Magnificent Printings of The Mandate Press

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Cathy

Today George Graves of The Mandate Press gives us a look at how the beginnings in hand-processing plates to running automatic presses (and the joys and headscratchers that go with it) gave him a sharp eye, a cool sense of printing logic, and a overflowing passion for all that is letterpress. We sat down with George to go over the finer details of press work, polishing opinions of modern letterpress, and of course the cool happenings of the AIGA Salt Lake City.

(left photograph courtesy of Angela Klempner)

EAST MEETS WEST I’m an East Coast boy with Maine roots, some Boston blood, and a passion for craft and quality.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT My faculty advisor and typography professor, Cynthia Roberts, first introduced me to letterpress after recognizing my appreciation for handwork. This was during my first or second year in the design program at Endicott College. It wasn’t until the second semester of my senior year that I was able to get my first taste of printing thanks to an introductory course at another school across town: Montserrat College of Art.

I spent my time in that course learning the basics of hand setting type and operating a treadle-powered C&P and a Vandercook SP-15. My first real exposure to photopolymer plates came when I printed a nine piece series of two-color posters for my senior thesis at Endicott. Limited by a college student’s budget, a tight schedule, and the need to hand-process each plate, that project taught me the finer points of imperfections and “happy accidents”.

In the spring of 2011, I was offered a 90-day internship at The Mandate Press in Salt Lake City, Utah. It would be a nearly 3,000 mile cross-country trek, in a 20-year-old Volvo. I couldn’t remember ever being further west than New York, but it was also the one gig that I had told myself I would move anywhere for. My moment of truth had arrived.

I started at Mandate in late June, it had been a year since the last time I had cranked a press, and I quickly realized just how little I knew. After I had reacquainted myself with the Vandercooks, I stepped up to our automatic presses.

Expecting to have some aversions to printing other designers’ work rather than my own, it was somewhere in the process of learning to operate the automatic presses that I realized the design and printing of a project were equally important pieces. My confirmation that this is what I want to do with my life came from making that discovery for myself and finding an intense pride in the trade I have chosen and the work I do each day.

BRILLIANCE IN THE BEEHIVE STATE The Mandate Press is 10 blocks south of downtown SLC in a brick and mortar building on Main Street. The shop is just under 8,000 square feet and split between front and back. The front end of the shop serves as a gallery space, storefront, and our “office” space while the production all happens in the back. We have two glass garage doors in the front with a treadle powered platen press (a Chandler and Price and a Challenge Gordon) sitting just inside each one. While we run almost every job on automatic presses, we do run some lower quantity jobs on one of our Vandercook 4s in the front end of the shop. We actually have two 4s but one is in the middle of a rebuild.

Besides the four presses in the front of the shop, we have five automatic presses in the back. Two Heidelberg Windmills, Two Heidelberg Cylinders and a Frontex Automatic Cylinder. All built in the 50s or 60s, our lineup of automatics each has different muscles to flex. While the windmills are our workhorses and we have them cranking all day every day, our cylinders allow us to do larger work, heavier floods, and deeper impressions. The more comfortable I get with each press as I learn it, the more I appreciate the variety of abilities and each press becomes another tool in the shed or weapon in the arsenal.

As cheesy as it might sound, my favorite part of the shop is literally just being a part of it. From being a part of the planning that went into the show now hanging in our gallery, to learning the ins and outs and quirks of each press, to clearing room in the back of the shop so that we could drop our newest press into place with a forklift, each day at the shop reaffirms my desire to be a part of it. Especially considering my own doubts and the doubts that others had about my ability to make my letterpress goals a reality.

PRINTING MENTORS I owe every part of my daily routine to Ben Webster – owner, bossman and original pressman of The Mandate Press. He taught me the in’s and out’s for routine setups, he has patiently helped me develop the skill set necessary to solve new problems as they arise, and we are constantly discussing and polishing our opinions about the finer points of modern letterpress.

One of my biggest motivations at Mandate is a desire to repay Ben for the chance he took on an East Coast Luddite after a single Skype interview. I don’t think I’ll ever be sure if our chat really went that well or if he just wanted better access to fresh New England seafood.

Although Ben is the most obvious mentor of mine, I can’t forget the people that encouraged me to consider this path in the first place. Without the support of a core group of my professors at Endicott College (Specifically: Cynthia Roberts, Sanford Farrier, Larry Volk and Barbara Burgess-Maier), I may have never seen my current career path as a realistic option. Without Sarah Hulsey’s course at Montserrat College of Art, I might still be itching to try my hand at printing. And, although it was never a “mentorship” of any sort, without a heads-up from Mike Dacey of Repeat Press in Somerville, Massachusetts, I wouldn’t have known about the internship at Mandate. I will always be thankful for the role each of these people have played in allowing me to connect the dots on my path.

