A Hand Set Valentine, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2: A Handset Valentine.  The object of this series of installments is to provide a sort of "inside look" at the inner workings of traditional typeset design.

 The Paper Wren is not what you would call a "modern" operation that strictly uses Adobe Illustrator and Polymer Plates.  When propriety demands, we do use vector design for our traditional metal, copper, wood-mounted dies, following a paradigm as close to the original 1870s methodology as possible.  The goal of Paper Wren Press, however,  is not only to produce beautiful printed products, but to do so authentically, because an authentic process produces an authentic product! 


The final lock-up was amazingly easy as far as this sort of Forme goes.  Only two "sinkers", strips of paper used to help out a 'loose' line of type.  She held out beautifully.  

So....what do you think about the crazy carving on my furniture?  I think it's some sort of Runic secret code.  I inherited a lot of my wood furniture (actually, all my furniture), this was the only piece that was, how would you call it? - Engraved.  I kept it because geometrics and angles fascinate me.  I guess that's why I love letters so much.

The next thing I did was ink up the press.  I did it a little differently this time, by doing the mix directly on the ink disk of the press.  It's not a bad way to visualize colour ratios, really.

I guess you might call this ration 5:3, red to white.  I wonder how long it takes for the rollers to complete the mix on the disk as they roll over the disk as the disk rotates, spreading out the ink?  I would soon find out!

Wow, I need to remember this the next time I want any faux - marbling done!  I'll wager I could simply lay the paper on the disk and roll it off with this pattern!  Maybe....some wrapping paper in our future?

It's really amazing.  The photos do not do justice!  It looks like a deep space shot, with several nebulae and other astronomical patterns in repetition.  Little by little, in the next few minutes, these patterns would blur away slowly, forming a nice, even, light red, just shy of pink colour.

Soon, the forme is snapped in place on the type bed, and a first trial impression is printed.  The packing and makeready is already in place from the last typeset run, I only had to change the tympan sheet.  The test sheet is an off-cut of Lettra, which is the same colour and weight I will be using for the card itself.

A wee bit of a close-up.  I'm happy with the proof.  The staff is happy with it as well.  Nothing really to edit, all pieces are going the direction I wanted them to go.  Colour is soft, and fairly even.  I have noticed both here, and at other times when using this fleuron border that there is a difference in thickness between the right and left oriented tulips (or lilies).  The left oriented are just a shade broader in stroke than the right.  Nothing that is very noticeable except to the printer who carries a loupe and is hyper particular.  The folks at M&N do a great job casting, and I have noticed that in the very old specimens, this was not uncommon.  Arion must have been using original matrices for these borders.

A close-up on the card itself.  Paper is the house-stock, Crane's Lettra, 110 lb stock, Pearl White.  It's the finest and best sized paper per cost that I know of, as far as letterpress papers available today goes. This shot also shows the different border fonts used to make up the heart design, the Leaf, Maltese Cross, and Fleuron borders.

All that remains is the "photo-shoot".  Ever do a photo-shoot?  It took me as long to take the photos as it took to set, lock, and print this job!  Every time I looked at the photo, I felt compelled to do another variation.  And I am not the most creative or imaginative picture-taker on the block.  You can tell by the use of old postage stamps and philatelic ephemera. 

But...what the heck.  At last, the stamps in my collection can be aired out and used in a different manner beside just looking at them while I turn the pages.  Just so Philatelists know (I can hear you gritting your teeth even now!) - I did not expose the really expensive stuff.  What you see here is the regular postal issue 10 cent blue for coast - to - coast transit, resting atop a "Nesbit" entire cover with a 'bulls-eye' from 1861.  It's a Civil War cover from Bath, NY.

Hmm . . . .maybe this arrangement?

Ok, how about I take out the Nesbit entire and use the Air Mail stamp alone?

Or . . . dispense with the vintage altogether and use one of the early "Love" issues from the 80s?

Decisions, decisions . . . maybe this one to go on the Etsy page?  

