Special delivery

I recently had the pleasure of making some beautiful stationery for a girl in Reno. The person ordering the stationery lives in Las Vegas. The stationery was a gift and needed some tender loving on the way out the door.

First a little card for the receiver:

And then, a little envelope:

What could be inside this wonderful package?

O wow! What lovely stationery!

Front and back, what a lovely design.

Wonderful detail

Matt designed these for Emily and sent the files over my way. After converting them to blocks, I printed up this fine stationery. Voila. Beautiful.

New addition!

The Iron Curtain Press is now the proud owner of it's very own paper cutter! I couldn't be more excited about this hunk of iron. It is absolutely gorgeous, and cuts through paper as if by magic.

Can you even believe how awesome the shop just got? I'm stoked.

Old block

A while ago, an interesting question came through. Some previous customers had an old block they wanted to try printing with but hadn't had success with the first printer they tried. My understanding is that they didn't have the ability to letterpress print in this specific shop and therefore didn't know what to do with said block. They sent me a picture first. And then they sent me the actual block second so I could take it for a whirl on the press. It printed beautifully. We ended up making some really classy stationery. I'd love to know the story behind the block - all I know now is that it's been in the family for ages. Pretty neat.

    The block

    The back

    I love return address printed on the back flap.

Do you have an old block laying about your house collecting dust that you'd like to turn into a beautiful piece of art? Let me know, I'd love to help.

Ink mixing

One aspect of letterpress printing I love is the many different parts of your brain you must use in a day to complete a project. Some time is spent in the high focus intensity of type-setting, some time is spent in the repetitive motion of printing, other times you spend a while fiddling with the lock-up and placement on the press. And still other time is spent on the mind-bending task of mixing ink to very specific matches.

When I was in school, to fulfill a basic degree requirement, I took a class entitled 'Physics of Light and Color'. Sounds like a great class, right? Well, I spent most of the quarter cowering in the corner, afraid of the trigonometry problems associated with the science behind how light bends and how pin-hole cameras work. True, our labs were pretty neat. We got to experiment with light gels, and mix ink and stuff like that, but unfortunately, we also had to explain our findings with math more complicated than basic addition. Not my favorite.

Well, I still can't explain the math behind how light and color works, but I can say with confidence that I love mixing ink and have become (ahem!) quite good at it.

I recently had the pleasure of working on some neat wedding invitations. The bride and groom gave me a piece of paper and a piece of ribbon to match the ink to. My work was cut out for me!

And, I'd say, it turned out pretty great. Pictures of the actual invitations coming soon!

Diversions

The apprentice and I go to the post office:

Seattlites!

Get thee to Assemble Gallery in the Phinney/Greenwood area. Special items from The Iron Curtain Press can now be found at this amazing shop.

I'm excited about working with these lovely ladies. I am also excited about their amazing schedule of classes - they look awesome.

Typeface

This evening I had the distinct pleasure of viewing the documentary Typeface at the Northwest Film Forum.

The film sort of tells the story of the history of wood type in relation to Hamilton Manufacturing Co., the largest wood type manufacturer in the US back in the heyday of wood type.  It also sort of shows the current state of the original manufacturing shop which has been turned into Hamilton Wood Type Museum. It shows who some of the letterpress enthusiasts in the general area are (uh, 250 mile radius) and why they care about the museum. My favorite part: The 83-year-olds who still volunteer occasionally to carve wood type. They are so cute. And they seriously are the last people who know how to do what they do. Whoa.

The film ended on a pretty depressing note. There are buckets in the middle of the floor to catch water dripping from the ceiling. The guy running the museum quits to pursue other artistic endeavors. Not very many people come to the museum. The museum is supported by ice cream sales from next door. Luckily for us (those of us in the audience, that is!), the new director of the museum flew out for the screening of the film and was there to tell us about the current state of affairs - it seems that things are really looking up! They're creating letterpress art using the old blocks and are able to sell them. They are training fresh blood to carve type in the hopes that they could begin selling sets of fonts again. They are arranging classes and exhibitions.  How exciting.

As a lover and appreciator of typography, it was really neat to see the process of carving the old wood letters - from trimming the wood perfectly type-high, to cutting out the shape of the letter using a router, and then trimming the letter by hand. As a lover of rural/small town life, it made me want to move to somewhere small town and rural-y. As a lover of obscure things, it made me want to move to Twin Falls, Wisconsin and learn how to carve wood type myself.