DESIGNER IN THE PRINTER As the Lead Printer at The Mandate Press, I don’t currently have the bandwidth to do any design for the shop but I try to stay active in design outside of Mandate. In June, I joined the board of AIGA Salt Lake City as Membership Director. Just recently, I designed a piece for a gallery show at the shop, and each year, I try to design a piece as a thank-you for those who support my Movember efforts.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS In a word: inefficient. I run in circles with too many different ideas and too many different sketches that get scanned and tweaked and printed and altered and scanned and tweaked etc, etc, etc… Until the final piece comes together during the last 5-10% of the process. Maybe one of these days I’ll streamline my design process but, for now, I’m content to focus my efforts on my performance in the pressroom.

PRESS HISTORY My first press is an 1880s Kelsey Excselsior tabletop press. When I started working with letterpress, it came to light that Red, a friend of my grandfather, had the press just sitting in his basement collecting dust. Not sure what Red wanted for the press, my dad and I went ahead and made plans to go get it. Red had inherited the press from his father, an old union printer who did some hobby printing at home, and it turned out that he was happy just to see the press go to a happy home. What I didn’t realize was that our haul included six cigar boxes of wooden type, a couple drawers of printer’s cuts and a small cabinet of lead type. After paying in handshakes and friendly banter, we headed home with the van riding low.

A trip to John Barrett’s Letterpress Things in Chicopee, Massachusetts quickly rounded out my small shop with a Hamilton cabinet, composing stone, and a few other odds and ends. I barely got things set up at home in Maine before heading to Salt Lake City so the press is in my dad’s custody now and he has been patiently tracking down rollers to fit the press. The press is old enough and the dimensions are odd enough that he has been sent two sets of misfit rollers and is waiting on the third round now.

PRINTING FEATS My number one point of pride is simply the fact that I packed up and moved across the country on the off-chance that I might hack it as a letterpress printer. Making that choice and now seeing the progress I have made as a printer is extremely gratifying.

From less of a selfish standpoint, my biggest point of pride would have to be the show currently hanging in our gallery space at The Mandate Press. We have held a variety of events in our space but this was our first curated, letterpress specific show. We asked 21 artists to create a 2-color piece (Red 032 and Cool Grey 6) within the theme of “The Ghost in the Machine”, which we then printed in-house. The variety of interpretations and styles were held together by the consistency of paper, color, and the loose theme. Being involved in every aspect of the show from the early planning stages, to printing promotional materials, to final set up for the show made the opening night feel like that much more of a success. The prints from that show are still available for purchase from our Big Cartel store or in our Salt Lake City storefront.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Although we do have an assortment of type – both wood and lead – and printer’s cuts at Mandate, we use photopolymer plates for all of our client work. I hate to place those plates on anything but a Boxcar Base. In a commercial shop, where we pride ourselves not only on the quality of our work but also on our efficiency, the Boxcar Bases are one of the most useful tools in the shop because of their grid. When running two or more colors on a job, the grid allows me to quickly drop the next plate into place even if I’m running that plate on a different press.

SHOP TIPS “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” ~ Phil Dunphy, Modern Family

Ben will quote this here and there around the shop and although its source is amusing, the point made is incredibly relevant. With the quantity of work that we see come through the doors at The Mandate Press, it could be easy to become focused on the timeline of each job and just push things through the shop. By slowing down and taking our time with each setup, or any process around the shop for that matter, the jobs run more smoothly, curveballs are eliminated, and things actually get done more quickly.

WHAT’S NEXT We are just now catching our collective breath from the efforts put into The Ghost in the Machine as well as a heavy shop involvement in AIGA SLC’s second Design Week. Jim Sheridan of Hatch Show Print visited SLC in early December to give a lecture and used our space to do a workshop as well. Hatch was one of the first shops I was exposed to when I first became interested in letterpress and getting a chance to meet Jim and work with him is an opportunity I never really expected to have.

Big round of thanks to George for letting us take a sneak peek at The Mandate Press!

Flap-tacular

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Carrie Valenzuela

Tim is getting ready to run some Smock bamboo envelopes, house style is a pointy flap. Piles of envelopes have been counted out, press is in gripper (also called commercial) registration, plate is in position. Next ink will be added in just the right amount to get the right shade of color.

Ink Meets Paper: A Story Behind Every Card

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Cathy

If you’ve followed the world of letterpress this past year, you’ll recognize Daniel and Allison Nadeau, the pair behind Ink Meets Paper. The former designer & English major team turned letterpress powerhouse become a duo to watch this year, as their innovative “Every Card Has A Story” films (which capture the detail and work that goes into each piece) are receiving rave reviews. Their work is as sharp as an X-acto, colorful as a Pantone Color Guide, and they’re a team with a penchant for letterpress brilliance. Daniel and Allison sat down between runs to talk shop and about the little things of letterpress that make their world go ’round. And don’t forget to say “Hi!” to them as they’ll be making their first National Stationery Show appearance in New York City this coming May (Booth#2267)!

CLOSE UP WITH DANIEL & ALLISON We’re husband and wife, Daniel and Allison Nadeau. Daniel’s background is product and interaction design, and I was an English major. We grew up in Nashville, TN, spent a few years in Savannah, GA, and ended up in Charleston, SC.

