Typesetting is Alive and Well at Paper Wren Press!

There was a time not too awfully long ago when what was known as "job printing" - short order printing that usually fell in the category of printed forms, small menus, news letters, bill heads, business cards, all those sorts of printing orders that moved the business community on its merry way.  Job printing also took in the printing of announcements, greeting cards, sometimes Post Cards, and in the case of the shop where I operated the Letterpress alongside the big 36" ATFs and other offset presses, Karate Certificates for Y.K. Kim, Judo and Karate Master Extraordinaire.  Every member of our shop managed to get their own Black Belt Karate certificate!

As late as 1974, we kept a couple Hamilton cabbies of what is known as "California Job Cases", type drawers, filled with a selection of fonts in different point sizes.  At that time, the standard job font (or what is sometimes called the "House Font") was Century School Book and Bodoni.  For those occasional Wedding announcements that were on some occasions turned over to me, we had what was called "Wedding Text", a sort of Black-letter text that is sometimes called Old English.  We also had a beat-up case of Cursive.  I think it was Edwardian.  We also had the ubiquitous "Brush" and "Park Avenue" in 36 and 48 point type.

For those orders that required fonts or character counts that went beyond our "job font" counts, or the number of Upper Case and Lower Case characters we had per font, we had the local Type Setters down by the Train Station, on Sligh Street, known as "Orlando Graphics".  Orlando Graphics had a few bays of Linotype Machines that could produce lines of characters on a single slug.  We would place the necessary order, and on the way in to work the next day, I would pick it up, run it at work, and drop it off so they could melt it back down in the "pig", to re-cast again.  

This was the way "job printing" was done in America for over one hundred years, since the first line casters came into Orlando in the 1880s,  and in the case of hand setting "foundry type" from a type case, the prior 170 years, since the first Washington Press was trucked down to Orange City to print their first News Paper in 1840, a scant five years before Statehood. (date is approximate.  This Washington Press is still in the family, E.O. Painter, of DeLeon Springs, Florida.  I've handled it.)

In the tradition of the old Central Florida job printers, and in the tradition of my first area of professional training, I take in the occasional "job" order.  After all, our beloved Iron Horses are known traditionally as "Platen Job Presses".  Indeed, almost all of the Flywheel type platen presses made since the Ruggles Card Press of 1820 were dedicated Job Presses!  My C&P and Kluge presses are especially suited for this sort of work.  Despite the current trend in Letterpress to use Polymer Plates, Paper Wren Press still uses wood mounted copper dies, and we keep about twenty cases of Foundry Type on hand, specifically for hand-set job-orders.

Today's order is a Banquet Announcement for the Central Florida Pregnancy Center, our local crisis pregnancy center.  The order came in the traditional way, whether or not they were aware of it.  The text was written out on paper, arranged in the manner in which they wished the letters to be arranged, with a sort of indication which lines were to be pronounced.  They left it to me exactly which fonts and sizes to use.  The size of the card is 3.5 x 5 inches, single sided.  It will be printed on 100lb Neenah card stock, smooth, off-white.  A sort of Ivory colour.  They will be supplying the paper.

This is the orientation which the compositor, or "type setter" views type as it is being set in the composition stick.  Type is "pegged" into the "stick" from left to right, upside down, "nicks-up".  Each line has a properly cut 1pt. lead in between, separating lines of type.  This gives rise to the term "leading out" a line, still used by digital typesetters today.  

The first line is 18pt "Open" Caslon, from a foundry font cast by the American Type Founders about a century ago.  The next line is an Edwardian cursive,  18 pt cast on a 24pt body.  The next line repeats the use of the Open Face Caslon.  The next line is set in 12pt. Caslon Old Style, cast by Quaker City Type Foundry in Honeybrook P.A., the same foundry Colonial Williamsburg uses for their colonial print shop. The next line is 12pt Caslon Italic.  The rest of the lines interleave 12pt "book" Caslon 337 with the 18pt Caslon open face 18pt.

As an Artisan Printer, the use of hand-set type is not only a practical resource, but it is also an art unto itself.  Handset metal type dates all the way back to Gutenberg, in the 1450s.  It is a tradition that remained virtually unchanged for over 500 years.  I am amazed at the reluctance of today's boutique Letterpress Establishments to go beyond their Polymer dies and Boxcar bases.  Yes, metal type isn't cheap, and yes, it makes for a heavier chase....that's what "heavy-metal" printing is all about, gang!  The most pure form of printing "by hand".  

