Belshazzr's Feast

In celebration of the WASO - West Australian Symphony Orchestra performance of Belshazzar's feast, I thought it would be fun to create some coasters with phrases from the great work to share with my fellow chorus members. (and get some much needed practice of hand setting type - as you will see, I need it!)

I find it challenging locking up text in the chase. I never seem to have furniture of the right size and my lock up is very dodgy..

Also, I only have one letter each of the alphabet in my wood blocks, so I had to be picky with my words but it worked out well even if it did take all day to print 10 of each....

Black text - hand set 18pt type.
Red text - various wood block type.

Lonny online mag

OMG! Check out this online mag.
Its all about home wares and design so it may not float your boat, but you have to be impressed with its awesome format! There are probably other mags online that are presented in the same way for IPads etc but this is MINT!
It is presented in magazine format, and all pages look like magazine pages but with an animated twist. The editorial page 'From the editor' blah that is usually on the fron few pages (that I usually skip over) is actually the editor in a 2 min movie talking to you about the edition. The ads are 'clickable' taking you to their website. Totally cool!
http://www.lonnymag.com

Save the date wedding invitations - doily

Yay. The official product launch.
Set of 8 imprintable save the date cards
With matching letterpress envelopes

These can be changed into a formal invitation by printing or letterpress the invitation words instead. And if you have a different occasion instead, we can leave off the words 'for the wedding of'.

to get your hands on these, visit my shop HERE

The Analog Underground

"It’s a dinosaur’s approach, to be sure, born out of nostalgia and faddism and an idiosyncratic desire to unplug from our overly digitized existence. But there’s obvious appeal in being a (very) late adopter: “Analog objects seem like new technologies to those who have never experienced them.”

For full story, click here:
http://nymag.com/shopping/features/analog-2011-7/

Coming soon.....

Average Iphone pic but I couldn't wait ....

Branches save the date invite cards

Yay!
Ready for sale.
Check them out on Etsy.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/75837893/8-letterpress-birds-and-branches-fill-in

Mind your 'p's' & 'q's' - literally

And your 'b's' and 'd's'.....

So, I was commissioned to create some swing tags for Misohappi http://www.etsy.com/shop/misohappi?ref=ss_profile a wonderful Etsy store who just happens to make awesome aprons that fit just so!
Anyway, this was my first effort at hand setting type. My very first proof came out like below:

hamb crafted dy mj so haqqy los angeles california

OK granted, all of my type was mixed when I received it, and I had to sort it into fishing tackle boxes so give me a break but I made myself laugh.
I learned alot from the whole experience:

1. you need a good collection of spacers to go along with your type - something I did not have so I had to resort to trimming down quotation marks and commas.
2. the nick that is found on the bottom edge of all the type gives you a HUGE clue as to which way up the type goes (der!)
3. locking the type up is difficult when you don't have a good selections of leads and line spacers.
4. locking up is like putting together a puzzle and is time consuming trying to make sure there is even pressure all around the text
5. having  a second chase would come in very handy so you can get on with other printing somethng I dont have so I made do with photographing the lock up so I could refer to it when I need to lock it up after the job was approved
6. using a craft stamp - something like a mini stamp pad that you can daub over the text a get a quick impression rather than inking up the whole press is a great time saver.
7. inks can appear to have a different colour when applied to small amounts of text rather than a more open flatter surface. Text appears a lot darker - even though it's not...
8. Measure twice, cut once.... the hand setting, locking up, proofing, editing mixing ink, planning, took 10x longer than the actual printing but it was great fun! 



chase locked up

We got there in the end! Each tag was printed 4 up - pass1, rotate 180°, pass 2, flip over pass 3, rotate 180° pass 4, and then cut down to 8cm x 3cm, with added tear off perforation. Printed on Letterpress Lush paper 30% cotton, 70% paper pulp.

Final prints

x100 - yippee