Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection

Another fun thing about switching over to wood type poster printing is that it gave Laura the excuse to visit David Shields and the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection held by the University Texas at Austin. Laura plans to do special printing and research projects in the coming year to better educate herself about American Wood Type. http://www.utexas.edu/cofa/a_ah/rrk/index.php

Wood type!!

The fun part about switching over to wood type poster printing is that you have the excuse to buy lots of pretty new things like mixed font wood alphabets and a handy little signpress. Laura is in love with that outlined font (B, M, Q) Can't wait to print with it!!

Back to Austin

While we loved Portland and our beautiful studio, 13% unemployment drove us back to the loving arms (and jobs) in Austin. We both plan to come back to Portland for residencies and printing jobs... but for now it is better to be in Austin until the economy turns around.

We will be posting our new studio address soon. And we were so glad to make it back in time for the Franklin BBQ opening... yay!!

New Print

While Laura was having her Southwest roadtrip, Brian was also finding some inspiration from the West with his cool new print.

A Visit to Priscilla Spitler in New Mexico

Laura also stopped off to visit her bookbinding mentor, the winner of the 2009 De Golyer Triennial ( http://smu.edu/Bridwell/DeGolyer/degolyer2009/spitler.htm ), Priscilla Spitler in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. ToC is an eccentric beautiful artists town, and while Laura was there she was able to soak in a hot mineral spring bath, and see Priscilla's husband, Don's burgeoning airplane museum. If you have to make a 2,000 mi drive, Laura really recommends a soak in a hot mineral bath.

International Printing Museum Los Angeles, CA

Laura stopped off at The International Printing Museum outside of Los Angeles to visit Mark Barbour's amazing collection of type, equipment and printing history. They teach classes, sell equipment, and have a beautiful museum. Well worth a visit.

Bwana Spoons

Brian did these amazing 6 color prints for artist Bwana Spoons bwanards.blogspot.com I will post a better picture soon. Sorry they are so blurry. These are amazing.

Wood type revelation

Maybe it was a year of having a non-functioning press, maybe it was just pure magic... but after Laura made the Franklin BBQ posters, she had a revelation to switch the main focus of her letterpress to wood type posters. Here are the next ones she did for the Low Lows. I love how the hand over inking creates a split fountain effect. And wood type printed on chipboard just looks tough....

Franklin BBQ

Our dear friends Aaron & Stacy Franklin opened a BBQ Trailer in Austin, TX... finally!!! Aaron has been having the most well attended BBQ parties for years (over 150 at the last one I went to) and we were psyched to trade some printing for some pulled pork & brisket. The cards were designed by our friend Blair Richardson www.littlemulestudio.com and just printed on regular ol chipboard. The wood type was hand inked and borrowed from the amazing collection at Em Space.

Gann Publishing Portland, OR

Laura was also lucky enough to meet Stephen, Michael and Christopher Gann whose family has run a printing business in the Pearl District since the turn of the century. Laura mainly went to watch them operate their 4 Heidelberg Windmills, and observe the mysteries of foil stamping and die cutting... but after a while she realized that it was a treasure trove of printing history. They have the most amazing collection of advertising cuts from the NW Region. Meeting the Gann's was worth not having my press work. (and yes, chiclets were made in their building)

Em Space Portland, OR

Laura was never able to get 220 power to her Heidelberg Windmill in our studio space, so it forced her to meet every nice letterpress printer in town.

She printed most of her letterpress at Em Space, just down the street. Em Space www.em-space.org is a letterpress & book arts studio, that teaches classes and provides daily and monthly studio rental. They have vandercooks, C&Ps, tabletop clamshells, more type than you can imagine, nipping presses and much much more. Talk to Rory Sparks. She'll set you up. They also have regular book arts & printing shows and encourage sumbissions from outside of the area.

I can't wait until they are a national chain. Every city should have an Em Space.

The Low Lows art poster

In august we were also lucky enough to print a screen print & letterpress art poster for our friends, The Low Lows, to sell at their performance at this year's All Tomorrow's Parties. Check out their music at www.thelowlows.com

There was a horrible printing plate mess up (my service bureau made the plates incorrectly) but we solved it by overprinting in silver. What a happy accident. Silver fixes everything!

These were printed on Lenox etching paper.

Caroline & Dorian wedding set

In August we printed a beautiful wedding set designed by Jen Lorentzen www.thesmallviking.com

The greens were screen printed, the orange & gray type letterpressed, the rsvp card was perforated, for tear-off return, and the whole set was drilled so that it could be tied together with an orange silk ribbon. Phew! But it was all worth is because it turned out beautifully. Printed on French Paper Muscletone pure white.

We love French Paper!

Though we use a wide range of papers from the exquiste Gmund, to beautiful Neenah, arty Arches, to utilitarian ol' chipboard... we find ourselves returning time & time again to French Paper www.frenchpaper.com for our screenprinting and letterpress needs (especailly when we have a job that requires both screen printing AND letterpress). Here Brian turns into a happy printing robot while wearing the Paper Specs Laura picked up at the 2009 HOW Design Conference in June... and oddly enough French kept sending us Paper Specs with all our orders. We are hoping to order enough so they will send us a pair of X-Ray Specs. We know they have to have some....

The Portland Studio

We couldn't ask for a bigger or nicer studio with more amazing studio mates like Think Design. Located in SE under the Hawthorne Bridge, just down the street from OMSI and Em Space.

Bovine Sign

The inspiration for the sign outside our shop. Brian changed the logo a bit and then screenprinted on wood.