As you can see, it's sort of a process just to get the right shots on to the right page.  The nice thing about blogging is that I can put them all here and just talk about 'em.  Maybe even get some opinions!  Oh, notice that I did not use the obligatory spool of thread, thimble and . . . Victorian dinner fork?   Yeah, having surfed about a gazillion Letterpress sites, I've seen some interesting get-ups.

Dinner forks?

What do you think?

Look for these cards to appear soon on our Etsy page.

-gary.

A Simple, Hand-Set Valentines Day Card for 2014, Part One.

In the Spirit of John Fass and  Bruce Rogers, we have been inspired to produce a product that involves an art form that not too many involved with Letterpress bother with: Border Art.  If you follow the John Fass and Bruce Rogers link, you will find an amazing collection of type design and border font design, and samples of what they were able to assemble using these fonts.

We have several of these fonts, and are in process of ordering more from the foundries where we order our metal type.  Many of these designs date back to the 1700s.  Assembling these designs not only involve choosing an appropriate face, but also the appropriate math.

Math?

Yeah, my algebra teacher was right.  Everything  boils down to how things come together. We live in a universe of physical laws that follow mathematic logic.  In other words, everything eventually boils down to the integration of quantities, whether in area or in volume.  Setting type is no different, in many ways.  The "point" and "pica" units that we use are logical, and if you choose the right sizes, symmetry can be achieved by "center justification".  It's a matter selecting sizes that work with each other, and a bit of labouring over the composition stick, layering row after row of justified type, quads, and spaces.

The objective on this particular morning is to produce a Valentine card that might reflect the creativity of those incredible printers and designers of the Pre Raphaelite Movement, the Arts and Crafts artisans that worked with William Morris and Kelmscott Press, or those of the Roycrofters of East Aurora, New York.  While we do not compare ourselves with Dove Press or Kelmscott Press, we do look up to them, and place them as examples to be followed.  As well, John Fass, Bruce Rogers, Hammer Creek and Harbor Press.

I selected a width and type size that mathematically relate, 12 and 18pt, at a width into which both these sizes divide evently.  I started with the top of the heart and worked my way down, interleaving one row of 12pt leaves with one or two rows of 18pt Fleurons. Between each row lie two 1pt. leads for "editing" purposes.  Sometimes I had to lift out a line to make a correction to the line beneath: the leads facilitate this.  I discovered that at any given time, I needed three lines on the 'stick', so I could keep an eye on justification and orientation.  

Wow, it wasn't easy!  I suppose that after a time, one gets pretty used to assembling these designs, but when you are 'on the curve', its slow going!  But on the positive side, I didn't have to resort to coppers and brasses to fill gaps.  Many thanks to the printers that went before, who way back when created a system whereby I might actually compute my design ahead of setting it!  

After about three or four lines, I would lay the lay the lines of type on the imposing stone, stacking the layers to form the design. I might guess this is why assembled type is called a "Forme".  In the above image, leads are still between some of the lines.  Upon completion, the leads are pulled, the only time I every lay a Forme without leads.  Leads are to a Forme what 'stretchers', or bricks laid sideways, are to a brick wall of alternating 'stretcher' and 'header' bricks.  They provide strength to their assemblage, enabling the several individual pieces, bricks or metal type, to hold together.  While these designs such as I am building may not use these leads in the final form, the differences in the various widths and sizes, or, the "lay" of the individual type pieces from row to row accomplish the same thing.  In a Forme with words, you have to follow the count of the letters in any given word and sentence, but in symmetrical designs, you can plan your pieces, if you are careful.

This is the finished Forme, from my perspective as the compositor.  Type is always laid in the stick upside down, or "nicks-up", from left to right.  This is also the orientation this Forme will take in the Press, when locked into the chase and mounted on the type bed.  This way, when it prints, the image is oriented right-side-up to the press operator.  There is no rule to this, it's my preference.

