Why do you make Hornbooks? Largely because I'm a history student. Hornbooks represent America's first school text "books". Long before the Battledore, the Chap Book, the McGuffy Reader - there was the Hornbook. The tradition came over from Old World Europe, where these devices date to the middle ages. They represent Old World artisan-ship from a time when things were made by hand, one at a time. Are your Hornbooks for sale? Yes. While usually a "batch", or production run is the result of an order or several orders, there are usually some left over which are available. If enough orders are requested, I'll double the batch. More than likely sixteen would be about the maximum number that I can produce at one "run". That would represent about two weeks production time. All Hornbooks are priced at $35.00 plus $5.35 for shipping. (Price updated 11.3.2013 due to increase cost and Flat Rate shipping.) Orders can be placed by posting an e-mail to me at: [email protected] Pmt can be made by personal check or PayPal. Please note that PayPal incurs a $2.00 charge for use of their service, thus total for Hornbook and shipping via PayPal is $42.35 (update 9/27/2014: Coming Soon! look for Hornbooks to be offered from Paper Wren Press' Etsy Shop! These will be linked from our website at www.paperwrenpress.com ) Are your Hornbooks a specific copy of any particular specimen? No. The local printers of the 1600's or 1700s - printers did not proliferate in the Americas until the very early 1700s - followed a familiar Old World pattern which was traditionally used. It was more of a format with variations unique to each printing house, and dependend upon what "founts" and cuts were available to them. Almost all followed the tradition of the "Criss Cross", the "Cross Row" of the lower case alphabet. Most started the lower case row with the cross and upper case A, followed by the lower case alphabet. Nearly all utilised the Exorcism ('in the Name of the Father . . .' ) and the Lord's Prayer. The fonts used, point size, the types of crosses or the number of crosses varied. Some used borders, some did not. If I were a printer in 1730, and I was asked to print a few Hornbook pages for the local artisans cutting the wood and heating the horn, these are what I would have produced, proudly displaying the brand new Caslon faces from England. I probably would not have had a superabundance of type available, so I would have distributed the type back into their cases when I was done. So the next time I was asked, the Hornbook would have looked a little different. Photos of originals show a sort of frame around the printed sheet on most Hornbooks. Why is that? Yes, and you'll notice mine do not. Those old Hornbooks actually used animal horn as a protective covering for the printed page affixed to the board. This thin piece of heated, smoothed and cut horn was held in place by what was usually a lead frame. There are two issues here: the lead and the horn. You might note from the photos on line and in books that the horn is usually missing. Or very deteriorated. Horn is organic and is subject to rot. I chose not to use a frame simply because of the modern day fear of lead. Especially since these Hornbooks may - as their predecessors - find their way into the hands of kids. Museum or private gift shops may have a problem with the use of lead, too. I opted instead to use another form of protection which, though not as ancient as cut horn, still goes back about a century and a half: decoupage. There are several techniques used for this process, originally layers of varnish which were dried and sanded. I use a water based sealant, each thin layer polished with steel wool, the last coating cured for a few days, then sanded and polished by steel wool. The water based sealant does not adversely affect the paper, and is extremely durable. This last batch utilised copper tacks to hold the paper in place. There are examples of Hornbooks that do not use frames, thus the use of frames to hold the horn was not universal. Personally, I think the Hornbook looks better without a frame, which tended too be too large for the diminutive size of the book itself. Who buys Hornbooks these days? So far, it's been a matter of letting folks know what a Hornbook even is! What used to be a ubiquitous part of childhood has now slipped from social memory. So far, Museums, folks who like Colonial and Early American accents for their homes, Home Schoolers and some private schools have been interested or have placed orders. Although, admittedly, I don't ask. But the niche market I am aiming at would be the above. The gift shop attached to the Oldest Schoolhouse in Old St. Augustine, Fl. has expressed interest in carrying these Hornbooks. Thus, as folks become aware of the Hornbook, I suspect more folks may wish to have one. The chalk-and-slate board of your great grandfather would have been the "Hornbook" of it's era. Both carry the same early schooltime aura and legacy. Heh, just thinking about it, I used a slate and chalk pencils made by Pelikan when I went to primary school in Germany in the middle 1960s! The slate was ruled on one side, quadrille on the other. That's where I got my history-streak! Hope this page has been a little more point specific and helpful. Good Providence in all your endeavours! -gary