FROM CORPORATE TO CREATIVE Our interest in letterpress started with a desire for hands-on interaction and creation. We both had corporate jobs where we sat in front of computers most of the day, and longed to create something more tactile and physical. After taking a printmaking and letterpress class at a local art studio, I was hooked.

PRINTING IN THE PALMETTO STATE Our shop is in our house, which is in the Park Circle community of North Charleston, SC. We had initially looked into renting a storefront studio space, but the timing just didn’t work out. Instead of continuing the search, we converted a spare bedroom into a studio (added French doors to allow access for the press, pulled up carpet to expose the concrete floor, and added a concrete overlay). Keeping the studio in the house was probably one of the smartest moves we made. It allowed us to grow slowly (without stress from additional rent) and made it easy to print at crazy times (we both had other full-time jobs at the time, so there were many late nights printing). The studio is also climate controlled, which is a huge perk for the hot, humid Charleston summers. We’re lucky to have lots of natural light and a really nice view of the backyard.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS We are always creating. Our greeting card line keeps us pretty well aligned with the retail industry in terms of product releases ( i.e. Christmas cards in May, Valentine’s cards in September, and so forth). Daniel and I usually run through sketches, concepts and ideas to narrow down a direction and refine from there. Most of our card designs are hand drawn first, and then scanned and vectorized to be made into photopolymer plates.

Our production process is a bit different, as we are really interested in the dialogue that occurs when a customer wants to learn more about the card they purchased, or received. One of the ways we have addressed this dialogue was to create Card Stories. We make a unique video story for each of our card designs (accessed by scanning a code on the card back or by entering the Story Code number at our website). This meant, as we printed, we would also film (and eventually edit) the printing process. As our volume has increased, we are working to find other ways of letting our customers know what goes into each card. Our mobile site has always been closely tied to each product, and we’re excited to continue exploring how the digital and physical can support one another.

FULL TIME FUN We’ve both been focused full time on Ink Meets Paper since January of 2012. We also work as graphic/web design freelancers, and Daniel does programming as well.

PRESS HISTORY Summer of 2008 became the season of the great printing press search. We scoured forums and Craigslist ads throughout the South, hoping to find a floor-sized platen press. Daniel was so set on finding one that he made a list of every antique store in the state.

Finally, we located an 8×12 Chandler & Price at a print shop in Jacksonville, FL that was closing out the letterpress portion of its services. Hearing stories from and talking with a third-generation printer was an incredible experience– such knowledge and so much history. Good friends helped us move the press back to Charleston (and let us keep the press in their garage until we worked out a studio space).

PRINTING FEATS Probably our biggest accomplishment is that we’re both self-employed and working together. While it’s challenging at times, it’s so rewarding to be able to work from a home studio, refine our business, and explore new opportunities with each other.

We are so honored to be a part of the letterpress community, and have always found everyone to be open and willing to share knowledge. To complement fantastic sites like Letterpress Commons, we also organized the Letterpress Hotline in early 2012. It’s a volunteer-run telephone helpline so printers can call and talk to another printer if they’re ever in a sticky situation.

BOXCAR’S ROLE We use a Boxcar base and order our plates and ink from Boxcar. Boxcar’s top-notch customer service and easy online ordering mean our plates are one less thing we have to worry about. Not to mention, Boxcar’s online letterpress training videos and press manual PDFs (now a part of the Letterpress Commons) were extremely helpful as we were venturing in to the crazy world of letterpress printing. We’re big proponents of sharing information and helping others and love that Boxcar holds those same views.

SHOP TIPS Be thoughtful and don’t be afraid to go slowly (both in business and in printing). Building a business takes time, and it doesn’t happen overnight.

WHAT’S NEXT Ink Meets Paper will be making its first appearance at the National Stationery Show in May, Booth#2267.

A big round of thanks out to Daniel & Allison for letting us get the full story on Ink Meets Paper.

Photography courtesy of Olivia Rae James.

Our First Retiree!

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Carrie Valenzuela

With much handshaking and fanfare, Boxcar has made way for our first retiree, Greg from platemaking. He started with the company in the early day of 2005 when Harold (owner) was a fresh face from Minneapolis. With Greg’s well-rounded printshop experience, he was a steadfast and “mature” presence helping the shop grow while churning out thousands of plates and training others along the way. It has been a long road from those early days to the far-reaching impact our photopolymer plates have had on the letterpress industry. Greg has been here taking care of our platemaking customers and entertaining those around him with stories and jokes while educating the incoming folks in how things are done. Thank you so very much for being with us for this exhilarating ride, Greg! We wish you many happy adventures with friends and family in Retirement Land!

Inking up with Shauna Rue of Purple Ink Press

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Cathy

From a bizarre love affair with metal plates while crafting tailored social stationery to the dream of running a small business, Shauna Rue of Purple Ink Press exemplifies the drive and playfulness of letterpress printing. We sat down with Shauna to catch a glimpse of how all of the pieces came together to capture the happy-go-lucky heart of letterpress.