This shot might give you a better idea of the lay-out.  This is the Forme with the leads pulled from between the lines.  Three border fonts are used: the 18 pt. Lilly Fleuron, the 12 pt. Leaf and the 6 pt. Maltese Cross.  The Fleurons have a direction of orientation, so I split the "heart" in half, with the Fleurons facing each other.

This is a detail close-up of the top "bouts" of the heart.  They are capped and 'rounded' visually with the use of the leaf and a pair of six-point maltese crosses, held in place by six-point quads.  I split lines frequently to produce mild and subtle bends and angles.  If you have been following this blog, you might notice that a similar paradigm was followed with the angle of the lines of type in Hannah's wedding invitation.  

Here is a close-u[ of the other side of the top of the heart.  If you look toward the very top of the photo, you will see an angled leaf used to taper out an 18 pt Fleuron line.

The very bottom is tipped with an inverted leaf to create a visual fine point.  Regardless of the arithmetic involved, designing with borders like this ultimately relies upon the "impression" made visually, not unlike kerning.  You adhere to the math too far and actually create a distorted visual that does not appear logical, no matter how well the numbers work.  The bottom line always lies in the domain of visual perception, which is why this type of designing is really an "art", more than a "science".  Its all part of the Art of Typography.

The next installment will be the printing of this project, our Valentine's Day Card for 2014.  An entirely hand set and hand printed card designed in the centuries-old manner of the traditional printers of prior centuries, before polymer plates and Adobe Illustrator.

Happy New Year!

-gary.

Understated Elegance: A Wedding Suite for Kailey.

If I learned anything from 37 years in dispensing optics (as a licensed Optician, that's G. Johanson, L.D.O. thank you very much!) - it's that the more expensive a fashion eyeglass frame was, the less festooned with "stuff", "bling", "baubles", call it what you wish, the more stark said fashion frame becomes.  From Prada to Gucci to Silhouette, the very nice, and costy, frames were very unadorned.  Same goes with clothing.  And automobiles . . . and Wedding Stationery.  Kailey asked us to do her's.  She only wanted a simple solid border.  Simple letters with a very mild serif. Very straight-forward and uncluttered.  But then, I remember Kailey growing up.  She's my daughter's best friend in the whole wide world!  My daughter was the whimsical artist type.  Kailey played Cello when the hip crowd played the Uke or the Mandolin. Kailey was the no-nonsense part of the dynamic duo. Anna . . . well . . . she took a bit after her dad, I'm afraid.  Both of us are rather non-nonsensical. But that's another story.  And now, it's Show and Tell time!

"

Kailey's Wedding Stationery is run on a 1936 "New Series" Chandler & Price 8x12 Letterpress, known in it's day as a "Platen Jobber".  Up to now, this has been our work-horse, and she has done an admirable job.  A lot of Letterpress operations around Central Florida got their start training in one of my work-shops using this press.  Notice the die: metal mounted on wood.  That's about as "Old School" as it gets.  We don't use polymer plating here.  We may try it out soon, but I cut my teeth on the traditional materials, and I tend to stay with them.

.

Once again, we used our official "house" paper stock: Crane's Lettra.  The most widely used and most popular colour is Pearl White.  The paper weight is 320gsm, or 110 lb.  Lettra is a velvety, plush, open sized paper that is entirely cotton.  It may be noted that Crane supplies the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  Why am I not surprised?

Kailey's A7 Announcement card required the use of a "frisket" or "frisquet", that window you see there positioned above the printed card on the platen.  The idea is to prevent the paper from sticking to the die. As it is, the relatively thick border provided just enough tack to pull the paper off the gauge pins.  That frisket kept the paper in place. 

Above and below are some card detail.  Colour used is "ordinary Black".  This is an excellent combination, contrasting the natural white "pearl" Lettra.  The paper gives way to leave a very pleasing deboss without a huge amount of pressure.

The border was a challenge.  Broad areas of colour are better run on a cylinder press, platen presses are primarily designed for thin line work, characters, letters, or wood engravings and cuts.  Nonetheless, broader areas of colour can be done.  More ink must be used, the paper should be steamed, and the press should be run as slowly as possible.  Even still, platen letter press usually yield that tell-tale mottled look in a heavy colour field unless a whole lot of ink is applied.  Personally, I run the ink a tad light, and allow the press to double-roll the die, which helps to distribute the ink efficiently.

