” features a lovely quote by Eleanor Roosevelt. It was letterpress printed from hand-lettered typography on 100% rag recycled paper using 94FL plates and the Boxcar Base. Chandler writes, “This broadside was kind of a monster for registration, so that grid on the base really came in handy.” More broadsides are in development too. Hooray! The previous drop-dead gorgeous broadside, “Come, Come My Conservative Friend,” sold out in just a few short weeks, and within 2 days of publication, Victory Garden has already sold 2/3 of the edition. What a letterpress success story. Victory Garden has edition of 76 and is priced at $30. Visit the Anagram Press web site to order NOW before the broadside sells out! Great work, Jessica & Chandler!
Letterpress sure makes beautiful wedding invitations — but we love when letterpress uses its cast iron muscle for the political realm too. We fell in love with this broadside when browsing on Springtide Press’s web site, and we were super excited to learn that our Boxcar Base and Boxcar plates helped out in the printing. It features a quote from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, champion of women’s voting and civil rights. Here is what Jessica from Springtide Press had to say about the letterpress printing:
“Boxcar base and plates and platemaker and adhesive all done here! Chandler O’Leary is the talent portion of the project–she did all the handlettering then it was scanned and printed. We used 94FL plates on the largest base in my Vandercook Universal 1. The file was output as one plate and we used the “puzzle piece” technique to print in two colors. The paper is a fairly new recycled sheet made from 100% cotton rag.”
If you need more reasons to vote, check out Good Magazine’s 1,565 reasons to vote in their latest issue.
This postcard is honestly one of the prettiest things we’ve ever found in our mailbox….It's such a great example of why letterpress is the best printing method ever. Designed and letterpress printed by Chandler O'Leary of Anagram Press . For these postcards, Chandler used the Boxcar Base and our 94FL plates. She writes, "I've been using Boxcar plates for 5 years now, and I love them—and the Base is a life-saver for crazy registration!" Thanks, Chandler! Please keep us on your mailing list!