Boxcar Talk With Isabel Ibanez

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Cathy

Boxcar Press sat down with Florida native and letterpress maven, Isabel Ibanez of 9th Letter Press, to talk about her first jobs, how it took one business card to change her life, and why she won’t back down from a good printing press find. 9th Letter Press plans to open up shop with a little shindig on October 27th, so if you’re in the Orlando area be sure to stop by!

THE NINE LEVELS OF ISABEL I’m a Floridian/Bolivian hybrid who graduated from the University of Central Florida with degrees in English + History. I like giant cups of pumpkin flavored coffee, tall stacks of books, and heading to the cinema on an all the time basis.

Many people have been asking the significance regarding the name of my company. Well, here it is: the 9th letter in the alphabet is the letter “i”. My first and last name both start with this letter and I was also born on April 9th. Nine has always been my number. Since I’m essentially starting a printing press business, I added “press” to the name as a play on what my company is and what my company uses to print. Voila!

BEAUTIFUL BEGINNINGS I was working for a magazine as an editorial assistant where I would often get to observe the design process. It seemed like modern day art to me. I left my writing gig in order to go back to school to study graphic design so I can learn a little more about “modern day art”. In my very first class, my teacher handed out business card samples and one of them happened to be letterpress.

The effect was instantaneous. I absolutely loved it. From there, I was very proactive with my education and got an internship and a mentor. Both helped me pave a way to starting my own printing shop.

SERENDIPITY IN THE SUNSHINE STATE Oh, man. I have something of a nostalgic personality and I knew I wanted my studio to reflect that. When it came down to searching for the perfect place, my heart was set on the Winter Park area. It’s quite charming and old school. Lots of brick roads, quaint houses built in the early 1900s and the like. Our studio is decorated in a turn of the century feel. I wanted to mix the aesthetics of old New York style + the industrial revolution, creating a space where Edith Wharton would feel like she could step in for tea. On top of that, I knew I wanted to make the printing process accessible to the public. Not many people get to see a letterpress in action. The layout in our studio has our press out in the open juxtaposing our retail section. A client could come in and see their project getting printed while drinking coffee and checking out our newest paper products.

PRINTING MENTORS I interned at Mama’s Sauce, and afterward was mentored by Gary Johanson. Both have been valuable experiences.

THE DREAM JOB I am the designer + printer. 9th Letter Press is my full time job, thank goodness.

PRESS HISTORY I first started out with a tabletop but quickly moved to getting a 10 x 15 Chandler & Price. I searched long and hard for the right press and finally found a C&P in Seattle. Of course, I wasn’t a huge fan of the zip code that press lived in. A C&P weighs 1800 pounds or some such, which made my stomach turn whenever I thought about how on earth I was going to move the C&P across the continental United States. But then by some miracle, Sheli (my partner in crime) and I found a C&P 15 minutes down the street from my house. The owner had been printing as a hobby and was looking to downsize from living on a paved street to living on a boat. The rest is something of a blur but within a week I was the owner of a C&P, the very press I had my heart set on!

PRINTING FEATS Honestly, I think my proudest moments have been recognizing that what I was doing wasn’t crazy. We all face a moment when we’re about to commit to something seemingly scary and we wonder for a minute if we’ve lost our minds. Was I really about to start a business in this economy? I never thought “working” could be so much fun. With each new thing that gets printed + designed and is well received by friends, blogs, retailers, etc., it further confirms that I’ve found my niche. I can’t believe I get to do what I do. I guess I wasn’t as crazy as I thought.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Boxcar is chock full of the nicest and most helpful people I’ve ever met. I can’t tell you how daunting it seemed to me to find a place where I could outsource my plates, buy ink, and receive excellent customer service. Boxcar has all that plus the added bonus of being super encouraging. Who doesn’t need a little pep talk here and there?

SHOP TIPS That timeless anecdote about no man being an island is completely true. Having a major role in so many areas in your business will take its toll, particularly if you’re wanting to go at it alone. There are resources everywhere, especially if you’re brave enough to ask for help. You’ll be surprised and moved by how much people are willing to give — whether it be proof reading an important email, hanging shelves, or packaging greeting cards, help looks like a lot of things and can come from anywhere. Just ask.

WHAT’S NEXT Growing up, I loved perusing the aisles of Barnes + Noble to see the newest journals, calendars, planners, and wrapping paper. 2013 will have me designing + printing some of my favorites things, and I couldn’t be happier to explore other paper products.