And . . . the most beautiful.  Nothing beats Handset.  Nothing.

Paper Wren Press is among the very few Letterpress operations in Florida offering this service (as far as I am aware).  University of Tampa / Tampa Bay Book Arts Studios still do handset and line-casting.  Beyond TBAS and ourselves, I am unaware of any other in the State.

That's it from Paper Wren Press.  Please feel free to contact us from our site at www.paperwrenpress.com , or email us with any questions or inquires regard Typesetting by hand, or any other service we provide.  Our email address is gary@paperwrenpress.com  

Look over this blog, and also the "Printer's Blog" for more facets of Letterpress Printing.

-gary, owner.

The Indie Market Show: A Great Time Had by All!

 The Indie Market Artisan Craft Show took place on Artisan Alley, Deland Florida, this past Sunday, June 2. I have to thank Courtney, of Newfangled Market, for both sponsoring this show, and for the last minute adjustment she worked out which allowed us to set up our 'booth' under the shelter of the parking garage.  Rain was in the forecast, not a good thing for paper goods!  Despite the rain, we had a great turn-out! 

 The primary goal of Paper Wren Press, aside from selling our products, was to introduce ourselves to the local community.  Our table featured A2 stationery cards designed by Anna Coleman, who attended the show  with us, showing her original art as well as her prints.  We also featured our French Empire Post Cards, and our portfolio, showing our custom work over the past few years.  We also had a guest book ready for visitors.

 We had some of our coasters available, too.  In the photo above, you can see a little of the cross section of product offerings we featured during the show.  We also had a video of the Letterpress in operation, all of which can be found on my YouTube channel "wd4nka".  One of the video demonstrators, Alton Shady, came to visit with us along with his sweet wife Rebekah, from the Tampa / New Port Richey area, along with Carl Nudi and Joshua, from the Tampa Book Arts Studio, University of Tampa (TBAS), and Jan, from West Palm.  (Sorry, Josh, I forgot your last name!  Blame it on the hospital visit  - or maybe I'm just getting old... :)

 The photos above and below show the artwork of Anna Coleman, which follow an animorphistic theme: Dogs, along with common woodland creatures, each wearing something which brings out a human character to their own nature.  My favourite is the hedgehog, which I think I can persuade Anna to sketch out for the next run of greeting cards.

Part of my job as Printer and co-owner, is not only to introduce Paper Wren Press, Artisan Letterpress - to the community, but also to educate the community as to what Letterpress is all about.  Central Florida is a rather "Johnny Come Lately" to the Letterpress scene, most folks really don't know what Letterpress is all about.  In fact, we had one person refuse to believe our greeting cards were really Letterpress printed at all, because they do not have a deep deboss.  We showed how Letterpress is not defined by deep impression alone, but rather, by crispness of fine detail and excellent design.  Deboss is only one characteristic of raised surface printing.  Whether or not he believed us is another story . . . .(sigh).

All in all, we sold over twenty units, Anna sold a lot of her paintings, and received commisions to do custom animorphistic "portraits" of pets of some who visited our table.  The greeting cards seemed to be popular, selling a lot of eight-packs and singles, and as well, we had a lot of folks asking questions about custom Wedding stationery.  We'll see what the up-coming months will bring.  Oh, and also, we have one QSL card commission!  Thanks, Nick!

I will be adding more photos of our cards on an upcoming post.  Meanwhile, I have posted, at this point, our French Correspondence Cards on our "G.Johanson Letterpress" Etsy shop site.  I will be adding our other show offereings as well.

That's all for now.  Stay tuned!

-gary

New Greeting Cards by Anna Coleman, Illustrator!

My prior post featured an announcement for the Indie Market artisan craft / arts show in DeLand, Florida on Sunday, June 2nd.  This will be our first ever show, and we thought we would start off with a whole new series of cards especially created by our illustrator, Anna Coleman.  Anna already has four children's books to her credit, and has since developed her technique in pen and ink, specializing in the Animal Kingdom.  Our latest series of limited edition art cards feature four cards, printed on French Paper's Butcher 80lb cover stock, with matching envelopes.  Each A2 sized card features one of four birds, a Bob White, a Wren, two Spice Finches, and a Robin.