A Gallery of Prints with 80 Removable Posters Who can resist the tactile charm of letterpress? Not many, judging by its ever-rising popularity among artists and designers working with old-school printing methods. The Ladies of Letterpress features the best work of the members of Ladies of Letterpress, an international organization that champions the work of women printers. Valuable as both a source of inspiration and a resource, it includes a wide range of pieces, from greeting cards to broadsides and posters, printed in a variety of type and illustration styles. Each piece is accompanied by details of paper, inks, and press used in its printing, and a profile of its printer. Whether you're drawn to elegant greeting cards, humorous note cards, or calendars and posters, you're sure to find creative ideas in this volume. And when you do, there are eighty detachable pages just begging to be pinned up. By Kseniya Thomas and Jessica C. White Designed by Wayne Blades Published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 Softcover, 192 pages, 350 color images, 11 × 14 inches ISBN: 978-1-61689-273-9
Letterpress Bright Red — Image of a boy with a watering can, man in a hat, woman in a hat and sun, card A5 A5 Art Print, Letterpress/Book Printing The card was produced using the letterpress process. This means that the illustration was printed in color and deeply embossed at the same time - this creates the characteristic letterpress look. Paper: Beer felt cardboard, natural white (slightly yellowish) Dimensions: 148mm x 210mm Color: Pantone Bright Red, a beautiful orange-red Please note! I try very hard to reproduce the colors as realistically as possible, but it may still be that they differ in nuances from the real colors. This may be due to the photos, but also to the different color rendering of the devices, so please note that the colors may vary from the screen! Thank you!
Why do you make Hornbooks? Largely because I'm a history student. Hornbooks represent America's first school text "books". Long before the Battledore, the Chap Book, the McGuffy Reader - there was the Hornbook. The tradition came over from Old World Europe, where these devices date to the middle ages. They represent Old World artisan-ship from a time when things were made by hand, one at a time. Are your Hornbooks for sale? Yes. While usually a "batch", or production run is the result of an order or several orders, there are usually some left over which are available. If enough orders are requested, I'll double the batch. More than likely sixteen would be about the maximum number that I can produce at one "run". That would represent about two weeks production time. All Hornbooks are priced at $35.00 plus $5.35 for shipping. (Price updated 11.3.2013 due to increase cost and Flat Rate shipping.) Orders can be placed by posting an e-mail to me at: [email protected] Pmt can be made by personal check or PayPal. Please note that PayPal incurs a $2.00 charge for use of their service, thus total for Hornbook and shipping via PayPal is $42.35 (update 9/27/2014: Coming Soon! look for Hornbooks to be offered from Paper Wren Press' Etsy Shop! These will be linked from our website at www.paperwrenpress.com ) Are your Hornbooks a specific copy of any particular specimen? No. The local printers of the 1600's or 1700s - printers did not proliferate in the Americas until the very early 1700s - followed a familiar Old World pattern which was traditionally used. It was more of a format with variations unique to each printing house, and dependend upon what "founts" and cuts were available to them. Almost all followed the tradition of the "Criss Cross", the "Cross Row" of the lower case alphabet. Most started the lower case row with the cross and upper case A, followed by the lower case alphabet. Nearly all utilised the Exorcism ('in the Name of the Father . . .' ) and the Lord's Prayer. The fonts used, point size, the types of crosses or the number of crosses varied. Some used borders, some did not. If I were a printer in 1730, and I was asked to print a few Hornbook pages for the local artisans cutting the wood and heating the horn, these are what I would have produced, proudly displaying the brand new Caslon faces from England. I probably would not have had a superabundance of type available, so I would have distributed the type back into their cases when I was done. So the next time I was asked, the Hornbook would have looked a little different. Photos of originals show a sort of frame around the printed sheet on most Hornbooks. Why is that? Yes, and you'll notice mine do not. Those old Hornbooks actually used animal horn as a protective covering for the printed page affixed to the board. This thin piece of heated, smoothed and cut horn was held in place by what was usually a lead frame. There are two issues here: the lead and the horn. You might note from the photos on line and in books that the horn is usually missing. Or very deteriorated. Horn is organic and is subject to rot. I chose not