printer profile Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Boxcar Press

Passing the decade-mark of printing & creating adventures (from first getting into the printing rhythm of a Vandercook to adding ink to his ’57 Heidelberg Windmill), Dan Padavic of Vahalla Studios continues to amp up his letterpress design game with eye-popping pieces, expertly designed (and memorable) prints, and a creative edge that pushes the boundaries of letterpress. We were able to catch up with this cross-discipline printer (have you seen their screenprints?) for a chance to talk shop and to catch up on what keeps him motivated, covered in ink, and ever creative.

A DECADE OF EXCELLENCE I graduated from the University of Kansas in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design. My entire time in college I took numerous printmaking classes as electives and always incorporated a tactile process into my design work. I officially began Vahalla Studios in 2006 only a couple of years after graduating college and have been running the studio ever since. We are approaching our 10th year in business and it’s amazing to think about how far we have come in such a short time. I am married to my wonderful wife Melissa who helps run the office and books here at the studio, she is a talented seamstress and amazingly creative as well.

We have a 2 year old son, Tucker, who keeps us on our toes at all hours of the day and we are expecting his baby sister here soon in April. My family and our business keep me motivated, challenged and ever so grateful that we get to do what we do and work with such amazing clients and friends.

THE FIRST PULL OF LETTERPRESS My first experience with letterpress was at the University of Kansas. We had an elective letterpress class that was a great introduction to the craft. If my memory serves me correctly we had 3 Vandercook proof presses. I cannot recall the models but some had powered inkers and some you had to ink by hand. We worked on typesetting the old school way and had fun projects such as greeting cards and poster making.

THE PERFECT PRINTING ABODE Our shop is small and we really like it that way. We have about 2,000 sq. ft. tucked around the backside of a building that is a little difficult to find if you do not know exactly where to look. Honestly we kind of enjoy the privacy and the fact that we don’t have much walk up business.

We typically schedule meetings by appointment only, but the majority of our work comes in through the web. In that 2,000 sq. ft. we have 2 Windmills and a paper cutter, as well as a composing table, type drawers, and an ink mixing station for the letterpress work. We are also a full service Flatstock screen printing studio.

We like the term analog printmaking because both the screen and letterpress processes on paper share so many similarities. It’s spot color printing at its best!

DESIGNED FOR PRINT + BEYOND Design has been an integrated part of the studio since day 1. I have my degree in design and have taught courses in typography and printmaking as well. I see design as an integrated part of printmaking. The better the design work, the more fluid the printmaking process becomes. I like to say that what we do is 75% prepress and 25% production. With this approach the printmaking process is an extension of the design process and successful projects are achieved when the two process are thought of as one.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS Everything starts in my sketchbook. Even typographic layouts. Ideas can be sketched & hashed out much more quickly and fluidly with a pencil and paper than in the constraints of a computer, and I think that is super important. Once a concept or sketch has all the elements it needs, I then begin to execute the design in the computer. Whether that is scanning in a key line piece of art or composing a typographic composition, I try to use the computer as a tool and not so much a platform for idea making.

FULL TIME FUN Yes, I have been printing full time for almost 10 years.

PRINTING FEATS I was super stoked to receive a best invitation award for the wedding suite that I designed for my own wedding. I entered it in the Neenah Un-Show a few years back and was awarded best in that category. The contest was judged by some very respected designers in our community and that is why I felt so honored to receive the award. Below are a few photographs of the suite for reference.

Our work has also been featured in many design magazines and print annuals over the years, and we have had the great honor of working with such clients as Square, Kickstarter, Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, Myspace, Warner Music, Disney Music, Zynga, and many others.

PRESS HISTORY My first letterpress was a 1957 Black Ball windmill. I knew that any form of proof press or hand crank / hand fed press would be limiting from a production standpoint, and so I decided to jump in with both feet.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Boxcar has given me a seamless and efficient resource for ordering my letterpress plates. They are also a great resource for inks and pressroom supplies like my swing away lay gauge and pins.

SHOP TIPS The best advice that I can give would be to try and be as systematic as possible. The mistakes I made learning to letterpress were all due to inconsistencies with paper grain, cutting down, grip and guide, etc… keep everything in the same direction as it comes off of the cutter and pencil mark your stacks with the grip and guide edges so that you can keep everything nice and tidy! Oh yea, and ALWAYS CLEAN YOUR ROLLERS!!!

WHAT’S NEXT My plans for the new year are to keep pushing, keep growing and keep refining our processes. Maximize efficiency but also keep in mind our goals to stay small and manageable. We like the personal attention we can give our clients and we love building lasting relationships with designers. I also really want to up our social media game to highlight more work that we have produced and give more exposure to the artists and designers that we work with.

A huge round of thanks out to Dan of Vahalla Studios for letting us get a glimpse of his letterpress (and screen) printing paradise.

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.

Main menu

Tag Archives: printer profile

Printer’s Paradise at Vahalla Studios

A Printing Tradition: Sargent Brothers Press