Extra heap of thanks to Isabel for letting us get a sneak peek over at the wonderful workings of 9th Letter Press!

Smudge Ink to host a holiday sale for the Boston Food Bank on November 1

Posted on October 24, 2012 by erica

Our friends at Smudge Ink are teaming up with Boston area vendors again this year for another Holiday Sip & Shop event! If you’re in the Boston area, visit Smudge on Thursday, November 1st from 4-8pm in their Charlestown shop for an evening of pre-holiday shopping, sipping and socializing. You’ll get the opportunity to purchase products from some great local companies, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Greater Boston Food Bank. We donated the photopolymer plates for the letterpress posters used to promote the event, and were so impressed with the final outcome!

Check out the photos below from the 2011 Smudge Sip & Shop event and don’t miss out on the fun!

Workspace Spotlight: Sargent Brothers Printers & Typographers

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

Before you enter Ben Sargent’s shop, you hear the bustling clamor of the Austin, Texas landscape. Cars, freight, and distant chatter of the Austin natives pound in your ears but once you step over the shop’s threshold, the roaring city sounds snap shut and a soft melodious metal clacking and clicking takes over. Ben was gracious enough to let us take a winding tour through the fine workshop of Sargent Brothers Printers & Typographers and gave us the details on how he orchestrates such a gifted letterpress print shop filled to the brim of of musing, stories, and great design.

THE PRESSES: We rely on our dear old Chandler & Price 10×15 Old Series, which was built in 1905, acquired by my father and his brother when they were teenagers in 1928, and in the family ever since. Still runs like a watch.

SIZE OF PRINT SHOP: 289 square feet.

THE LOCATION: Our shop is my one architectural accomplishment; I drew it and a carpenter friend built it, back in the late ‘80s. It’s a little 24-foot-square house on the back of our property in South Austin.

FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE SHOP: I like that my shop is out of the way of all our other activities and makes a cozy, quiet and compactly organized place to pursue printing. Much of our equipment — including our press and most of our 245 fonts of handset type — I inherited from my dad (who was a lifelong amateur printer) so it’s a shop with many sentimental associations.

NUMBER OF PRINTERS IN SPACE: While we enjoy in-house projects such as little books and ephemera, we have a steadily increasing amount of job work, mostly done in connection with a growing group of graphic designers in Austin who ship us their letterpress jobs. While my son, currently away at law school, has shown interest in learning the trade, right now we have one printer and that’s me.

MOST VALUABLE SHOP TOOL: We treasure and enjoy all our shop tools and machines, but I think our most valuable asset is what I’d call the zen of letterpress, by which I mean assuming an attitude that’s calm, creative and useful to the work. That would include an understanding that a letterpress project is almost always a series of problem-solving exercises, planning carefully, and having a big helping of patience.

FAVORITE INK: We have used Van Son’s excellent rubber-based inks for as long as I can remember, though the testimony of some of your other bloggers has me very interested in trying out soy-based ink. As to color, it seems like when we’re printing something we’re designing ourselves, we sure do rely a lot on Scarlet red and Wedgewood blue; they make a nice combination on a page.

SOLVENT OF CHOICE: When I first learned to print at the age of 12, my father told me, “Now here’s the drudgery part: cleaning the press.” I guess if I did have a technique that seems to lighten the drudgery, it’s wiping ink table and rollers with a dry rag as you go, right after loosening the ink with solvent. And as to that, we generally use off-the-shelf roller washes (currently using Varn’s V-120) for applications requiring a water-miscible solvent (rollers, poly plates), and a stronger type wash (Rogersolite) for things like metal type and the mixing glass. And while we’d never want to return to the days of 90 years ago when my dad and uncle used gasoline for cleaning everything, kerosene is still the sovereign remedy for dirty, oily machinery.

PLATE AND BASE OF CHOICE: For almost all of our job work these days, we are using the Boxcar Press KF 152 (deep-relief) adhesive-backed poly plates on a Boxcar base. We became enthusiastic converts to photopolymer about a year ago and have been faithful enough that our old photoengraving vendor has inquired as to what happened to us.

OIL OF CHOICE: To lubricate the press and paper cutter, we have had best results with “way oil,” the lubricant used in machine shops for drills, lathes, etc.