to use a frame simply because of the modern day fear of lead. Especially since these Hornbooks may - as their predecessors - find their way into the hands of kids. Museum or private gift shops may have a problem with the use of lead, too. I opted instead to use another form of protection which, though not as ancient as cut horn, still goes back about a century and a half: decoupage. There are several techniques used for this process, originally layers of varnish which were dried and sanded. I use a water based sealant, each thin layer polished with steel wool, the last coating cured for a few days, then sanded and polished by steel wool. The water based sealant does not adversely affect the paper, and is extremely durable. This last batch utilised copper tacks to hold the paper in place. There are examples of Hornbooks that do not use frames, thus the use of frames to hold the horn was not universal. Personally, I think the Hornbook looks better without a frame, which tended too be too large for the diminutive size of the book itself. Who buys Hornbooks these days? So far, it's been a matter of letting folks know what a Hornbook even is! What used to be a ubiquitous part of childhood has now slipped from social memory. So far, Museums, folks who like Colonial and Early American accents for their homes, Home Schoolers and some private schools have been interested or have placed orders. Although, admittedly, I don't ask. But the niche market I am aiming at would be the above. The gift shop attached to the Oldest Schoolhouse in Old St. Augustine, Fl. has expressed interest in carrying these Hornbooks. Thus, as folks become aware of the Hornbook, I suspect more folks may wish to have one. The chalk-and-slate board of your great grandfather would have been the "Hornbook" of it's era. Both carry the same early schooltime aura and legacy. Heh, just thinking about it, I used a slate and chalk pencils made by Pelikan when I went to primary school in Germany in the middle 1960s! The slate was ruled on one side, quadrille on the other. That's where I got my history-streak! Hope this page has been a little more point specific and helpful. Good Providence in all your endeavours! -gary
OVERVIEW Set of 30 Custom Letterpress Stationery Notecards. Cards are letterpress printed using a digitally created plate based on historic letterpress graphics. Stationery pieces are personalized with your custom initials, A-Z. These cards printed on luxe letterpress paper with close attention to detail. A great gift to yourself or the stationery addict in your life💌. Artwork made from archival materials does not go bad & correspondence has no expiration date! Stop putting off reaching out & cultivate your creativity with a special set of custom stationery. Allow yourself time away from work & distractions to connect with your loved ones. Easy as: 1. Remove a piece of stationery & envelope out of the protective box 🎁 2. Pick someone special to correspond with 💎 3. Seal envelope and pick out a neat stamp. Look forward to the reply😊 ______________________________________ MATERIALS & PERSONALIZATION Stationery pieces are letterpress printed with archival black ink. Cards are printed on a 100% cotton (tree free:) paper specially designed to showcase the sculptural qualities of letterpress printing. Set comes with 30 elegant square flap envelopes. Envelopes from HeartyGreetings are sourced from high quality vendors and selected on the basis of great color, beautiful design, and high performance. Want an envelope upgrade? Click here to purchase letterpress printed envelopes with your return address: https://www.etsy.com/listing/977708431 Interested in larger quantities of notecards? Let me know, I would be happy to accommodate your stationery needs! ______________________________________ DETAILS & DIMENSIONS Stationery pieces are printed as flat, not folded cards. The cards measure 4.25" x 5.5," standard A2 card size. ______________________________________ STORAGE & SHIPPING Set comes packed in two stationery boxes for protective storage, 15 stationery cards and envelopes are packed in each box. Price includes free domestic priority shipping. Average time to process custom orders is 2-5 business days. ______________________________________ CUSTOMERS ARE SAYING "Even better in person. They're almost too good that I don't want to send them. And the seller is great. Fast delivery and very communicative. Will definitely be ordering more. Thank you HeartyGreetings!" "I love them!!!! I should have ordered a second set!" "Gorgeous! Lovely paper and printing! Thank you so much, could not be happier. :)" ______________________________________ SIMILAR LISTINGS Curious to see a few more custom letterpress stationery options offered from HeartyGreetings? https://www.etsy.com/listing/955869362 https://www.etsy.com/listing/955835550 https://www.etsy.com/listing/585117474 ______________________________________ QUESTIONS? Contact me! I'd be happy to answer them:) ______________________________________ THANK YOU Just for fun (and the love of paper goods!) Each order comes with a small bonus surprise to thank you for your support and shopping small.