 BEAUTY IN THE BAY STATE My name is Shauna Rue and I am the owner of Purple Ink Press, which I created in 2010. I design and print customized letterpress invitations, baby announcements, business cards, and all types of social stationery. I live and work in the Worcester area of Massachusetts. I have been married to my husband, Mark, for 7 years, and we have two beautiful children together: Wyatt, 2, and Emerson, 8 months.

 FOR THE LOVE OF LETTERPRESS Like many new printers, I first discovered letterpress when I was looking for my own wedding invitations back in 2005. Two years later, I was still OBSESSED with letterpress, and I found John Barrett with Letterpress Things out in western Massachusetts. I took a few classes and I was hooked―John wouldn’t sell me a floor press until I put my time in on a tabletop, so I came home with my Kelsey 6 x 10, a cabinet, and drawers of type. I printed incessantly on nights and weekends and during vacation time from my corporate job, practicing the craft and familiarizing myself with different papers and plates.

In 2009, the timing was right so I left my full-time job and found a Chandler & Price 10 x 15 floor press in need of a good home. I have been printing happily since then.

 PARADISE IN THE PRINT SHOP My print shop is in the basement of my home, which luckily has great light and space. I actually love having the presses at the house, since I am a night owl and like to print at all hours. With that being the case, I still love using rubber based inks that I can keep open on the press. There is always a dog at my feet and I have drawers and drawers of type that I need to organize. I tell myself it’s all part of the creative process!

THE CREATIVE PROCESS The majority of my work is custom wedding invitations and accompaniments, so I like to talk to the couple about their wedding―when we can’t meet in person, we’ll talk on the phone or through email. I like to gather the details before I draft an idea for the invitations. To me, seeing a picture of the dress is often the most useful visual for creating an invitation suite that best reflects the event. From there, I put my ideas on paper―I still use a sketchbook and pencil to flush out my ideas before putting them on the computer. I always keep in mind to design to the letterpress’ strengths―i.e., I’ve only made the mistake of printing light ink on dark paper once!

FULL TIME FUN I design and print [and] yes, I’ve been printing full time since 2010. I can’t believe Purple Ink will be celebrating its third birthday in February! This year, however, I took an extended maternity leave, so I only printed a handful of select projects.

Back in April, I finished printing a job and went into labor 5 hours later, so I knew I needed to slow down a bit after the birth of my daughter.

PRINTING FEATS My biggest accomplishment was deciding to start and run a letterpress business full-time – that was very scary for me, but I am so happy that I took the plunge! Everything else is an extension of that decision and I feel lucky every single day I am working. Running a small business has been a dream come true, and I have the luxury of making every job unique and customized to each customer. To me, it is a huge accomplishment to see genuinely ecstatic reactions to my work or hear from a couple that I captured the true essence of their style, love story, and wedding through my art. I love being able to be creative and constantly work at my craft and try to improve. And being interviewed for a blog such as this one or speaking at a local college as a guest art professor definitely makes me proud!

BOXCAR’S ROLE The deep relief base and photopolymer plates, baby! At the beginning of December, I just started the process of transferring my entire shop over to polymer: I love that the plates can be recycled at the end of each job and the fact that the platemaking process is less taxing on the environment. I had dabbled with photopolymer in the past, but I held onto a bizarre love affair with metal plates. Happy to have finally seen the light! My favorite shop tool―hands down―is the Boxcar roller gauge.

 SHOP TIPS When I first started my stationery line, I tried to come up with cards that I thought people would like and it was a disaster. I quickly learned that if I print what I like, someone out there will find it. One of my most popular baby shower prints is the dog pushing the baby carriage, which I originally designed for my own shower invitations because I wanted to incorporate my current ‘kids’―my yellow lab and my French bulldog―into the celebration. Sure enough, I’m not the only crazy dog lover out there, and I have since printed bulldogs, dachshunds, cocker spaniels, and countless Labradors pushing baby carriages.

 WHAT’S NEXT I am very excited for 2013. I re-launched my website in January, which is perfect timing after my extended maternity leave. Recently, I have been designing invitation suites using a combination of paper textures, finishes, thickness, colors, fonts, and materials. I’m also doing more with ready-to-order letterpress cards and add-ons to invitation suites, such as letterpress coasters, table signs, and place cards for weddings. I can’t wait to show them off! I have definitely evolved over the years and in 2013 I really want to encourage my customers (and brides everywhere!) to be unique, creative, and fun. I love how all of the pieces of a suite eventually come together beautifully and can truly capture the personality and heart of a wedding or event. A goal for my bridal customers is to create wedding invitations that will make guests excited about their wedding!

Some other plans for 2013 include continuing to work with some charities that I partnered with in 2012. Giving back to my community and organizations that are close to my heart is an important aspect of my life and my business. In an effort to extend this sentiment to my customers, I am going to offer couples the opportunity to donate to registered charities in exchange for letterpress cards, coasters, and other specialty items. I’m trying to make 2013 the year of giving back!

Huge round of thanks out to Shauna for letting us catch a colorful glimpse of Purple Ink Press!