WHAT TYPE OF RAG DO YOU CLEAN UP YOUR PRESSES WITH: The paint store near us sells conveniently sized boxes of cotton rags, which is certainly worth not having to find and cut up rags on one’s own. (If you go that route, remember that colored rags, for whatever reason, are much cheaper than white.)

FLOORING MATERIAL: Good sturdy concrete. When we built the building, the concrete contractor asked why we had drawn several 18-inch-deep piers underneath the slab. “You putting something heavy in here?” he asked. “Trust me,” I replied.

FLOOR PLAN TIPS: I always thought the best-designed newspaper office I ever saw was the old Globe-News building in Amarillo where my dad worked, because it was designed by the paper’s general manager instead of an architect, and was arranged according to the work flow of putting out the daily paper. We tried to use that principle in laying out our shop, and placing the various elements where the work could easily flow from one point to the next.

PIED TYPE: Oh, yes, a little bit, which I suspect is not uncommon in a handset shop, but we try to avoid it by making a habit of distributing type forms right after we’re through printing from them. Nonetheless, I think we may have a few galleys still holding a little bit of type set back in the late ‘60s.

ORGANIZATION ADVICE: Other than the principle mentioned above of placing different work locations in a logical order, one of the most useful things is getting into the habit of putting tools back where they belong just as soon as one is through using them.

PRINTING ADVICE: Once again, when things get challenging, take a deep breath and have patience. Plan each job carefully, “measure twice and cut once,” and keep faith that your materials, tools and machinery will do what you’re trying to achieve, even if they are making you figure it out step by step. (Not that there aren’t things that letterpress is simply unsuited for. In those cases, says one of my trusted letterpress mentors, a wise printer learns the value of the word “no.”) As another of your bloggers sagely observed, take care of your tools and machinery, and they will take care of you.

Not ready to diecut just yet

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Christie Jones

Printer Jim pauses for a moment of contemplation before pulling the die he needs from the storage shelf.

Whacking is sometimes needed

Posted on October 5, 2012 by carrie.valenzuela

When diecutting shapes, a metal jacket is used on the platen instead of oiled tympan paper. This protects the press from the sharp cutting edges of a die. To coax the jacket and its springy clips into place, sometimes we use a mighty “32 oz Rubber Mallet” to tap it into place. Tap, tap with the mallet’s wide surface area and the jacket is locked in and ready to start getting in position. Wielding this 32oz rubber mallet makes me feel like Thor.

Boxcar Talk With Jessica Peterson

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

We’ve all heard the old adage that you should never mix business with pleasure, but Jessica Peterson, founder of The Southern Letterpress & Paper Souvenir would delightfully debate that. She’s built a business creating fine quality letterpress posters, cards, and printed goodies from her unusually narrow studio and in just three years, she’s cultivated a rich print media history to match her passion. A former fellow Central New Yorker, she’s weaved her printing prowess through three different states, creating a body of print work that caters to the art of letterpress. Here, we got a chance to catch Jessica between runs and to find out why Art Night in Northpoint, Alabama is extraordinary.

SOUTHERN CHARM I run The Southern Letterpress in Northport, Alabama. It is the narrowest print shop in the country: 6 feet wide and a city block long. In it, there are 52 cases of type, a basic bookbindery, a photo polymer plate maker and a Vandercook SP-15 printing press. I’m a book artist and letterpress printer, originally from Rochester, New York. I’ve been making artists’ books and multiples since 1994, and letterpress printing since 2006. My collaborator Bridget Elmer and I are building The Southern Letterpress to provide letterpress artwork, products and printing to undeserved areas in the Southeast. I work in Northport, Alabama, and Bridget is setting up shop in St. Petersburg, Florida.

LETTERPRESS PASSION I took a weekend class at The Center for Book Arts in New York because I wanted to print a book with beautiful text. I had been making digitally printed artists’ books and multiples, but when I saw the level of craft involved in letterpress, and how great the type looked (especially compared to a digital print), I was hooked. I soon left my day job in commercial print production in New York City to move to Alabama where I studied letterpress as part of my MFA in Book Arts at the University of Alabama. Since then, letterpress printing has slowly dominated my life and has become the impetus for many major life decisions. Printing is what keeps me grounded, especially now that I own like 3000 pounds of letterpress stuff.