So, what have I been up to in the past few weeks? Well . . . Firstly, my Golding Pearl O.S. Model 3 has a new owner, and now resides in the beautiful Commonwealth of Virginia. The new owner is Emily. I've also been doing some stand-in bindery work at Mama's Sauce, holding the fort while a couple of the guys go off, get married and go on their respective honeymoons. Gives me a chance to get up front and personal with their 12 x 18 Kluge. It's been a lot of fun working with Joey, Hogan and the Brookster. Keep an eye out for a new friend and former student of mine (work-shop student, that is!) Isabel, with 9th Letter Press, of Winter Park. Isabel has a lot of talent, and it will be great to see her work go 'main stream', especially in the Winter Park Rolling College / Park Avenue area. I will be posting a link to her site soon. I've also been working on my new web site. I have added some flash pages, which are serving as portfolio viewers. The nice thing about these flash sub-programs is that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, what does that make ten pictures? So far, I have my main portfolio page done, with an active link to my business card portfolio page. Soon to be active will be a Wedding Stationery page, a Coaster page, and a general Ephemera page. Check them out, tell me what you think! Also, what do you think of my sorta-kinda Logo? It reminds me a bit of some of the wood cut stylings of 16th Century Bayern (Bavaria, where I lived as a pre-teen) - so I took the liberty of using a German Blackletter font, and inscribing "Kunsthandwerk", which means Cultural or Artistic or Artisan Hand Work, and "Feindruckerei", or Fine Press / Printing. It's a tip of the hat to my own German heritage. And, after all, it were the Germans who gave the Western World Letterpress. Direct from the Electorate of Mainz, by way of Strasbourg. In a short time, Nuremberg became the Printing Capitol of the Western World. Besides, I love Blackletter "Textur" and "Fraktur". Reminds me of another place I lived: Valley Forge, not far from the Schwenkfelder and Amish communities. One last thing: my Dell D620 lost image on it's screen. I think I have it traced to the LCD inverter. Ordered a new one, hopefully that will get me up and going. While I do have a Mac desk-top for CS4, I do a huge bulk of my designing with good ol' FreeHand MX, on a PC. So, since my Lap Top is my PC, it's pretty important that I get it going again. Fortunately, the video card is good, and I can run an external monitor so I can see what I am typing right here and now. But it's a pain being docked to a terminal. If the inverter does not work, then I'm replacing the LCD and cabling as well. While it's costing me a bit to order new parts, it is still cheaper than having someone else do this - or purchasing a new Lap top! I have a wedding order coming up soon, and I will post photos as I print it. That's it for now. -gary.
The Thank You Letterpress Box includes three Big Thanks cards and three Lemon cards with matching envelopes. Everyone gets a card! These cards are letterpress printed by me in Chicago, IL. Printed on soft and study 100% cotton paper. Hand fed on a Chandler and Price Old Style press. A2 cards measure 4.25" x 5.5" closed. This card set is shipped in a paper craft box with an open window.
