Buffalo Small Press Book Fair!

Save the date for March 19 and make plans to attend the 5th Annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair! The event is FREE and open to the public with workshops and tons of unique goods from small presses, book artists, poets, comic book artists, crafters and more.

This will be my second year participating and I can't wait!

For more information, visit http://www.buffalosmallpress.org/

New Letterpress Paper Site

Legion Paper just announced it's new web site for letterpress papers, www.letterpresspaper.com. The new site offers a nice selection of letterpress papers, custom cutting, a make you own paper option and a helpful knowledge base for beginners. Very cool Legion, very cool!

Ordination Invitations

Brother Abel needed custom invitations for his upcoming ordination and Rene Hoover Designs was happy to help! The cover art was created special to illustrate his background as a Franciscan Brother and tells a part of his personal story.

After the artwork was completed, all 400 invitations were letterpress printed on French Paper's Aged Parchtone and paired with ivory envelopes. The end result was both simple and elegant—just what the client wanted.

For me, projects like this are a lot of fun. They combine my two favorite parts of the job, concepting/designing graphics and letterpress printing. 

Hello from Buffalo!

Introducing the new Hello from Buffalo cards! These beauties began with hand lettering, which was then vectorized and made into a photopolymer plate. They'll be available in the Etsy shop soon along with some other fun new cards.

UBCON 2010

Greetings! Today is another exciting day for me as I prepare to head to this year's UBCON convention at the University of Buffalo. I'm thrilled to have a vendor table and will be selling stationary, greeting cards, coasters plus my newly screen printed Greeting Towels and Squee! Shirts.

Squee! Shirts 

Wish friends & family a happy Towel Day.

Leather...In a Platen Press

Recently a couple friends came to me with an interesting question.

“Can you letterpress a piece of leather?”

They wanted to make a small leather bound book as a gift and needed a way to print the cover. Honestly, screen printing would have been my first choice, but the idea of printing a piece of leather in my platen press was intriguing. After some thoughtful consideration, I was pretty sure we could make it work. So, the artwork was designed and a photopolymer plate was made.

A few days later we inked up the press and began the setup.

The leather we had was about an eighth of an inch think, pretty close to the thickness of a heavyweight paper coaster. But, we used a little more packing than I ordinarily do for coasters, since the leather was much softer.

Next we cut a piece of cardstock to the same dimensions as the leather and measured to get the placement for the photopolymer plate. I constructed a couple of paper gauge pins to hold the sheet of cardstock so we could adhere the plate to the Boxcar base. (Boxcar Press has a great video about gauge pins and registering photopolymer plates on their web site. Click here to watch!)

Before pulling the lever to attach our photopolymer plate, I used a sharpie marker to trace an outline of the cardstock onto the tympan paper. This was an important step because it allow as to register the position of the leather later on.

Tracing the measured sheet with a permanent marker.

So, after careful tracing, the lever was pulled the plate was adhered. We then printed a few dozen prints on cheap cardstock to make sure the press was well inked.

Test prints.

Next, the leather was draped over the platen, aligned to the sharpie outline and taped into place. (A piece of clean white cardstock was taped over the back of the platen, so the leather didn’t pick up any oil off the impression screws.)

The leather aligned with the marker lines and taped into place. The paper gauge pins are still there, but aren't really holding the leather.

I keep my press area as clean as possible, but always take extra precautions lest a little bit of oil ruin a perfectly fine print.

Finally it was time for our first leather print and our first mistake. The leather was so soft that it wanted to cling to the photopolymer plate and when we dropped the lever back, the leather became un-taped from the platen and was sucked through the rollers. Mistake made and lesson learned--when printing a soft, thick piece of leather, have someone hang onto the leather while the the platen is slowly dropped back.

This photo makes me cringe because it looks like my fingers are about to be crushed, but happily we’re opening, not closing, the press.

After cleaning the rollers and photopolymer plate, which had picked up a few pieces of chaff off the back of the leather, we re-inked the press and tried again. This time it went off without a hitch and it was time for the letterpress happy dance. Cha-cha-cha!

In the end we were really happy with the results and I’m thrilled to show off this photo off the completed cover.

Cheers!

Valentine's Day Card Fun

It's almost time for that most huggy-wuggy, smoochey-woochey of holidays...Valentine's Day! Which makes now a perfect time for me to show off the letterpress Lub cards available in the Etsy shop.

So, what is lub supposed to mean? Lub, as defined by the urban dictionary, is "a simple, cutesey and flirty word between like, luv and love."

I started seeing it a lot online and, the more I saw it, the more I began to like the combined letterforms of L, U and B. That led to some fun calligraphy exercises, which then developed into the final artwork for this card.

I hope you lub it as much as I do!

Type Camp

I have great news for everyone interested in letterpress, typography, design and books!

Type Camp has partnered with the WNYBAC to create a six-day event in Western New York. It's a hands-on workshop full of education, inspiration and field trips―including a trip to the Roycroft Press. You can read more about this and other type camps at http://typecamp.org.

New Year, New Cards

Happy New Year everyone! I'm looking forward to 2010 and hope you are too. There's something energizing about a new year. It's like 365 days of sparkling potential stretching out ahead.

And to start the new year off right―I've printed a fresh batch of snazzy, new business cards.

So, Cheers! to the new year! Let's all enjoy it well.

Holiday Cards and Coasters

Whew! It's been super busy in the design studio and print shop lately, but I wanted to make a quick post to announce my new holiday cards and coasters.

These cards and coasters feature original artwork and lettering that was drawn, scanned, vectorized and then made into a photopolymer plate for the letterpress. After the tree and greeting were printed, the ornaments were hand painted to add the prefect finishing touch. Below are a couple pictures of the work in progress.

The final hand-drawn lettering was scanned and cleaned up in Photoshop.

Each letter was then redrawn as vector art.

A photopolymer plate was made from the vector files. Above is the finished plate ready to be inked and printed.

And there you have it, a peek at how my cards go from sketch to letterpress!

Ding and Happy Birthday

Whoot! Announcing two new cards now for sale in my Etsy Shop, Happy Birthday and Ding*. I'm super happy with how these turned out.

Both cards are three color and printed on ecru Lettra with a bright, sassy, yellow envelope from French Paper. And yes, that is a real cupcake next to the card. It's was a tasty fringe benefit. Mmmm...

*In case you're wondering Ding is the birthday card for my growing Geek-tionary line. (It's what online gamers say to one another when they've gained a level.)

In other news I'm pressing forward with this years holiday cards and should have some photos to post soon. Ciao!

New Greeting Cards & Note Cards Now Available

Happy Friday everyone! More letterpress greeting cards and note cards are now available in my Etsy Shop. This includes two new cards from what I lovingly refer to as my "geek-tionary" line, the "Cthank Cthu" card and "Lub" card.