INKING UP IN THE HEART OF DIXIE My print shop in located in historic downtown Northport, Alabama. The space used to be an alley between buildings which someone put a roof over and made into a long, narrow building. Before I moved in, the space was used as an art gallery, a lunch counter and a newspaper office. I’m across the street from The City Cafe, which has one of the best meat and three lunches. The Southern is next to a locally owned and very well stocked hardware store, Anders. Kentuck, an amazing art museum, is one block away.

I am part of Northport’s monthly Art Night. I typeset a simple, one color, text-based broadside, and invite everyone in the community to come try out the Vandercook and print one copy for free. The idea is that if you visit the shop every Art Night, you slowly accumulate a portfolio of prints for free. I started the print shop in Columbus, Mississippi, one floor above a still-printing newspaper press. The name of The Southern came from the first newspaper printed in Columbus, in the 1850’s.

PRINTING MENTORS Glenn House Sr., Joan Lyons, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Sarah Bryant, Jessica White, Bridget Elmer, Emily Tipps, Walter Hamady (Hamady is a mythical mentor, because I am mentored by looking at his work… I’ve never actually met him) and Steve Miller.

THE DAILY GRIND I like to collect narratives, and print them typographically. I can’t draw (even after years of art school) so I love letterpress because I can use printed words to create image. The narratives I collect range from a simple quote to a whole story. For example, I have a postcard that reads “short haul”. This is a phrase from Gordo, Alabama used to describe the process of moving a large and heavy object a short distance, as in “I’m going to short haul this Vandercook across the street right now.” I also collect longer narratives about a range of topics: race in the United States, hurricanes and forgotten places. I make these narratives into artists’ books. Cause and Effect, which I wrote, made the paper for, designed and printed, describes how I learned about my connection to the 1964 race riot in Rochester, New York while living in Alabama.

FULL TIME FUN I am a designer and printer. My goal is for my day job to be printing, both commercially and as an art practice.

Part of the challenge of working in an area without much letterpress or art is that you have to introduce your potential clients to the medium, and teach them about why they should want letterpress printing. I sell my artist’s books to special collections, and my prints in area stores. Right now, I’m working on a line of souvenir postcards for Columbus, Mississippi and Northport, Alabama, two places that have tourists, but no postcards. I teach book arts, graphic design and letterpress to make ends meet.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT I found my Vandercook SP-15 in 2009 in the basement of an old farmhouse in New Jersey, where it was sitting disassembled in about 10 different parts for the previous 20 years.

It was very dirty and rusty, and no one knew if it would even work. The only way to get it out of the basement was to lift each piece through a small 1 foot by 3 feet basement window. I had pieces shipped down to Gordo, Alabama where I was living. I spent a year and a half removing rust and cleaning the parts, and figuring out how to put the pieces back together. Through that process, I learned how Vandercooks work. I know my press very well.

SPREADING THE ART OF LETTERPRESS I am proudest of how I got my press and my work. I try to use my press and printing to serve my community in some way. The places where I live don’t have a great deal of access to art, graphic design, typography. Sometimes I miss living in a big liberal city like New York City, but I am proud of the work I do in Alabama and Mississippi to spread art and printing.

BOXCAR’S ROLE My Boxcar base! I like to print artists’ books on handmade paper, and photopolymer plates make that process feasible.

My last book, Ma’Cille’s Museum of Miscellanea, was 80 pages, and about 14,000 words. Without photopolymer plates to print the text with, I would still be typesetting today. Also, even though I’ve adopted the South, I will always have my upstate New York rust belt pride, and therefore I love supporting a company in Syracuse.

SHOP TIPS I think no matter what, you have to keep printing and keep finding things that you are interested in printing.

COMING SOON The Southern Letterpress will grow, and succeed. I am really excited. (I’m also excited about figuring out how to get around Alabama football merchandising licenses and copyright so that I can print a bunch of Crimson Tide items for the fall football session. Roll Tide!)

A huge rolling round of thanks out to Jessica of Paper Souvenir for letting us get a glimpse of her letterpress finesse!

Festive Fall Vector Set

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

With cooler weather in full swing, we thought a cheery vector set to warm the soul was in order! This (free!) festive set includes a haute shoe set pattern, an awesome autumn pumkpin, and a plethora of fun + festive graphics to ring in the fabulous fall season. All are free for use and in both EPS and PDF format . Cheers!

Get your goggles!