Here is the whole suite, including the hand-set envelope address, which was set in 18pt. Open Caslon, which is our favourite titling font.  Clockwise we have the envelopes, the A7 invitation, the Reception Card, and atop that the R.S.V.P.

Invitation.

R.S.V.P.

Reception Card

 

Above and Below: Close-up detail.

Envelope address detail.

I have run more intricate cards, with lots of illustration in the past.  This card, however, was a return to typographic design in its purest sense, which is in itself very traditional. There was a time when all announcements and invitations such as these were entirely "Letter-Centric".  There is a beauty in Letter-form that stands by itself.  

That's it for today.  This design has been added to our collection of designs, called "Kailey", after it's namesake.  Simple, straightforward, and as far as letterpress printing is concerned, inexpensive.  

If you are interested in this, or any other of our designs for your wedding, or have ideas of your own, feel free to contact us here.

G. Johanson, Printer

Paper Wren Press

www.paperwrenpress.com

386-490-5160

A Wedding Suite for Sarah: "Paper Moon"

Sarah contacted Anna Coleman to design her wedding stationary.  The result was this extremely appealing suite we couldn't resist but name "Paper Moon".  It has that the feel of those lyrics:

Well, it's only a Paper Moon,

Sailing over a Canvas Sea,

But it wouldn't be make-believe

. . . if you believe in me.

It's a sweet song from my childhood, and the tune came to mind the instant I saw Anna's thumbnail sketches and final inked art.  Anna did her final rendering in ink-on-vellum. (sigh), such a traditionalist.  She should only be a letterpress printer!

As with almost all our custom printing, the stock used was Crane's Lettra, 100% cotton rag content, which features an extruded, luxuriant tactile feel to the touch, and which receives the inked impression with just the right amount of deboss to render a spellbinding three-dimensional effect. In the following photos, I had to angle the light in different positions to best pick up this deboss effect, which is why some image come out bluer than others.  I am not using a professional camera: it's a Canon Powershot.  One day I'll splurge for that $1200.00 Nikon, but till then, these images will be produced by the good ol' point-and-shoot.

Coming in a little closer, you can see the titling font that I used: Caslon Open, 18 pt.  Script is Bickham.  The ornaments which were designed by Anna consist of a crescent moon, rose and petals, and two little Love Birds nuzzling on the lower crescent of the moon.

Aww. . . . is that cute or what?  Anna specializes in what she has come to all Animorphism, which is, rendering animals in their lifelike character and nature, yet matching that nature to human characteristics.  It was a concept she honed during her years at Flagler College, where she earned her BFA.  Pen and ink is her medium of choice, which works perfect for Letterpress. 

Another close-up of the Rose and Petal motif.

We call these corner designs "spandrels", the same term used for corner ornaments on Clock faces.

Caslon Open has become our favourite titling font.  I have this font both in digital format on the design computer, and also in foundry metal format, in 18 point font size.  This is a hard font to come by in the form of metal.  My particular "hot metal" font dates to around 1910.  In Sarah's case, we needed to size down her text to fit the ornament design proportionately, so we went the digital format font.

As you can see, we carried the Paper Moon ornament over to the RSVP, in reduced form.  The detail came out like an engraving!

Here is a shot of the card itself, to give an idea of the general lay-out and proportion.  This is a 4-bar format card which comes with a matching, addressed envelope.

A close-up of the RSVP

Another close-up, showing the text.

This is the matching Reception Card.  We carried the Rose and Petal Spandrels over, in reduced form, onto this card as well, with the same engraving-like result. 

A close-up of on of the Spandrels . . .

. . . and the text.

Here is the Suit all together, with addressed matching envelopes.  I might add that the envelopes are text weight, semi-sized, and are calligraphy-pen friendly.  Shown here are: Reception Card, A7 announcement, and RSVP.  Envelopes are addressed.