Why do you make Hornbooks? Largely because I'm a history student. Hornbooks represent America's first school text "books". Long before the Battledore, the Chap Book, the McGuffy Reader - there was the Hornbook. The tradition came over from Old World Europe, where these devices date to the middle ages. They represent Old World artisan-ship from a time when things were made by hand, one at a time. Are your Hornbooks for sale? Yes. While usually a "batch", or production run is the result of an order or several orders, there are usually some left over which are available. If enough orders are requested, I'll double the batch. More than likely sixteen would be about the maximum number that I can produce at one "run". That would represent about two weeks production time. All Hornbooks are priced at $35.00 plus $5.35 for shipping. (Price updated 11.3.2013 due to increase cost and Flat Rate shipping.) Orders can be placed by posting an e-mail to me at: [email protected] Pmt can be made by personal check or PayPal. Please note that PayPal incurs a $2.00 charge for use of their service, thus total for Hornbook and shipping via PayPal is $42.35 (update 9/27/2014: Coming Soon! look for Hornbooks to be offered from Paper Wren Press' Etsy Shop! These will be linked from our website at www.paperwrenpress.com ) Are your Hornbooks a specific copy of any particular specimen? No. The local printers of the 1600's or 1700s - printers did not proliferate in the Americas until the very early 1700s - followed a familiar Old World pattern which was traditionally used. It was more of a format with variations unique to each printing house, and dependend upon what "founts" and cuts were available to them. Almost all followed the tradition of the "Criss Cross", the "Cross Row" of the lower case alphabet. Most started the lower case row with the cross and upper case A, followed by the lower case alphabet. Nearly all utilised the Exorcism ('in the Name of the Father . . .' ) and the Lord's Prayer. The fonts used, point size, the types of crosses or the number of crosses varied. Some used borders, some did not. If I were a printer in 1730, and I was asked to print a few Hornbook pages for the local artisans cutting the wood and heating the horn, these are what I would have produced, proudly displaying the brand new Caslon faces from England. I probably would not have had a superabundance of type available, so I would have distributed the type back into their cases when I was done. So the next time I was asked, the Hornbook would have looked a little different. Photos of originals show a sort of frame around the printed sheet on most Hornbooks. Why is that? Yes, and you'll notice mine do not. Those old Hornbooks actually used animal horn as a protective covering for the printed page affixed to the board. This thin piece of heated, smoothed and cut horn was held in place by what was usually a lead frame. There are two issues here: the lead and the horn. You might note from the photos on line and in books that the horn is usually missing. Or very deteriorated. Horn is organic and is subject to rot. I chose not to use a frame simply because of the modern day fear of lead. Especially since these Hornbooks may - as their predecessors - find their way into the hands of kids. Museum or private gift shops may have a problem with the use of lead, too. I opted instead to use another form of protection which, though not as ancient as cut horn, still goes back about a century and a half: decoupage. There are several techniques used for this process, originally layers of varnish which were dried and sanded. I use a water based sealant, each thin layer polished with steel wool, the last coating cured for a few days, then sanded and polished by steel wool. The water based sealant does not adversely affect the paper, and is extremely durable. This last batch utilised copper tacks to hold the paper in place. There are examples of Hornbooks that do not use frames, thus the use of frames to hold the horn was not universal. Personally, I think the Hornbook looks better without a frame, which tended too be too large for the diminutive size of the book itself. Who buys Hornbooks these days? So far, it's been a matter of letting folks know what a Hornbook even is! What used to be a ubiquitous part of childhood has now slipped from social memory. So far, Museums, folks who like Colonial and Early American accents for their homes, Home Schoolers and some private schools have been interested or have placed orders. Although, admittedly, I don't ask. But the niche market I am aiming at would be the above. The gift shop attached to the Oldest Schoolhouse in Old St. Augustine, Fl. has expressed interest in carrying these Hornbooks. Thus, as folks become aware of the Hornbook, I suspect more folks may wish to have one. The chalk-and-slate board of your great grandfather would have been the "Hornbook" of it's era. Both carry the same early schooltime aura and legacy. Heh, just thinking about it, I used a slate and chalk pencils made by Pelikan when I went to primary school in Germany in the middle 1960s! The slate was ruled on one side, quadrille on the other. That's where I got my history-streak! Hope this page has been a little more point specific and helpful. Good Providence in all your endeavours! -gary
Sharing the letterpress stationery designers I love, from the colorful and maximalist to elegant and timeless.
From our "My Sons" series: No. 1 Korean Vase Pattern. in A hand-drawn floral design, based on a celadon vase from Korea, is letterpressed in cool grey with splashes of dark red on soft pillowy cotton stock. Rich and detailed, these cards a a delight to touch and send. Blank inside. The "My Sons" card series is a tribute to my two beautiful children, adopted from Korea and Pakistan. There are four hand-drawn designs, inspired by the vivid and gorgeous images from each of their countries. 20% of card profits goes to international orphan care. Letterpress printed in two colors: grey and red. The card is printed on 100% white cotton stock (made in the USA from reclaimed material), and comes with a recycled envelope (red). One card and one envelope. The card size is A2(folded) - 4.25" by 5.5". Cards are packaged in a biodegradable clear sleeve for safe travel.