Posted on September 28, 2012 by carrie.valenzuela

We put together a stack of eye-popping set-up sheets with layers and layers of our neon Day-glo ink that had been run through the press several times. The glowing result became a light source of its own! This is the Bella Figura design Polka Stripe designed by Erin Jang. It is a design meant for Great Fun!

Say Hi to Phil and the back of Lou!

Posted on September 21, 2012 by carrie.valenzuela

On Phil’s press was the most magical shade of blue that I couldn’t stop looking at. As the drum roller spun, the ink looked like blue velvet, so mesmerizing.

Boxcar Talk With Anna Tomlonson

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

Michigan is a swirling eddy of vibrant creativity and a full force of passionate people. From the endless cherry farms in Traverse City, the delightful scents of pasties cooking in the breathtaking U.P, and of course, the energetic letterpress work of Anna Tomlonson of Ginger Tree Press from Kalamazoo. Working with a keen know-how of typography and a fiery passion for detail & craftsmanship, Anna stops for a minute between runs to let us in on the loves and labors of letterpress.

1-2-3 TYPOGRAPHY I have a BFA in Graphic Design from Western Michigan University. I thought I wanted to go into Interior Design, but a freshman foundation design class and a lecture on typography by visiting designer Wolfgang Weingart prompted me to apply for the Graphic Design program instead. It was the idea of typography that is what first drew me to graphic design and, later, to letterpress.

GIVING SOME LOVE TO LETTERPRESS A few weeks before picking up the press, I took a letterpress workshop at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, which is located just down the hall from my current studio space and has been a great resource. In the workshop we learned the basics of setting type, locking up a form, and proofing a design. My Chandler and Price was quite different than the presses we worked with in the workshop and when I started printing on my own, I only had a vague idea of how my press ran, which I gathered from taking the press apart to move it.

It was a combination of Elementary Platen Presswork by Ralph W. Polk, Boxcar Press’ videos, and a good deal of trial and error that helped me amass what printing knowledge I have.

As I became more comfortable with printing, it felt more and more natural. I have always been very detail oriented and I have fallen in love with the problem solving that printing on a hundred year old press requires. In my design work I have also always been most interested with the substrate, in fact, it was the basis of my bachelor’s thesis. Having such a close relationship to paper choice and printing technique is one of the things I find most exciting about letterpress.

MUCH ADO IN THE MITTEN My studio is in a building called the Park Trades Center, it is an old warehouse that was converted to artist studios in the early 80’s. It is right downtown and participates in Kalamazoo’s Art Hops, a monthly event where downtown businesses host area art work and artists open their doors to the public. It has proven to be a great marketing tool.

INSPIRED BY CRAFTSMANSHIP While I don’t have any one particular printing mentor, I am always inspired by printers whose focus is craftsmanship.

CREATIVE GEARS IN MOTION I always start a design on paper, creating a word list before I even start sketching. If I am working for a client, I am trying to find a direction that is appropriate for their particular project. If I am working on a project for myself it helps to narrow down my focus and create guidelines for the project. I have found there is nothing more challenging than a project with no restrictions – it is hard to do anything when you can do anything.

DESIGN + PRINT Since my background is in design, I often think of myself as a designer first and printer second. My work falls into three categories: non-letterpress design work, letterpress for fellow designers, and most often, seeing the job from ideation and design through printing.

FULL TIME FUN? I don’t print full time, yet. I also do the food ordering for a local gourmet food and wine shop. Half of the week is pure studio time, and the other half I like to print after work with a chunk of cheese and a glass of wine.

LADY LUCK I found my first press very much by chance. A friend of my dad’s was trying to sell his parents’ house, which had a complete print shop in the basement. They were struggling to find someone willing to buy everything and, preferring not to turn it into scrap, they were looking to give it away. At that point owning a press was more of a long-term fantasy than short-term goal, but it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. To say moving the press was a struggle is putting it lightly. Thankfully, I have some dedicated friends who spent a 17 hour day with me, in mid-August, hauling as much as we could out of that basement and back across the state.

SHOP TIPS Find mentors and ask for help, both in business and in printing. While there is something to be said for figuring things out for yourself, building a network and learning from other people’s experience is an invaluable asset.

WHAT’S NEXT Next on the list of skill sets to teach myself is die cutting. An old blueberry box full of dies was one of the treasures that came with the press, and I’m excited to put them to use. I am also planning my first workshop for this fall and starting on designs for a full holiday collection.

Huge thanks to Anna for letting us getting a sneak peek at Ginger Tree Press!