Let the Show Begin: A Look at Sideshow Press

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Rebecca Miller

The warmth of the South Carolina sun follows us in as we enter Virginia Gregg’s brightly lit printing space, Sideshow Press, located just a stone’s throw away from historic Charleston. Virginia greets us with a smile that lasts from the moment we start the fabulous tour on through the curious conversation threading from her Great Dane, Lulu, organization advice, and of course her gorgeous letterpress work!

THE PRESSES We have 3 presses total: a 12 x 18” C&P, Vandercook No. 4, and a 10 x 15” Heidelberg Windmill

SIZE OF PRINT SHOP 700 square feet

THE LOCATION Located in historic downtown Charleston, our small shop is just around the corner from King Street. You can find us nestled in a small alley off Cannon Street. You can’t miss our bright yellow doors. Our space is crisp and clean, with great natural light…and paper everywhere!

FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE SHOP The sound of presses running [is out favorite thing]. Besides the presses, we have lots of found objects we’ve gathered from our grandmother’s attics, antique stores and travels abroad. They serve as inspiration for designs, techniques or texture. Our ceilings are about 14 ft. high so we never feel cramped or crowded. It’s nice to have that extra air around us filled with natural light. It’s pretty calming and inspiring!

NUMBER OF PRINTERS IN SPACE Just the three of us! And sometimes Lulu, a 130lb Great Dane that comes to hang out every now and then.

MOST VALUABLE SHOP TOOL The line board we use to measure straightness. Can’t live without it!

FAVORITE INK We use VanSon rubber-based inks mostly. Currently we are using a lot of grays since they go with everything. That way the little pops of color really stand out!

SOLVENT OF CHOICE We use odorless mineral spirits for wash ups. On the Vandercook, we’ll run make ready sheets between the roller system to extract as much ink as possible before wash up. And we let the press do some of the work for us by adding wash while its still rolling. When the rollers stop rolling, you can start to clean.

BASE AND PLATE OF CHOICE We switched to the Boxcar base format and photopolymer plating about 3 years ago and haven’t looked back. We found it to be much more accurate, provides better impression quality and the polymer plates are so easy to store, reuse and cut and rearrange as needed. One time we had a funny typo, with the phrase “to the mooon and back”, we’ll that’s an easy fix with a little poly-type surgery and we were back in business.

OIL OF CHOICE Durofilm R&O 150

WHAT TYPE OF RAGS DO YOU CLEAN UP YOUR PRESSES WITH We use the boxed Scott Shop Rags for press wash ups.

FLOORING MATERIAL Our floors are concrete, painted gray. Of course!

FLOOR PLAN TIPS Keep it organized!

PIED TYPE We don’t really have/use much in the way of pied type. We have a little hanging around.

ORGANIZATION ADVICE We use lots of storage boxes and shelves to maximize our small space. Since our ceilings are so tall, we just keep going up instead of out.

PRINTING ADVICE When setting up, make one adjustment at a time. When having a problem, mechanical or while printing, start by looking at the simplest thing first and move up from there.

Big round of thanks to Sideshow Press for giving us a tour of their space today!

Counting the Many Brilliant Ways of Studio Three Four

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Rebecca Miller

Matt Robinson, the Georgia-based printer behind Studio Four Three, finds inspiration in the life-cycle of design, the kinetics behind architecture, turning out custom-based letterpress work, and accessing solace in his C&P’s. While sitting down with Matt, we found out that his love for letterpress flows strong as he mused about his newlywed bliss, his blossoming studio, and the mentors he’s been proud to work alongside.

LOVE & LETTERPRESS Studio Four Three was officially launched on April 3rd a while back when my wife and I exchanged vows and said ‘I do’. Specializing in custom letterpress invitations and stationery, we named our business Studio Four Three, which was chosen by the day we got married.

We initially met when I was asked by Lauren to design a logo for her blossoming photography upstart, and as they say, the rest is history. It wasn’t but 9 months later that I proposed to my former client and future bride. We are now expecting parents, currently live and work in Alpharetta, Georgia with our two dogs, Elvis and Libby, and they are eagerly preparing for the arrival of our baby boy (who is sure to be creative).

BEAUTIFUL BEGINNINGS As far back as I remember, I always loved art and architecture and thought that one day I would be an architect. After entering college to study architecture, what I found I loved most was designing something and watching it come to life. Whether it was drawing something on paper and building a scale model of the design, I loved that ideas had a life-cycle of their own. I left school and worked for a print shop for a while and learned how to take my designs on the computer and turn them into a final printed product. The same thing I loved about school [was what] I ultimately loved about print media as well.

It was only a matter of time before I encountered my first letterpress machine and immediately became enamored with the antiquity and complexity of the large moveable cast iron gears and parts. I knew without a doubt in my mind that letterpress was exactly what I wanted to do. That was several years ago and my love for letterpress grows stronger each day.

