Chicago is always a popular theme and one I love. For this one, I wanted to create a large cityscape to represent downtown, but also something that was indicative of the smaller skylines of the neighborhoods. The first two layers were printed with wood type (and the back side of wood type), and linoleum blocks in very pale dirty gray to give depth and texture to the image. The wind image is a pressure print, which is created by adding a shape or cutout to the makeready of the press which affects how evenly the paper will roll over type.

Here’s a shot of the wood type as well as the linoleum blocks.

You can see the texture created by multiple layers, as well as the hints that came through the pressure print to keep the wind shapes subtle and soft.

After those two runs, it was time for the type and the small cityscape. To create the type with a larger first and last letter, you actually have to have two separate fonts of the same thing. This also features the Chicago wood stars we commissioned from Moore Wood Type. There’s a small representation of a CTA train car, as well as an ash tree, in defiance of the emerald ash borers that are destroying the ash trees of the city.

You can get a copy of the print directly from Galerie F for the next month, as well as a number of our other prints if you pop by the gallery. It’s definitely worth a stop if you’re in the neighborhood… so much great stuff to look at and take home with you!

In the meantime, enjoy a sneak peek of some of the fabulous type and ornaments used for our new collection. Both single cards and boxed sets will be available this Fall… we don’t blame you if you want to wait until then!

The very pale clouds were printed with a hand carved linoleum cut and add just a soft touch of sky behind the text.

Typographic enough?

The form for this piece was particularly impressive. Their names and the ampersand are wood, while the rest is metal, with a hint of deco to it. Force justified type presents a few challenges, given that the spacing has to be done by hand. There are hundreds of little brass and copper thin spaces in between most of the letters in this form.

Cityscapes are always fun, and San Francisco is no exception. We’ve had a little experience with the Golden Gate Bridge, so it was a bit easier this time around. The city and text are printed in steel gray, with a red that mimics the bridge alongside the pale blue sky and ocean.

Congrats to Michelle and John! Enjoy your new life together in your beautiful city.

Today I went up to Zion to help identify, label and price some of the type that will be available. I’m thrilled to say there are some real gems set to go for the sale!

Here are the details:

Saturday, May 4th, 2013  ·  9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Cases, Type, Tools, Supplies, Toy Presses, Books, Bits and Bobs

Table Top Presses (Pilots, Sigwalts, Kelseys)
with new rollers and a starter kit

3051 Sheridan Rd.  ·   Zion, IL 60099

847-746-8170  *  847-731-1945  *  platenpress@sbcglobal.net

One Day Sale   –   No Shipping

Here’s a tease of just a few of the typefaces that are fonted up for sale. Type is also sold by the pound in cases, and there are blank cases as well. You really can’t beat the prices (type ranges from $10-$100), not to mention the company of fellow printers that will be shopping. Hope to see you there!

Rich Kegler, the talent behind the project, approached me about working with a few of the new faces, especially their star border, to see what I could come up with. And while pushing actual wood type around on press is more my speed, it was sure fun to come up with something that had no size restrictions or limitations based on what was in the typecase. From the comfort of my home and with Prince on the brain, here’s what I did:

The Star Ornaments border is all sorts of awesome. It comes in various configurations that you can easily combine to create elaborate frames or maze-like images. And there are tons of stars to choose from, even more than what we have in the studio. Also shown here are: American Chromatic (too amazing for words, really), Antique Tuscan no. 9 and Republic Gothic.

Why wouldn’t you want to get your hands on these gems? Follow along with the Foundry’s adventures, and check out their site for ordering info. And no, this isn’t a paid endorsement (just a plain ol’ enthusiastic one), though if I’m lucky there might be some Buffalo wings in my future.

Sarah wanted a broadside-styled card with blocky, simple typefaces in various sizes, and definitely printed in silver.

This is the form, showing the combination of metal type, wood type and rules (used for printing lines).

Here’s the form in the press, inked and ready to go.

After the basic setup, I’ve found that large wood type often doesn’t print as well combined with small type on a platen press. I took out the larger wood elements and filled them with spacing (called furniture) in order to run the small type first. After that, I put the wood back in and replaced the metal type with furniture. Two runs for one color seems like a pain, but the result is that much better and two runs on the platen are still faster than one on the Vandercook, where everything could be printed at the same time.

Here’s the studio address, in our own lovely Ravenswood neighborhood! We will be celebrating with Sarah in her lovely new space on April 26th, and hope to see you there, too.

Both of our platen presses are motorized, with the motors running directly off the flywheel. I’m not a big fan of belts (even after successfully replacing a disintegrating one on our Vandercook press), so this setup is ideal. Both of our motors are made-in-Chicago Kimball motors that are period to the presses, and have had a pretty good run of 10+ years in our shop with little complaint. That changed this past Fall when the 10×15 C+P press motor decided to act up. After a little cleaning and investigating, it was apparent that a few parts were worn to what is probably a not fixable degree. Because this press is our workhorse, we took the motor from the 8×12 C+P and put it on the 10×15 for a temporary fix while searching out a replacement. In the meantime, I purchased a treadle for this press as it seemed like a good idea to have a manual backup. Think vintage, foot-powered sewing machine.