Anna has a particular knack of attributing a human persona to animals in the wild.  This was a very interesting format that she began to experiment with during her years at Flagler College, which grew into a type of animal rendering which she calls "Animorphism".  These are not cartoon-like caricatures!  Each bird is faithfully and realistically rendered in a style which reminds me a little of Thomas Nast, of Harpers' Weekly.   The artist determines a characteristic that each animal possesses, which might, in turn, characterize a personality. Then, a tell-tale article is added to the bird.  A bowler hat, a vest, perhaps a newspaper tucked under a wing. Or, even a turban!  It's amazing how human traits can be seen in the animals of creation all about us.

Each print is a faithful reproduction of Anna's original pen and ink rendering, produced into hardwood mounted metal dies, which are hand printed on one of our iron Letterpresses. The process takes the better part of one day to set up and print, the folding process, another hand wrought operation, takes most of the next day.

Since these are limited edition cards, they will be packaged by sets of four cards/ envelopes per package.  These will be sold from our table at the Indie Market Show.

And now, a sneak-peek:

These are the cards, right off the press.  I did not mention the card in the lower left, which we will be selling individually.  This is one of Anna's "Robot Cards" which we published at G. Johanson, Letterpress a couple years ago.  We thought we would publish a run of these cards, too.

Here is an unfolded shot of "Runaway Robin".  There is a close up of each of the Bird Cards as we proceed.

These are the hardwood mounted dies produced by Owosso Graphics, of Owosso, Michigan. These particular dies are cast in magnesium, mounted type-high for Letterpress use.

We call this one "Turban Bird".  Yup, he's a Bobwhite.  The feather tuff on the Bobwhite's head is what sent Anna's imagination to the middle east.  His vest has Turkish brocade buttons and collar.  Styling!

These two Spice Finches are none other than "Orville and Wilbur".  These are in reality Anna's own finches which kept her company all through college, and still reside happily with her and her husband in their home.  At one point, Anna came across a 1903-vintage photo of Orville and Wilbur Wright, both sporting dapper bowlers and vests....and she couldn't resist.

Close-ups of Wilbur and Orville, to show the individual pen strokes required to render these illustrations.  There is very nearly a wood-engraving feel about them, which is what reminds me of the newspaper and magazine illustrations of the 1860s and 70s.

Wilbur is a little more formal: he is wearing his cravat. I guess if they were 'first in flight', might as well be 'first in fashion' as well!

This little guy is my favourite.  He's a little Wren that we call "Newsie".  He just . . . reminded us of the movie namesake.  All that quick, energetic persona just needed a 19th century vest, workers cap and, of course, a paper under wing. 

I took this photo as I was setting the scoring rule on the press.  I always get a little impatient to see the finished product.  This little guy is "Runaway Robin".  Having lived at both ends of the migratory path of the Robin, I can see how Anna spotted the rather transitory, hobo-like nature of one of my favourite birds.

This is Paper Wren Press' new logo.

That's all for now!  Friday we will have a "stuffing party", where we will be assembling the sets and packaging them for the show.  We should have over ninety packaged sets available for the show.  Hope to see you there!

-gary.

Deland Indie Market Show at Artisan Alley!

Paper Wren Press will have a display table at the Deland Indie Market event on June 2, 12:00 - 7:00.  The show will be held in Deland's Artisan Alley, a restored turn of the century masonry warehouse area which has become the Arts center of Deland.   For more information, contact Courtney, of Newfangled Modern Market.


Hope to see ya there!

A Very Special Wedding Project.

 

I've heard it said that one of the chief advantages of Letterpress Printing is that you can print virtually on anything.  This week we put this to the test with Chris and Rebekah's Wedding Announcements.  One of the unique characteristics of my clientele is their creativity and willingness to be part of the process of making their cards.  I believe Chris hit the high water mark in this regard, in that he chose . . . to make his own paper!  The story of how he, along with Josh Ruston, created this paper will follow in a subsequent installment.  But for now, some images of this amazing project.

The paper itself was made in a home made 'beater', consisting of an old Jack Daniels Whiskey barrel, charred on the inside for waterproofing, lined with stationary blades with provide narrow clearance for the sickle-like rotary blades that rotate between them.  This action "beats" the vegetable pulp, forcing them to hydrate without cutting or slicing the fibers.  Included in the pulp mix was burlap, grass clippings, small fragments of charred wood from the barrel itself, and recycled book pages, which created a low contrast kaleidoscope of colour.