PERFECTION IN THE PEACH STATE We are blessed to operate out of our house; our garage hasn’t seen a car in a long time because it’s packed with all sorts of letterpress goodies. Everything from presses, shelves full of ink cans, drafting and composing tables, paper cutters, etc. This space is fully dedicated to our love and passion for letterpress. We are located just north of Atlanta, Georgia and conveniently a few miles from both my parents, sisters, and my in-laws. With a little one on the way, being close to family was our biggest decision in relocating to the suburbs. As it stands, we have a 1923 10×15 C&P, a 1910 No. 2 Potter Proof Press, a 6.5×10 C&P Pilot and a old style Gordon Press on its way down from New Jersey.

PRINTING MENTORS While I have had an opportunity to meet some of the best printers in my area, I have one person I could call a mentor. Chris from Farmwood Press has helped me beyond what words can express. I have worked alongside him and he patiently helped teach me the basics of letterpress and allowed me to use his machines before I bought my own. I also spend a substantial amount of time researching other letterpress printers, watching videos, and reading blogs. A lot of what I know has come from self-educating and asking many people a lot of questions, but nothing compares to what Chris has helped teach me.

My wife is from Orlando, Florida and has stayed in touch with her childhood friends- one of whom recently got married. My wife asked me if we could go to the wedding and I immediately said “yes, but only if we can go visit Mama’s Sauce while we’re there!” She laughed and said “yes dear, we can go see their shop.” While the wedding was a lot of fun, the highlight of my long road trip was visiting the shop that produces so much incredible work that I admire and meeting the guys who have built the business from the ground up. These guys have been probably my biggest inspiration!

THE CREATIVE PROCESS I do design for my clients, which is one of the things I really love about my job. While there are lots of printers that print other people’s designs, I enjoy seeing what I work on come to life in the form of a final product. Our business works with a lot of brides and grooms (mostly brides though) so we focus a lot of our time on developing custom design solutions for their upcoming wedding. Everything begins with a very organic approach to their project: we listen to the client tell us about themselves and what they have envisioned for their wedding. Based on the discussion, we begin working on their design. Once everything has been approved, we get the files ready to send off to Boxcar Press and when the plates arrive, we go to print. Everything we work on is custom, from concept to completion, as it’s all centered around their wants, their vision, and their budget.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT I went to a large art school and have been fortunate enough to cultivate friendships with some incredibly talented artists, architects, photographers, etc. and am constantly impressed with how talented they are! I have kept in touch with many of them over the years and am blown away by some of the work they’re currently producing. While I design for my clients (and they often love what we are able to produce), I think comparatively I have a lot of growing as a graphic artist left to do. I believe that if I ever stop learning, I will become stagnant and that won’t be a good thing. I print what I design, but I’m always inspired by what other people are producing.

FULL TIME FUN Thinking about what I want the future of the business to look like, I get a huge grin on my face because it brings joy to my heart to think about doing something I love so much for the rest of my life. I currently design and print full time; however, a majority of my mornings are spent writing and responding to emails, balancing books, and placing orders.

I do want to continue to grow the business and be at a point where we have a few people working alongside us designing, printing, and working on business development. I love all three aspects of the business but its difficult to print all the time if I am not generating projects and designing for clients, so my time right now is spread between the three areas.

PRESS HISTORY I guess in retrospect it’s a funny story: I had a client who wanted her invitations letterpressed and her deadline was to design and print her project in less than a week (needless to say, she waited a little too late in the game to work on letterpress invitations!) and I couldn’t find any company that could letterpress her project as quickly as I needed to have it back to her. This led me to think about buying a press so that I wouldn’t have to rely on someone else to do something I needed done for my design business.

I bought a small Kelsey 3×5 on eBay and when it arrived, it was a nightmare! It looked like it had been sitting outside for a few decades so I painstakingly restored it and brought it back to its original glory but realized that it was far too small to use for an invitation suite so I decided to sell it on eBay. I made quite a profit on that sale and I bought my second press, a 10×15 Chandler and Price new style platen press, and still had half of my profit left over! Like I said, I made quite a bit of profit. Since getting the C&P, we have been able to buy a few more presses.

PRINTING FEATS I’m really proud of my wife, Lauren, for sticking by me and encouraging me to do something I love. There’s nothing easy about working 70 to 80 hours a week, but its worth it if the job is something you love, and letterpress is definitely something I completely love. Needless to say, I married my best friend and that’s probably the accomplishment I am most proud of.

BOXCAR’S ROLE There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t visit Boxcarpress.com to either place an order for plates, or to tinker around and do a little research.

SHOP TIPS Learn how to use your press and what its capabilities and limitations are. I have met a lot of people who look at the business of letterpress as a source of a making a quick buck, but profits often fall by the wayside if the printer doesn’t understand what their press can and cannot do. Develop and build your business organically; it takes time, effort and intentionality to grow so don’t expect your venture to be profitable immediately. Our personal relationships with our clients are our most valuable commodity and their recommendation to their friends and family is the best form of advertising that money can’t (and never will) buy.

