Announcing Dylan

I am ridiculously in love with this little bundle of pure joy. I'm probably going to be that crazy aunt that will try to teach letterpress to an infant, and the alphabet with woodtype. But for now I will just print my little heart out for him... because he can't say to me yet that it's so not cool. 

I designed and printed this announcement for my sister-in-law & her husband, (Hey Dani & Jay!) – the coolest parents on the block for sure! I used 10pt classic Bodoni in lead type for all the tiny text, mixed in with a little bit of woodtype (for Dylan), and added a modern twist with some polymer for the blind-embossed heart. You can read more about that process here. It takes lots of time, patience, love and a little OCD to handset type, and I'm starting to believe more and more that there is something extra special in the imperfection of it all... how the type seems to dance on the line. 

In any case, I'm really pleased with how they turned out. Maybe Dylan will print with me one day.

A Creative Fix

And so I was trying to do something nice for a group of people that are totally awesome! They work so hard to help out the community with their bicycle problems at Bike Sauce. They've set up shop with all the tools you'll ever need... and they teach you with complete patience how get your bicycle in complete working order, no matter how simple or challenging. Anyway Justin's been volunteering there on and off over the last year or two, getting his hands greasy and all. I'm not really all that good at that sort of thing and am totally the wrong person to be teaching people how to fix bicycles... so i thought I'll volunteer in my own way... by printing a much needed flyer for them.

Well as it turns out, I got the times wrong! BLAH! So I needed to come up with a good solution where I didn't need to reprint them ALL. So... I stole a wrench (that I totally plan on returning) from Bike Sauce and printed with it. I stuck it down to some furniture and placed a few sheets of boxboard underneath to raise it up enough to print. There was also a bit of trial and error with getting the ink to be the proper consistency for the metal. But anyway, I'm liking this design better than the original design. The wrench totally suits what they do, and good way to cover up my boo-boo. lol.  

Letterpress Workshops!

After a long time of humming and hawing over whether or not to run a letterpress workshop, I finally bit the bullet! If you haven't yet noticed I am running 3 workshops in July and August and I couldn't be more excited to do these! I have kept thinking about how much fun I had with Tanya at Snap & Tumble some 2 years ago at her tabletop letterpress workshop, and thought that why not spread the letterpress love around a bit more. So if you're interested in trying out printing on this gigantic vandercook letterpress, head on over HERE for information about when they are happening and how to sign up! Space is limited and the workshops are already 50% booked, so if you're interested let me know soon!

Over the last year I've had quite a few guinea pigs as my workshop test subjects, and am now totally comfortable explaining, demostrating and chatting about the in's and out's of letterpress with who-ever wants to. I'm hoping that I have all the kinks worked out now, but since these are the first 3 workshops I'm doing, I thought I'd throw in a pretty slammin' good deal for the lucky few that are part of the workshop launch.

Email me if you have any questions; hello@silverplatepress.com

Typesetting Announcements

I gotta say, Typesetters back in the day really did not get enough credit! To assemble line after line of tiny text to be printed for, say, a newspaper! Just imagine what life was like before the linotype! Before computers! It was a very different time, and I bet you there was a lot more eye-straining and amazing hand-eye coordination and dexterity. Those guys were rock stars!

Typesetting this small A7-sized announcement took me about 3 hours! Seriously! Just to get every line to be nice and tight and perfectly aligned really takes time, patience and a bit of obsessive-compulsiveness! There is still something so satisfying about completing a good lock up! Nothing moves, all the 10pt Bodoni Classic leadtype is nested in a safe little place, and ready for the press. At that point all I want to do was marvel at it. lol. 

These baby announcements have been a long time coming, and I totally didn't mean to procrastinate on these, especially since they are celebrating the birth of my own nephew! Do you ever find that the projects that are most personal to you, take the longest to figure out? I did about 10 different "polymer" designs, full of trains and balloons and all that other cute "baby" stuff... and they just didn't feel right.  We are celebrating the love we have for this sweet new life and I didn't want to "baby it up". Keeping it nice and clean with a simple design element is the way to go for me on this one. I'm adding a small (possibly blind embossed) design element that isn't included here. You'll just have to wait and see what it is though. lol. I'm hoping to print these over the next little while and I'll be sure to take some photos of the finished product! 

Have a great weekend everyone!