So, what have I been up to in the past few weeks? Well . . . Firstly, my Golding Pearl O.S. Model 3 has a new owner, and now resides in the beautiful Commonwealth of Virginia. The new owner is Emily. I've also been doing some stand-in bindery work at Mama's Sauce, holding the fort while a couple of the guys go off, get married and go on their respective honeymoons. Gives me a chance to get up front and personal with their 12 x 18 Kluge. It's been a lot of fun working with Joey, Hogan and the Brookster. Keep an eye out for a new friend and former student of mine (work-shop student, that is!) Isabel, with 9th Letter Press, of Winter Park. Isabel has a lot of talent, and it will be great to see her work go 'main stream', especially in the Winter Park Rolling College / Park Avenue area. I will be posting a link to her site soon. I've also been working on my new web site. I have added some flash pages, which are serving as portfolio viewers. The nice thing about these flash sub-programs is that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, what does that make ten pictures? So far, I have my main portfolio page done, with an active link to my business card portfolio page. Soon to be active will be a Wedding Stationery page, a Coaster page, and a general Ephemera page. Check them out, tell me what you think! Also, what do you think of my sorta-kinda Logo? It reminds me a bit of some of the wood cut stylings of 16th Century Bayern (Bavaria, where I lived as a pre-teen) - so I took the liberty of using a German Blackletter font, and inscribing "Kunsthandwerk", which means Cultural or Artistic or Artisan Hand Work, and "Feindruckerei", or Fine Press / Printing. It's a tip of the hat to my own German heritage. And, after all, it were the Germans who gave the Western World Letterpress. Direct from the Electorate of Mainz, by way of Strasbourg. In a short time, Nuremberg became the Printing Capitol of the Western World. Besides, I love Blackletter "Textur" and "Fraktur". Reminds me of another place I lived: Valley Forge, not far from the Schwenkfelder and Amish communities. One last thing: my Dell D620 lost image on it's screen. I think I have it traced to the LCD inverter. Ordered a new one, hopefully that will get me up and going. While I do have a Mac desk-top for CS4, I do a huge bulk of my designing with good ol' FreeHand MX, on a PC. So, since my Lap Top is my PC, it's pretty important that I get it going again. Fortunately, the video card is good, and I can run an external monitor so I can see what I am typing right here and now. But it's a pain being docked to a terminal. If the inverter does not work, then I'm replacing the LCD and cabling as well. While it's costing me a bit to order new parts, it is still cheaper than having someone else do this - or purchasing a new Lap top! I have a wedding order coming up soon, and I will post photos as I print it. That's it for now. -gary.
From Igloo Letterpress in Worthington, Ohio As a modern letterpress printer, Igloo thrives on pushing the envelope and experimenting with the best of digital and analog techniques in their custom printing projects. Folded A2 greeting card with blank interior. Letterpress printed on 100# cover weight paper.