WHAT’S NEXT Well, now that 2013 is officially here, we are looking forward to the arrival of our son (Judah Woods), who is due in a matter of weeks! We’re incredibly excited to welcome this little guy into our hearts and will be devoting a lot of time to him. If there is anything else I could add, I think I would like to say that I hope he will follow in his father’s footsteps (that’s me!) and letterpress as well….or at least find something he loves and pursue it with passion. I have been looking online for an old 3×5 Kelsey to restore for him. (Who knows, maybe I will restore it, sell it, and buy him a Heidelberg Windmill with the profits, right?!). In regards to business, it is our hope and prayer that we have another great year and work with some incredible clients.

Big round of applause and congratulations out to Matt for letting us catch the beat on Studio Three Four!

A fun slide

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Carrie Valenzuela

If you are running lightweight stock on your windmill, a slide can be very helpful. This is a plastic sleeve that fits over the sucker bar reducing air flow that can cause too much fluffing into top of feed pile and subsequent misfeeds. There are several colors of slides with differing sizes of air holes for the particular kind of stock being run. Make sure when running thin stock that as little air as necessary is being used, that your Thin Stock Knob is pulled out and speed of press is reduced to allow more control.

Weaving history with letterpress: the story behind Primrose Press

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Rebecca Miller

Tia Blassingame has navigated a printing career with a historical passion and kinetic love for the design process. As the wise woman behind Primrose Press, she threads a dozen different creative experiences into one singular life—a life of letterpress and artists’ books. Tia sat down with us to discuss everything from the powerful draw of history to the genius of typesetting.

TALKING SHOP WITH TIA My training is in architectural design and history. My focus has been on the intersection of architecture, African American history, and perception.

BEAUTIFUL BEGINNINGS During an artist residency, a visual artist and I visited the resident letterpress printer. He was generous enough to open his studio to us, show us how to set type, use his press, everything. It was a perfect day. I still have the broadside that I made that day. Many years later I thought back to that perfect day, when I was thinking about what might make me happy creatively. Up until that point, my creative focus had been upon writing about architecture, African American architectural history, and art. I signed up for letterpress classes at the Center for Book Arts, and almost immediately knew that letterpress printing was for me.

I like the precision of it, the feel of lead type, the rhythm of setting type, and the freedom that comes with wood type, [as well as] how it shows its age. Overall I love how the type, the machines, and the process connects you to another time. You can almost see someone fifty, one hundred years ago doing the exact thing you are doing, in the same way. For someone interested in history, this was a very powerful draw for me. Particularly in considering how slave and freedmen apprenticed or owned by early American printers might have set sentences character by character, but would not have had the freedom to choose their words or sentiments.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT Primrose is the name of the first metal ornament that I purchased. It is a decorative border, and I use it as a symbol of the press, but also in many pieces. Also Primrose was the name of part of a mistrel duo that worked in blackface – Primrose & West. My press work deals with beauty, but also presenting issues of racism in a visually appealing way that might disarm the viewers initial instinct to flee or avoid the topic. Primrose, with this duel meaning, seemed an appropriate name.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS I currently have two veins of activity: letterpress papergoods and artists’ books. For me, the stationery and prints inform my books. I use the notecards to experiment or perfect a technique. For example, I have long been interested in overlay. This is something that I work with a lot. Not all attempts are successful, but over time I get better and more knowledgeable about what works for me. Other times, I want to gain a better understanding about how a material or paper prints or folds or takes ink. I am fortunate in that my customers do not seem to mind the experiments. And I have a group of customers that have been supportive since my first day and have seen my progress.

I am constantly sketching, doodling, thinking/obsessing about projects or sentiments for cards. Some pieces are thoroughly planned out before I get to the press, but I also enjoy figuring it out on the press.

FULL TIME FUN I print as often as possible. I would love to be a full-time printer. My goal is to better marry my stationery pursuits with my artists’ books and prints. I consider myself a book artist and printmaker. I am very hands-on and prefer to be perform all duties: writing the text, designing, creating illustrations, printing, bind, etc.

PRINTING FEATS “Past Present: DC”, my set of artists’ books on segregation in historic and contemporary Washington, D.C., was recently acquired by the State Library of Queensland. I spent over a year researching, made the paper from my own clothing, created the etchings, created the polymer plates, set the type, but at some point you find yourself in a vacuum. You hope the work has meaning to others. At some point you get so close to the project, it is hard to know. The fact that the library felt the piece would resonate with their patrons was very humbling.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Though handset letterpress has my heart, increasingly my projects require the use of typefaces that are not available in metal or wood. I find myself spending more time at my computer before getting to the press. Boxcar Press allows me to bring my designs from sketch to life.

PRESS HISTORY My first press is a very adorable 1906 Sigwalt.

HOME IS WHERE THE PRESS IS My home studio is crammed with paper and artists’ book projects – both finished and in process.

SHOP TIPS If you are in a rush or cocky, it is more than likely that the print gods will not be on your side. The print gods will humble you and remind you how little you know.