Well, I suppose the treadle came in perfect time, as the ‘new’ motor on the 10×15 died last Saturday. This was most likely due to old wiring with poor connections. This was the throw-the-hands-up-in-the-air moment of realizing both motors are long overdue for an overhaul. I ripped the treadle out of its crate and got it on the press. First, the unused motor mount had to come off because it’s attached to the same hinge that is needed for the treadle mount:

Here’s the front of the treadle that sees all the action.

Bad!

I lowered the pulley away from the flywheel so it doesn’t needlessly drag on the flywheel now that it’s operated by foot:

And here’s the happy setup. I printed over 2400 calendar pages by foot (more on those later), which was not unlike spending about 4 hours on an elliptical, only with one foot at a time. This was followed by 200o 4-run gift certificates. Happily, next week is a Vandercook week so I’ve got a little break coming up. The interns will be getting the workout!

The beauty of working in Chicago, the city that works, is that there are motor shops in nearly every neighborhood. We’ll be taking both of the motors in to see if they can get us up and running again at full speed soon.

This was a piece I put together 2 years ago to showcase many of the victorian typefaces in the studio for the purpose of photographing them. Forms are so lovely and architectural, and we’ve endeavored to include process shots on our site, the flickr letterpress forme group as well as this blog to share. Here’s the full photo:

And after taking the care to build this, I decided to print a number of copies of it so the actual type could be seen as it was originally intended. It’s available on our etsy site.

Just this week I assembled a similarly complex form with more of our 19th century type for a birthday card, which you can see here. The best bit is the little pin set in the corner that requires careful setting in order to line it up correctly.

There’ll be more on this card coming soon… In the meantime, if you have any interest in the study of type, check out Typography. It’s thoughtfully laid out, very concise and offers a unique perspective on how type functions in the real world. I can’t put it down.

Because the group is largely made up of screenprinters creating large works of art, I decided to set up our tiniest Press Bike press with the tiniest type in the studio, which happens to be 4-point type on a 6-point body. Here’s the little Sigwalt in action. And yes, that had been a plate of peanut butter cookies.

This is Rebecca from Rar Rar Press, one of the few studios (alongside us, of course), that prints entirely with antique type. So this is a lady who knows what’s she’s doing here.

The little Sigwalt isn’t the finest press we’ve got, so there’s something left to be desired in the print quality. But you get the point.

Here’s the form for the tiny print alongside a pica ruler. This is approximately 1.5″ in length.

And here are a few of the stars of the printmaking galaxy, including the ‘dorky hat club’ members Andy Schwegler from Letterform, Dan Grzeca from Ground Up, and Nick Butcher from Sonnenzimmer.

More fabulousness in the form of Megan Sterling, a former Starshaped alum, alongside Julie Morelli of Letterform and Nourishing Notes (seriously multitasking lady). Following is ass-kickin’ Sonnenzimmer Nadine Nakanishi.

Here’s our own lovely Janice!

Tiny future printmaker and CPG member. Already churning out some great ideas.

And here’s me and Julie again! A while back we were thrilled to have Julie print with us at Starshaped, until she acquired her own press.

If you’re curious about printmaking in Chicago, please check out the CPG! New members are always welcome and we’ve got some great projects up all of our inky sleeves…

Last February, I built the form for this poster and printed it over the course of 4 days, to be included in the city’s show, The Flag and Seal Revisited, which featured different takes on Chicago’s flag and seal by local artists and printmakers.

When starting the print, I wasn’t sure if it would be successful or not, as I explored the idea of building a city of ornaments (which we do a lot in the studio) in multiple colors and in a circular shape. The type was set solid, meaning there was very little spacing in it, making it that much harder to take out the individual colors while maintaining the overall integrity of the print. Here’s the initial shot of pulling ornaments and designing it before moving to press; I can’t help but liken it to building the Death Star:

Here are a few other close ups of some of the colors once I moved the form to press:

And here is the final print. I wanted it to have a specimen-like feel, and labeled the bottom accordingly with mini pins.

The print plays off of the idea of City in a Garden, the Latin motto of the city. There are flower and plant ornaments cropping up between all of the buildings represented, as well as little ‘trees’ that follow the line of the water meant to represent Lake Michigan. Many popular features of the city are included, like the Sears Tower, Buckingham Fountain and Harold Washington Library.

The other side of the print ends in the more stereotypical bungalows that make up many of the city’s neighborhoods. And would it have been complete without a cow?

The ‘kissing kids’ in the lake is a small cut originally produced by Chicago’s own Barnhart Bros. & Spindler type foundry.

The print (which sold out quickly) was a crowning achievement in my typesetting career, and I’m glad it turned out to be successful on many levels. We’ll be celebrating at the lovely Atwood Cafe in the historic Reliance Building downtown.

And as if the recognition of this piece wasn’t enough, How also selected one of our invitations to be included in the Merit category:

Also a city, but this time San Francisco. Apart from the difficulty of setting the Golden Gate Bridge with curved rules, the other fantastic and challenging aspect of this project was setting it in both english and french, which required the use of accents and a little ‘type surgery’. Here are a few close ups:

Notice here the addition of accents, and the trimmed Copperplate E’s (to make room for the accents).

Why does it look like this picture was taken late at night? Because it was… it took about 4 hours just to get it to stay together and straight given the bent rule, let alone getting it on press. Is it worth it to spend this amount of time typesetting? Yes, given that the mission of Starshaped is to preserve the typesetting techniques of the past and make them relevant to commercial work today.