The finished product! Turned out better than we, the staff at Q5 dared hope! So, while we're all slapping each other on the back and lighting each others' celebratory Black & Milds (wood tipped for that extra dose of erudition), let's take a look at some of the distinctions that make Letterpress and Drink Coasters such as these unique. For one thing, most beer-mats and other pulpwood compressed fibre coasters are printed offset and die cut. Great for speed and maybe even keeping costs down to a dull roar, but the surface of the product remains boringly flat. And while the mass produced coasters may have four and five colour process, those colours tend to be less than striking. Oh, don't get me wrong, as a huge fan of Beer Coaster art, I've seen wonderful coaster designs, but very, very few that rise to the level of "striking". With Letterpress Typography, there is a visceral contact of the metal plate against the printed surface, particularly with pulp coasters. This contact pressure leaves an emboss which is not only visible and touchable . . . but quite aesthetically pleasing to behold. Note the wood engraving which is the central image has recessed, or "sunk" into the coaster. The brown circle is debossed into the coaster as well, leaving the letters to "rise", or emboss. You don't get that with mass produced offset products. And for you other letterpress printers, note that the pressures needed to produce these effects with coaster stock is in no way unusual or dangerous to the press or dies. Coaster stock is fairly soft and gives. I never stress my presses! Here's the other coaster. The coaster is correctly positioned straight up: the balloon is at an angle because it is in flight. The detail of the engraving is superb, all the way down to the weave of the basket of the gondola, the sandbags, and the pilot pointing down to the earth below. These dies are the excellent work of our partners in crime, Owosso Graphics, the exclusive plate and die makers for Q5. Join us in viewing the final wrap-up video of "The Run". From makeready to stacking the finished product for overnight drying, this project took about eighteen consecutive hours to print. As you view the video, you will note that the impression is taken every second cycle of the press, that is, you will see the "clamshell" platen close twice for every one inked impression. This is called "Double Rolling", and is a technique used to provide superior spread of ink over large, unbroken areas of colour such as the colour ring of the coaster. This, effectively, doubles the printing time. I might note at this time that the brown ink is of particular note. It was purchased in quarter pound tubes from the Kelsey Company in 1980. The ink is thirty years old! It was as fresh as if it were brand new. The colour was a deep, rich chocolate. I couldn't have asked for better. And rest assured, my future ink purchases will be in tubes! A thirty year old tube of Kelsey Brown Oil Based Ink. The music that you will hear in the background of the video is from Beirut (the band, not the Country!) - part of the music line-up in the Shop, including Ingrid Michelson, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Tallest Man on Earth, Band Marino, etc. . . . we're an "Indie" shop, after all! Well, that's about it for now. Hope you've enjoyed going over the Coaster Project half as much as we've enjoyed making them. And note that Q5 can make these for order as well. Interested parties should contact gary, chief cook & bottle-washer at: [email protected] Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours! -gary. --.- // .....
So, what have I been up to in the past few weeks? Well . . . Firstly, my Golding Pearl O.S. Model 3 has a new owner, and now resides in the beautiful Commonwealth of Virginia. The new owner is Emily. I've also been doing some stand-in bindery work at Mama's Sauce, holding the fort while a couple of the guys go off, get married and go on their respective honeymoons. Gives me a chance to get up front and personal with their 12 x 18 Kluge. It's been a lot of fun working with Joey, Hogan and the Brookster. Keep an eye out for a new friend and former student of mine (work-shop student, that is!) Isabel, with 9th Letter Press, of Winter Park. Isabel has a lot of talent, and it will be great to see her work go 'main stream', especially in the Winter Park Rolling College / Park Avenue area. I will be posting a link to her site soon. I've also been working on my new web site. I have added some flash pages, which are serving as portfolio viewers. The nice thing about these flash sub-programs is that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, what does that make ten pictures? So far, I have my main portfolio page done, with an active link to my business card portfolio page. Soon to be active will be a Wedding Stationery page, a Coaster page, and a general Ephemera page. Check them out, tell me what you think! Also, what do you think of my sorta-kinda Logo? It reminds me a bit of some of the wood cut stylings of 16th Century Bayern (Bavaria, where I lived as a pre-teen) - so I took the liberty of using a German Blackletter font, and inscribing "Kunsthandwerk", which means Cultural or Artistic or Artisan Hand Work, and "Feindruckerei", or Fine Press / Printing. It's a tip of the hat to my own German heritage. And, after all, it were the Germans who gave the Western World Letterpress. Direct from the Electorate of Mainz, by way of Strasbourg. In a short time, Nuremberg became the Printing Capitol of the Western World. Besides, I love Blackletter "Textur" and "Fraktur". Reminds me of another place I lived: Valley Forge, not far from the Schwenkfelder and Amish communities. One last thing: my Dell D620 lost image on it's screen. I think I have it traced to the LCD inverter. Ordered a new one, hopefully that will get me up and going. While I do have a Mac desk-top for CS4, I do a huge bulk of my designing with good ol' FreeHand MX, on a PC. So, since my Lap Top is my PC, it's pretty important that I get it going again. Fortunately, the video card is good, and I can run an external monitor so I can see what I am typing right here and now. But it's a pain being docked to a terminal. If the inverter does not work, then I'm replacing the LCD and cabling as well. While it's costing me a bit to order new parts, it is still cheaper than having someone else do this - or purchasing a new Lap top! I have a wedding order coming up soon, and I will post photos as I print it. That's it for now. -gary.
