Filed under: BirdDog Press, Friends, Letterpress | Tags: Asbern, Boxcar Press, Concert for Cash, Denver, Genghis Kern, hand set type, show poster
Another hopeful foreshadowing as 2010 gets underway, the design for Denver’s 3rd Annual Concert for Cash {get your tix here} poster will require hand-setting 54 vintage wood type letters and 168 lead type characters. Along with the process of placing each letter one-by-one, the poster layout will require an on-the-fly design modification and the shifting of multiple pieces of wood called reglets & furniture to achieve the desired placement of each element, which is a departure from my typical day of printing with only photopolymer and a Boxcar base. Genghis Kern has graciously offered his shop, his time and the use of his 1965 Asbern cylinder press {a German version of a Vandercook, if you will} for the project. Keeping my fingers crossed that Teri & Page {Cash’s Mama & Daddy} can come see the poster printing in action.
Filed under: BirdDog Press, Craft Biz, Friends, Inspirations | Tags: Blue Ribbon, Boxcar Press, Doodlespark, Enormous Champion, Loop, National Stationery Show, NSS, Smock, Sugarcube Press, SusyJack, Sweet Letterpress
Making connections at the National Stationery Show is easy. Pretty much everyone there has a love affair with paper, so right off the bat, you have something in common. Having just done some cupcake flags myself for a bride here in Boulder, I was immediately drawn to the petite patterns in these cupcake flags by Blue Ribbon.
The folks at Boxcar Press, where I get my photopolymer plates from, launched smock. just last year and had their calligrapher there showing their attention to every detail.
If I lived in New York, I would want to live in Brooklyn. I am trying to connect what seems to be an ever growing list of those creatives that I know there – and everyone I know in Brooklyn is creative. This frisky fox is from another couple team Enormous Champion – he’s on my to buy list.
It was great to meet the girl behind SusyJack, she has an interesting perspective on the stationery industry and I was thrilled to be able to personally thank her for her wisdom-filled writings on exhibiting at the show.
Learned of these vermonsters at my local coffee shop, and found this mother-daughter team all smiles exhibiting at the show. Beautiful hand-drawn patterns, now found on fabric, this is Loop.
Neighbors and printing buddies in nearby Boulder {though they are transplants from New York, so the show probably feels like coming home}, here are some offerings from Sweet Letterpress, yet another couple team.
And last, but not least, rounding out the sweetness, here’s Sugarcube Press! Turns out the designer’s sister-in-law lives in Lyons – what a coinkydink.
Filed under: BirdDog Press, Friends, Green, Letterpress | Tags: 40th birthday, Arch Paper, Boxcar Press, French Paper Company, green letterpress, Green Paper Company, invitation design, tin ceiling
Working on some great projects of late. This one for a 40th birthday at an unnamed underground speakeasy-ish place in NYC with tin ceilings, old leather couches and taxidermy o’ plenty. I ran with the tin ceiling aesthetic and tried to go both masculine and city chic, with a little underground grunge worked in for good measure. It may go down in history for the most runs on the press for such a small project, but it was worth the effort, the layering of patterns achieved the look I was going for.
Keeping things green, as we do here at the BirdDog Press, … the black paper is 100% recycled/acid free and is made by French Paper Co. a family-owned, hydro-electric powered mill. The white wrap is made from tree-free 100% post-consumer cotton at Arch Paper in St. Louis. The envelopes are my new favorite monarch size from Green Paper Company in 100%PCW/chlorine-free white. The photo-polymer plates we use were made by Boxcar Press and are recyclable. In short, we do our very best to source everything from environmentally responsible companies and think as sustainably as possible throughout every aspect of our process.
Filed under: BirdDog Press, Craft Biz | Tags: Boxcar Press, National Stationery Show, NSS
Be careful what you wish for! I have been home from NYC for a couple of weeks now and have had absolutely ZERO time to breathe. Busy is good, but this is just plain crazy. The good thing is, I am back in the rhythm with my trusty press again and loving it. Here is a photo of me on my press with my fancy Boxcar Press apron. I was recently featured on their blog, which is nice because they are an inspiring bunch whom I admire and I actually got to meet a couple of them at the Show – Hi Carol. Yay!
Filed under: BirdDog Press, Green, Handmaiden Papeterie, Inspirations, Letterpress, Life | Tags: Boxcar Press, Green, Letterpress
So, I have several blogs and I wasn’t quite sure where this one was going. I am inspired by so many things lately and I think this may be my most important blog, though I have been neglecting it the most, just like my sketchbook gets neglected as I spend more time on the computer. It is a bad habit. It is easy to post recent work on my BirdDog Press or Handmaiden Papeterie blogs. It is easy to take a photograph of my son’s daily adventures as a one-and-a-half year old. It is harder to get everything that I take in and process it for consumption online. I pledge to devote more time to my design blog and give a little more of myself to myself.
What am I inspired by today? Boxcar Press. They just launched a brand new website and I read almost the entire thing. I share their philosophy on so many levels and like to see them growing in an enviable direction. Thank you Boxcar for mastering and uplifting the historical craft of letterpress in this modern world with such care and passion.