WHAT’S NEXT I am big on collaboration, and have had the good fortune to have met some talented artists over the years. In 2013, you can expect more limited edition collaborations. A few years ago, I started a valentine swap with a group of artists (writers, composers, printmakers, book artists, poets). 2013 will bring the 3rd annual Artists’ Valentine Swap. Photos of valentines in process and finished and details on how you can be part of the swap will be posted on the Primrose Press Facebook page.

A big round of thanks out to Tia for letting catch a glimpse at the wonderful world of Primrose Press!

An inside look at Woodside Press

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Rebecca Miller

Davin Kuntze of Woodside Press let us in to his Brooklyn Navy Yard shop, which is nestled safely between artisans shops and within World War I enemy fire resistant walls. More now a refuge for the creative thought than for protecting, Davin muses on the need for more letterpress in the world and bad typography (a crime against humanity) as he shows us through the space. THE PRESSES In general use we have seven presses. There is the C&P treadle press that came from the American Typefounders Company; two C&P Craftsman presses (one for printing and one for scoring and perfing); a Windmill for longer jobs; a Heidlberg KSB; and finally two Vandercooks, a Universal III for poster work, when we get it, and an SP20 that we use almost exclusively for proofing type. In addition to that we have a number of random presses in various states of repair, mostly small format platen presses that no one seems to want these days.

SIZE OF PRINT SHOP 5,000 square feet I think. It’s really too much space for one shop, but we’ve managed to fill it up with plenty of objects that inspire. But seriously, I think you should call “Hoarders.”

THE LOCATION We’re located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is home to its own strange assemblage of artists, craftsmen, furniture makers, malcontents, mad scientists, old school Brooklyn hangers-on, young upstart urban farmers … the usual crowd that is attracted to affordable industrial space. We are in a high-floor corner of a massive 11-story building that was built for World War I, and actually carries a fire-rating of “able to withstand enemy attack,” although the enemy envisioned is most likely the Red Baron. Lomography has a distribution facility across the hall from us, and the Yard also has the largest manufacturer of military-grade body armor in the country.

FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE SHOP The view is one of a kind. We look out over the East River onto Manhattan from the southern tip of the island, up past the Williamsburg Bridge, to the United Nations. A lot of the time it feels miles away from the frantic pace of the city. That and the radio, be it NPR or some music at a volume that will drown out the phone if it starts to ring.

NUMBER OF PRINTERS IN SPACE It’s just us at the moment. We have a working relationship with a few other artists who occasionally come in to do collaborative projects. And we’re always happy to give a tour complete with our own (possibly skewed) history of printing and typecasting.

MOST VALUABLE SHOP TOOL I can’t think of any one machine we’d really suffer without, but the Linotype comes in really handy for book projects. There are a number of chapbooks we’ve done over the years that would easily have taken three or four times as long without this incredibly frightening contraption.

FAVORITE INK We use Van Son rubber-based for the most part. My favorite colors tend to be very rich. Far too many designers waste countless hours deliberating between four slightly different shades of light brown which all look like, well, baby crap. Type should be black (for the most part) and you should pick an accent color that makes a statement.

SOLVENT OF CHOICE We use Power Klene VC for the presses and Blanket Wash #4 for type, both from Prisco.

BASE AND PLATE OF CHOICE We’ve used KF152 for a number of years. People want “letterpress quality,” which means we have to smack the paper too hard.

OIL OF CHOICE You got me. We have a giant barrel of some sort of oil that I’ve been using for years, seems to be 30-weight motor oil.

WHAT TYPE OF RAG DO YOU CLEAN UP YOUR PRESSES WITH We get our rags from an industrial rag supplier. Every month or so they show up with a barrel of clean rags and take away our dirty ones. Not very exciting.

FLOORING MATERIAL Concrete. This is the Navy Yard and our building was built to warehouse aircraft-carrier components. It can stand up to a few tons of printing equipment.

FLOOR PLAN TIPS Smaller is actually better. It keeps things simple and all your tools are close at hand. A place for everything and everything in its place. Unfortunately we don’t follow our own advice. This place is a constant battle against entropy, and I love it. But losing all six pairs of scissors for a month at a time can be frustrating.

PIED TYPE We have a couple barrels of it. An associate of the press who cuts mats and makes brand new foundry type occasionally takes a big bucket away to cast a new face. In exchange we sometimes get brand new type for the shop. Works out for both of us.

ORGANIZATION ADVICE Did you read my answer about floor plan tips? [I recommend that.]

PRINTING ADVICE When I first got into printing, I was given a book by DB Updike called “In The Day’s Work” which I recommend to anyone in any creative field, although this book is more for the practical printer. Basically it says take pride in your work, keep your shop clean and organized, and don’t let your clients make decisions because you, as the printer, are the expert. I should have read that more closely and taken it to heart. I think the three books I’d recommend for a printer starting out are “In The Day’s Work” for self discipline and self confidence; “The Elements of Typographic Style” by Robert Bringhurst, because bad typography is a crime against humanity; and “The Elements of Color” by Johannes Itten, because there IS a science to why some colors work together and others don’t.

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