Pat Farley of Farley Designs shares some at-home L Letterpress printing tips and techniques. Check out these L Letterpress tips to improve your printing!
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Angela Welch has been creating awesome calligraphy for people all over the world. She is the closest thing to a "Zanerian" that I know, that is: she handles the pointed Spencerian pen with a competency that is outstanding. Little wonder that she's created designs for Crane & Co., for international clientele, and has even found herself working at her Art in the presence of the Vatican Guard! (that's another story.) When she asked me to print her Wedding Stationery designs for her client Mandy, I fairly jumped at the opportunity. This order called for an A7 invitation with envelope liner, including a printed return address, and a 4-Bar sized RSVP with printed address on it's envelope. Stock selected was #110 Ecru Lettra. Four magnesium dies were involved, and about two solid weeks working with the copy. Angela sent scans of her work, which which were perfect. The challenge, however, is to take that file and make an intelligible "black file" for plating. This is where the raster file is converted to a vector file for sizing, and is the file the Plate & Die maker uses to create the letterpress die from. Being a calligrapher myself, I have a pretty good idea how the finished product is supposed to look like. The challenge is to preserve the look of a hand-executed piece. This involves paying close attention to the thick and thin strokes. A great looking 'thin' that will impress into open fiber stock and leave a great line may turn out to make the thicker strokes too heavy. Backing off the thicker strokes may cause the thin lines in the flourishes to break up, or become too thin. Sometimes I have to go into the original raster scan and physically edit the thin or thick so the vector 'engine' can plot a course that makes sense and leaves the line the way I want it. And when the copy originates from a hand drawn line on proper paper that draws ink from the pen for a well executed piece, sometimes the macro-close up nature of a scan can make what appears to be a smooth line. . . pretty rough. Enough to confuse the vector plotting. Needless to say, it was a challenge, and the end product was worth the effort! We held a very delicate thin line, and a healthy thick downstroke. The most important thing was that the dies conveyed a great impression into open fiber stock that left a nice deboss, yet retained the hand-wrought calligraphic look. The printing was accomplished on my 1936 New Series C&P, moderate hard packing, and I got to use my brand new Megill adjustable gauge pins! Man, talk about easy set up. The only thing that really took time were the 4-Bar envelopes. I had to place a card-stock insert into each envelope to avoid the effects of the glued envelope seams on the back of the envelope. These seams can interfere with the impression and create unwanted darks, lights, and complete misses because to a Platen Job Press, envelopes never lie flat. There are variously thicker in some spots, thinner in others depending where the rear seams are placed. Here is a shot of the mid-run. Aren't those gauge pins pretty? They screw down very tightly, thus eliminating the need to tape or drip wax or hot glue or any other added method of locking the gauge pins into place once set. This shot was taken from the take-up pile. One thing about feeding envelopes: definitely a hand-fed job. Here's the finished grouping, with the RSVP envelopes on the left, Invites in three piles, and RSVPs in two and a quarter piles. Here's the rear flap of the AS envelope. The colour of the envelope is Ecru, but it was shot using a 6500k flourescent bulb, which tends to make Ecru look more like Pearl White! This is the pre-addressed 4-Bar envelop for the return cards. A bit of a close-up of the envelope. The RSVP card. A macro shot of the RSVP I love the Flourishes on these cards. Angela is great at determining when enough is . . . enough! Here is the five by seven inch invitation And here is the whole set, minus the 'inner' A7 envelope. Well, that's what's new here at G. Johanson, Letterpress. Stay tuned for more entries coming up. Good Providence in ALL your Letterpress projects. -gary.
communion is a proprietary initiative of papo letterpress. Its interests address the expressive typographic commemoration of life events. Perhaps certain moments require a greater degree of celebration, therefore this portfolio endeavors to cherish these resonant experiences through a form of typographic jubilation and ceremony.
