daydream believer: letterpress lust

A couple of summers ago I was on a trip to Nashville (and a couple other southern destinations... see this recap), and was smart enough to visit Hatch Show Prints. Hatch show is one of the most famous letter press printers in the country... famous for it's music posters.

From wikipedia: "Letterpress printing is a term for the relief printing of text and image using a press with a "type-high bed" printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image." In short. Letterpress is neato. And pretty. I've collected some letterpress beauties from around the internets....

Speaking of Hatch Show... gotta love this old Johnny Cash print.

These 2 are from a local St. Louis shop that I LOVE, Firecracker Press.

There are several talented letterpress printers/artisits in St. Louis, actually. Like my fellow Roller Girl, South City Shiner's Sensura Studio. See her portfolio here.

Also, one of St. Louis best music acts, Sleepy Kitty, also does some awesome prints.

Evil Prints is another local shop. Check out his disturbing, yet pretty, "Bugz" like this one, "Mrs. Buttermoth."

I came across these. Dude put dice in the letterpress machine to make these fantastic posters! Brilliant! He has an Etsy store... it's closed right now, but looks like it will reopen soon.

I want to learn more about letterpress and woodtype. I would love to visit the Hamilton Museum someday, or at least see this documentary.

Until then, I will just discover and enjoy the myriad of letterpress pretties across the internet. Like this Flickr group, or online shops like Sweet Olive press. I am very much behind the use of letterpress for business cards. The texture and interest a letterpress gives cards can make them so unique and/ or elegant... even without the use of ink!! This tutorial about designing for letterpress might come in handy!

And, of course, there's ETSY. Search "letterpress" and you'll get a plethora of results. Letterpress is great if you want to get some really great original design/artwork, but don't have a huge bank account to go out and buy paintings. Here are some that caught my eye...