After the paper was couched from the deckle, it was set out to dry in the open air, then, when fully coalesced, yet damp, it is pressed.  The result is a deckled-edged irregular sheet that resembles something on the paper side of papyrus.  It is somewhat irregular in thickness and dimension, posing quite a challenge in feeding to the press.

Letterpresses - indeed, ANY printing press - wants to see very flat, uniform stock.  In order to feed something like this to a press, one has to use both hands.  On hand pushes the stock flat, the other guides it into the gauge pins as best as it can fit.  Needless to say, precise registry is out of the question!

Once the card is in place, the platen closes, and by golly!  It receives a really nice impression!  One of the things we tried to do to insure as even a margin as possible, considering the irregular edges, was permit wider margins around the card which makes the occasional tilting of the image much less noticeable.  The imperfect surface did create slight variations of impression depth upon each of the cards, further lending to it's rustic look.

The use of a large rubber band across the "frisket fingers", or "gripper bars" helped to pull the stock away from the die, just in case.  There was little trouble with this, however.  The paper was amazingly well behaved.

The envelope used is French Paper Company's "Packing Brown Wrap", which is essentially the same type of paper that brown grocery bags are made from.  In fact, brown grocery bags can make a very interesting stock for envelope conversion and printing. (So do recycled cereal boxes, for business cards.  Just a hint, there.)  Letterpress and recycling go hand in hand.  It's the must sustainable industry on earth!

Here is a shot of the completed card. I might add that Chris designed the text along with me.  We were both at my ancient FreeHand MX 2004 IDE, dragging the mouse and punching the keyboard.

One final shot: remember my describing the contents of the pulp?  I had to get a photo of this piece of a capital letter "B" from some recycled page bit.  You never know where these pieces show up on the stock, it can create quite an interesting effect.   The recycled paper is added late in the mix, which keeps it from entirely breaking up in the beating process.  You can also see the burlap fibers woven through the stock.

Well, the order is done, and the stack of cards awaiting delivery look almost medieval. They just clear their A7 brown envelopes.

Well, that's it for this installment.  One thing that I have learnt from this project, which is the adage is true.  You can print on practically anything with a Letterpress!  But you have to sometimes do it very slowly, and using both hands.  But then, that's what Artisan Printing is all about!

Click here to catch the installment on the making of the paper, on the G. Johanson, Letterpress Printer blog site, which is our information and educational blog.

-gary, at the Paper Wren Press.

Stationery from a Byegone Era : The Universal Post Card!

 

 You may have never seen anything like this before.  At least, not in your lifetime.  Very probably, not in your parent's lifetime, either.  These were the Universal Post Cards, also known as International Message and Reply Cards. They often came pre-franked with the postage stamp printed right on the envelope, and if you were sending your card to Timbuktu, you probably needed an extra stamp or two to cover the 'round-the-world distances.  These were printed by all the countries which were members of the Universal Postal Union, or, the UPU, which governed international postal rates from the 1870s, and on into the 20th century.

I particularly liked the 3rd Republic French postal stationery!  There is something inherently "bourgeois" when it comes to what eventually evolved into industrial Art Nouveau.  It's that certain something that makes you want to write with better handwriting, and scribe with a 'dip-pen' something substantive, rather than "OMG, ROTFL!"

We all need more class in our lives.  There.  I said it.

These photos are a sneak peak into a project that I have lined up later this year for Letterpress Production. The design comes from a French Postal Cover dating to 1878.  However, I decided to incorporate a franking design (postal speak for the stamp that is printed on the cover) which pre-dates the border by twenty years, the 1858 "Ceres Head" stamp from the reign of Napoleon III, which is one of the most celebrated classics of all time.  Well....if you collect stamps, that is.  Or, if you are an admirer of Postal Ephemera.  That would classify you as a philatelist, "lover of that which is printed for collection of postage."

Most of you have already caught the German Blackletter "Postkarte".  It was common to print Universal Cards in multiple languages, and in 1870s France (which was involved at the time in the Franco-Prussian War), it was most common to make that second language German.  And the German Postkarten designs reciprocated.  I might add that to this day, French is the language of Philately, the Science and Art of collecting, evaluating and appraising Postal Ephemera.

