What We Do
Letterpress Printing
Whether from Wood, Metal, or Plastic,
our focus is and always has been on fine letterpress printing. We use the same traditional fine art and craft of letterpress printing that was 550 years ago except with new with modern materials and designs.
Design
Start from scratch with us or adapt from existing designs that you have in mind.
Let us know what works for you. We want you to take better advantage of the letterpress process. In addition to digital design printed via polymer and/or metal plates, we can work from our extensive collection of wood type, handset type, and newly cast metal type. Design fees depend on the complexity and scope of each project, so please indicate if you are interested in design services when contacting the shop for a quote.
Hot Foil Pressing
To add the perfect accent to your project
We can foil stamp from newly cast type or magnesium plates made from digital files. Hot foil stamping can add the perfect accent to your pieces, and is particularly useful when using very light colors on a much darker surface. It is not printing per se, but a method for transferring a very thin opaque foil through heat and pressure onto a printable surface, completely blocking out any of the original surface color. Because of the heat and pressure involved, foil stamping must be done from a metal plate or type, and is generally speaking slower then printing ink.
Pencils
Yes, we print pencils!
We take orders for short and long runs, from a minimum of 25 to thousands of pencils. There are some restrictions as to typeface, line length and available colors, please see the pencil page for more information.
Hot Metal Typecasting
Called the "Eighth Wonder of the World"
by Thomas Edison,
our Linotype is used mainly for smaller type sizes (it was designed for book and newspaper work primarily), and also for all of the type we foil-stamp onto pencils. We also have a growing library of original brass type matrices which can be used to cast new brand metal type for your project.
What really puts it all together
We have a wide-range of finishing options, from trimming on our 32" digital paper cutter, to corner rounding, paper-drilling, padding, and die-cutting. We offer sewn and saddle stitched binding and assembly for small book publishing, CD and LP jacket assembly, and edge-painting on thicker cards to a close PMS match. Digital addressing and assembly for wedding and invitation suites is also available, as is referral to select fine calligraphers.