Letterpress Central Open House

We are having an open house at Letterpress Central on April 21 from 10 - 2 pm. 

Come join us--you can make a print and have a snack!

Mike decided to make some signs using our enormous sign press. Great chance to use some super large wood type. The sheets he printed are 22 x 30 and the 3 signs almost cover an 8 foot table! 

Gary and I worked on the invites that would be mailed. We could have done a polymer plate but decided to do all hand-set metal type and ornaments. Then of course, I forgot to photograph the lock up. Hand-set type lock ups are almost a work of art by themselves. So much more interesting than polymer plates. We have such an amazing collection of old typefaces and ornaments that it can be hard to choose! We ended up with a reverse Gill, Trylon shaded, Brody, Packard and a french typeface - Le Moreau where the nick is upside down and it totally confused us!

 Wonder if the color of the clothes influence the ink color? Hmmm.....

We printed envelopes in three fun colors, chartreuse, aqua and kraft. I think I like printing envelopes as much as the invites because it is such fun to get surprising mail!

Photos from the Type Truck Event

We were overseeing the printing on the Vandercook at ASU for the type truck event so we didn't get out and about enough to take many photos.

 Lots of AIGA members attended!

There were so many people in ASU's type shop, it was like Grand Central Station. The vandy kept printing all night!

We loved seeing everyone wearing our printers hats! Made printing and folding the hundreds of them all worth it.  So cool!

 Wish we could have had a chance to talk with Kyle more about her Type Truck Adventures but there was a line outside her truck the whole time!

 I think this is my favorite sign of all time "This is not a Taco Truck". My friend Lisa bought one and is putting in her kitchen!

I did sneak in to say "Hi" for a second and buy some of her prints.  

That gal has really been all over the country in the type truck! Amazing! Check out http://type-truck.com/

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Printing Printers Hats

So in celebration of the Type Truck coming to town, I got the hair-brained idea that it would be so fun to print "pressmen" hats as a keepsake. Now mind you, I had to teach myself how to fold one first then figure how to print it. I found the instructions here.

I did a number of mock-ups on a variety of paper starting with newsprint. These hats are seriously complicated to fold. The first thing I found out was that newspapers have not only shrunk but totally changed in size!

After much trial an error, we decided to go with kraft paper because it stiffer than newsprint and would hold its shape better.


It took a bit of convincing Mike and Gary that this was a fun idea and I agreed to do the folding along with the team printing. Well, we all did the printing and while I started all the folding, it became a team effort because 200 hats is a lot of hats to fold!






Here's a shot of the first run drying. We printed the back band, color band of ornaments and a colophon inside.

Below is a sample of the finished hats. I need to shoot a closeup of the back band because Mike found a great quote by Roland Tiangco that we printed. "The future belongs to the few of us still willing to get our hands dirty."

Mike said that these are the most printed pressman's hat ever. He's probably right, we went a little crazy!

Vintage Letterpress Look

My pal Lisa and went thrift store rummaging a few weeks ago and we scored some fun vintage items with letterpress imagery on the covers.

 This is what letterpress can be like BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS!!! Oh so true..well sometimes a project can be a bit maddening.  Gosh I remember my dad playing this album when I was a kid. It has really great songs on it.

The backside is set in metal type. So fun!  I need to get a turntable because the album is pristine! I knew we shouldn't have sold ours 10 years ago at a garage sale. Isn't that always the way?  Look out when we find a turntable--we can sing our lungs out while printing!

The next item we found is a kid's spelling book with painted wood type one the cover. It's from the 70's and obviously before photoshop. So cool.

Hello Again!

Hello there! It has been a while since we blogged because we have been moving into our new space. Elliot our tortie really likes the yard (the space is a former daycare site).

He has figured out how to go under the interior fence. Although he won't be able to do it much longer as he is growing so rapidly.

The other thing  Elliot has figured out is that he likes to come into the building and cruise around the letterpress shop.

At least he could do is help us unpack!

Our Katazome Papers - December Instyle Magazine

We are very excited to see our Katazome papers featured in InStyle Magazine's December Issue!

We love that the papers they selected were inspired by fashion! The katazome papers really wonderfully graphic and make such an impact. You can click on the link to see more styles of our katazome papers.

What a cool way to step up your gift wrapping and make it totally customized! 