This suite is available for customizing. If you are interested in using "Paper Moon" for your own wedding stationery, contact us through our site, or email us directly!

That's it for now.  Stay tuned for our next installment!

Our 2013 Christmas Card, Now Available on Etsy!

It's that time of year again!  It's been an eventful year for us: in March, G. Johanson, Printer officially became "Paper Wren Press", and almost immediately thereafter I found myself in the hospital coming within an inch of my life and eternity.  After several months of recuperation,  we found ourselves creating  multiple suites of Custom Wedding Stationery, signing a contract with Affluent Bride, producing a series of greeting cards with designer Anna Coleman, attending two Indie Market shows, and now, it's Christmas.  So what are we doing for our card design this year?  Well . . . . 

Since time is of the essence, we decided to reach into the past and reprise our card from last year, only with some slight changes.  The first change is the "Christmastide 2012" legend, which we changed to "Merry Christmas".  It is still printed in oil based gold florentine, which I like a lot better than gold foil.  Another change is the reverse, which sports our new logo!  These cards are currently for sale on our Etsy Shop outlet. Another change is that this year we are offering a customization of this card: since the legend is typeset with 18th century Fleuron brackets, we are offering custom text, in which "Merry Christmas" can be substituted with another line or multiple lines.  For details, contact us either through our site at www.paperwrenpress.com, or directly via email at gary@paperwrenpress.com.

And now, some photos we took during the process of creating these unique custom limited edition Christmas greeting cards:

The black run on these cards were printed in folio, both sides at one shot.  This year, we included our logo, which is a mag cut.  We 'quadded' it out to accommodate text which is typeset beneath.  In essence, this card is "laid up", or locked up in the same manner the printers would have used back when the featured woodcut illustration was new : 1490!  Two years before Columbus' maiden voyage!  In fact, this cut comes from that part of Italy where Columbus hailed from at the same time in which he lived there!

Here's the first pull from the folio impression.

I flipped the camera around for a closer look, right side up.

Just in case Latin escapes you, this print in it's original 1490 publication was part of a larger volume entitled Legenda Sanctorum Trium Regum, which means "Legend of the Holy Three Kings", Modena Italia, 1490.  You Latin scholars check me out on this, ok?  Hey, how do you like our new Logo?

The completed card after the red and gold impression runs.  This card reminds me so much of the cards we would send when I lived in Munich, Germany as a kid in primary, or Elementary School.  That German cultural streak has been something I've carried with me my whole life long, and has influenced my design tastes almost to the point where sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't market my stuff in Europe!  As a Letterpress Shop in an era of Hipster "whimsical" design approach, we tend to be hopelessly Carolingian in our tastes.  That is, except for the designs we carry by Anna Coleman.

Here is the card after the printing process, where each card is scored and hand folded with a bone folder.  This card saw a run of 200 in this series, which means over 200 impressions through the press for the black, the red, the gold, the scoring of the fold line with a brass rule, then each card is hand folded to ensure a perfect and level fold.  A lot of hours . . . and a lot of Coffee!!

Another shot of the back side.  The card stock chosen is Crane's Lettra, 320 gsm extruded Pearl White 100% cotton, which comes with a matching envelope.

So, there it is.  Our 2013 Christmas Greeting Card.  It is an "A2" sized card, which means it measures 4.5 x 5.5 inches, bifold.  The interior is, as usual, left blank, ready for your own creativity!  Custom return addressing is available upon request, please contact us for details.  I might add that bulk ordering of this card at a reduced price is something that can be considered, but remember these are limited run cards, unique, one of a kind.  Thus, a bulk order would be considered another limited edition run. 

Thanks for joining us in our guided tour of this year's Christmas Card offering.  We have yet another design which might . . . might be able to be slipped in before December.  It is based upon the 1933 U.S. Christmas Seal.  More on that, later.

I remain Your Humble Servant,

G. Johanson, Printer.

Paper Wren Press.