I had to make some changes to the Ceres Head design, especially when I realized how very close to the real thing my version was starting to become.  I wanted to create a legal Postal Label, not a forgery of a stamp worth hundreds of dollars!  Thus, I altered the dimension of the design, placed my initials at the lower right (ggj) as the "sculpsit", or engraving designer, removed any mention of a country, took off the denomination and added the French Legend "Carte Postale Universelle".  There was never a Ceres Head post card.  Oh, but lots of 'em were attached to post cards, though.  The pre-printed stamps came later on, in the 1870s.  A few other differences Philatelists will also readily note is the background lines and bead count around the disc which surrounds the head, which differ very obviously from the original 1858 black Ceres Head.

Yet, it is still the Ceres Head in the original classic frame, and best of all, these cards will be printed using the very same type of press, likewise using hardwood mounted copper dies!  Who says they don't make 'em like they used to??

Ok, so what is this green stamp?  If you think it's an imperforate 1904 French Regular Postal issue, you are almost right.  This stamp has a story behind it.  Again, it's one of my own designs.  It's called a "Cinderella" because it's a stamp from a non-existent country, the Republic of Deltona, or in our local vernacular, "Republica Deltona".  The denomination is fifty centavos.  This stamp, and three dollars, with get you a Vinte-sized coffee at Starbucks.  I borrowed once again from French Philatelic Design to make these, which are actually printed from my photoprinter.  I just stuck it where it is to add to the vintage feel of this particular post card. The place where it is attached has printed "Place Stamp Here" in Bickham Script.  I just placed my 1904 Cinderella over it for the 'look'.  You would want to put a real stamp there, instead, of course.  

I might note here that under U.S. Postal Law, any United States Postage Stamp printed on, or after 1875, is legal for prepayment of postage.  I would not use the 1875 prussian blue five cent regular postal issue if I were you, however.  I would put that in a stamp album.  But regular postal issues from the 1930s and later still can be purchased mint at relatively low costs, all things considering.  That is, if you want to spend two dollars on a fifty cent stamp.  But I see this practice with Wedding Stationery all the time!!

This is a project in the works, and if it catches on,  we will develop it into a series of Classic Postal Stationery, with writing space on the other side (obverse) of the card.  We may also do some post card illustrations.

A word about the border: it's an exact replica, all the way down to the count of each of the border elements  per side. The border, along with the Ceres Head stamp/ label, were drawn by hand.  These are not simply vectorized copies.  Every line on this piece was edited at the individual pixel level, drawn out one hatch line at a time.  This is why the image is so crisp.  I might add, that what you see in these photos are digital copies, not the actual letterpress printed piece.  That will happen later this year.  Again, this is a sneak-peak into the project which is still in it's post-design, pre-press stage.  We are excited about it.  We hope you will be, too!

Stay tuned, and au revoir!

Our Latest Project.

This is probably the most interesting endeavor I've ever embarked on as a printer.  The project is basically a Wedding Announcement, but Chris, the Groom, decided to take it one step further.  Together with Josh Rustin, one of our local DeLand, Florida artists, the pair did a bit of research, and built a pulp beater (paper maker) which is designed after the Japanese traditional beaters.  The basin that holds the beaten pulp is half of an old Jack Daniels whiskey barrel.  At this point, no photos of the beater and process is available, but they are forthcoming.  But what I do have are the first offerings, which I test printed with a die that I made for a prior client last year, which was designed by calligrapher Angela Welch.

For a little fill on what sort of pulp the paper shown contains: burlap, grass, charcoal bits that came from the barrel itself, and shredded encyclopedia pages.

 We needed to see how this paper would respond to the pressures of Letterpress Printing.  Since the deckle and mould are generally 5x7" in size (A7), I chose to use a die that I already made which approximated the size and lettering style, a rich cursive.  This particular piece is part of a suite designed by Angela Welch.  You can see and read about the actual suite here.

 You can see the various fibers quite plainly, giving a very rustic look.

 There is no trimming involved, which is part of the challenge: how do we place the paper on the press for acceptable register with so irregular an edge?  Answer: make sure you have lots of margin!

 Here is what the stock looks like before printing.  Thickness is roughly 300gsm, but has thicker and thinner areas. Remember, the point is "rusticity".  There is, of course, no sizing in this first batch.  Josh informs that they may opt to press out the paper differently and add calcium sizing in the next batch.

I love this. Some of the recycle papers were added late in the mix, to add a bit of interest.  Here is an example of the occasional word or word-part that turned up.

All in all, Chris will have a very unique and interesting set of wedding invites!  Each one will be an individual work of art, and a sample of what Artisan Crafting is all about!  Thanks, Chris Rupp and Josh Rustin!

-gary