Combat Papermaker & Pulp Pedaling

I met Drew Cameron with the Combat Paper Project at the LA Printer's Fair a couple of weeks ago while he was doing a papermaking demo. I kept missing connecting paths with the Drews (Cameron and Matott) for the past several years. These guys have a really interesting project.

The Combat Paper Project uses papermaking workshops to assist veterans in reconciling and sharing their personal experiences as well as broadening the traditional narrative surrounding service and the military culture. Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences in the military.

Drew was demonstrating basic papermaking for folks at the printer's fair. He had the most amazing set up for beating pulp utilizing bicycle pedal power to beat the fiber.

Could this be a greenest method of energy? And it keeps you fit, how awesome!

Having a portable beater is really fabulous especially for these guys who work with veterans all over the country and travel all over the world.

The Combat Paper Project does lectures, exhibitions and workshops across the country. Check our their tour schedule and go see them in person!



Got a pencil?

Goodness knows we love all kinds of alphabets and letters and working in letterpress we work with a lot of lead type. Well here's a lead alphabet of a different nature--a graphite nature! How cool is that? 

Dalton Ghetti is a talented artist who creates micro sculptures out of pencil leads.

I guess folks have been blogging about him for years but I just recently came across his work.

The level of detail is amazing. I love he incorporates the wooden handled saw into the wood of the pencil.

Google Dalton Ghetti's name to see more of his awesome work! It is all over the web. Now you will think twice about throwing out those old pencils, won't you?

Hamilton Wood Type - Cool Never Fades

Of course we are all gaga about wood type. I love the way it looks, feels and prints  -  imperfections, dings and all .  I was interested when I heard Target had partnered with the Hamilton Wood Type Museum to design some of their fall clothing. Here's a cool video about the project.

I  got Gary a couple of the wood type inspired shirts for his birthday. This ochre one is my favorite. I love the western wood type in blue!

We just listed several sets of wood letterpress type for sale so click here if you want to get some for your letterpress shop!

 NOTE: the letterpress wood type sets we listed on August 16th have all SOLD.

We may be listing more type in the future, so check back with our site. Thanks!



Lovely Invites According to Carey

We got a nice note from Carey with According to Carey about our fabulous Japanese papers.

Carey also shows you an inspiration board that helped her with the Japanese themed decorations for her event.

Check out her site to see the wonderful invites she created. Thanks Carey!

Elliot is NOT a Desert Tortiose!

Well, we were a bit shocked to learn that Elliot is not a desert tortoise. He's an African Sulcata Tortoise which is the 3rd largest tortoise in the world. Gasp!

Elliot emerging in the morning from his rosemary turtle cave. He warms himself in this pose for about 20 minutes every morning.

I kept reading about desert tortoises and thought that Elliot's legs looked so different than all the images I was seeing. What are those pointy things on his front legs? (they are scales)

Thank goodness for google images. I finally found a site called The Sulcata Station and emailed a photo of Elliot to them. Yep, that is what he is, they confirmed. Once Gary and I got over the shock that this tortoise is going to be over 100lbs and live 80-100 years we've been working on getting things set up for Elliot before he gets too large! He definitely has a voracious appetite. We are working on switching him to Bermuda grass hay--it is a slow process. Because he was raised on mixed greens.

May I help you?

Elliot likes to hang out most of the afternoon snoozing by the front door. It is so funny to see a tortoise at your front door staring in. He mostly likes to watch the kitties. He's a really friendly tortoise and follows you like a dog. My father-in-law thinks it is the funniest thing to watch him come when you call him.

Such cute elephant-type back leggies. Definitely a creature of habit. Retiring to the rosemary bush turtle cave around 4:00 pm.

Amazing Underwater Sculpture

My dad sent me the link to the most amazing underwater sculpture site by Jason deCaires Taylor. His work is installed all over the world and he is currently founder and Artistic Director of the Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA) in Cancun, Mexico. Taylor is a classically trained sculptor and certified scuba diver instructor. He blends his talents amazingly!
Taylor creates artificial reefs from materials that are durable, secure and environmentally sensitive. These reefs appear to have been successful in that they have attracted coral growth which, in turn, can support an entire marine ecosystem.
This installation is called Silent Evolution and is installed in Mexico and this is only a tiny glimpse of the 400 life-size statues in the installation. He has a great slide show on his site.
The installation below is titled the Garden of Hope. It is also installed in Mexico.
Really fascinating to see how the coral grows and the installation evolves.
The short film below that is visually sumptuous! In the second part gives you a glimpse of his process.