I’ll ask your forgiveness before I start, because I can’t help but go where I am going with this, and I want to take some of the sting out of it . . .

Here is an engraving I did for a friend of mine who has taken up apiculture (which is to say, bee keeping). This sweet little block cut has been getting a lot of buzz since the client took delivery of the art. People have been swarming all around his jars of Burning Truck Honey. (Why does he call it Burning Truck Honey? Its none of your bees wax.)

The execution of this work was a bit sticky and it gives me the hives just to think back on it, but the end product . . . sweeeeet.

Remember, I already apologized honey, so bee nice.

As a letterpress printer, it is hard to ignore the work of printers from the end of the 1800s. It was, in many ways, the heyday of relief printing. What with the advances in type casting technology and in the industrialization of printing plants and the equipment contained therein. It was a time when the occupational separation between printers and graphic designers had not yet occurred: when printers were still responsible for the look of the work that came out of their print shops.

It was a time of lush ornamentation, which followed the trends in architecture and fashion. It was a time of innovation and visual adventure. It was a time of hideously ugly individual elements which, combined together, created absolutely beautiful aggregations of texture and palate.

It was a time who’s sensibilities are nearly impossible to revisit from a 21st century state of mind.

And yet, this wedding invitation, designed by Ryan Ullery, looks backward with a crystal clear vision and takes a confident step forward. His wonderfully modern marriage of the outmoded line qualities of yesteryear with his clean vision of tomorrow provides an appropriate vehicle for this playful announcement of his own betrothal.

I believe that your vision will serve you well in your career and, more importantly, in your marriage. Well said Ryan.

Here is a alarmingly close register piece brought to me by Lisa Fischer at Meadowland Photography. It is a two color piece that comes across looking like a three color job with a split fountain.

It is printed in brown and a yellow-orange with the brown over-printing the orange. A 120 line screen was used to create the color gradient.

I love the final result.

The Nomadic Press archives recently overflowed their banks and a reorganization became necessary to avoid flooding the print shop with a 23-year catalog of work. During the resorting process I came across some interesting stuff, including this piece, which is the invitation to the wedding of Brandi Padilla and Kevin Garnett.

The invitation set was designed here at Nomadic and was printed using hand made paper and hand set metal type.

I loved the calm and quiet colors Brandi chose, and it was fun to do an unadorned piece with a typographic layout different from the on-center typography that is so commonly found in wedding invitation design.

Kevin missed his chance to play in the Olympics that year and got married instead. And although I’d like to think it was the Nomadic Press invitation that convinced him to take the big step, I suspect that typography had nothing to do with his decision.

The brown and orange colors in this 7 color wood engraving are a tip of the pumpkin top to this colorful season we are in the midst of.

Believe it or not, this multicolored wood engraving was cut as a study for a one-color block print illustration. The examination of the color layers in this version help in determining the tonality of the final work, which is rendered in black on white.

Engraving into wood takes on a meditative quality as the tips of the variously shaped burins dip into the wood and remove tiny areas of negative space. Sometimes hours can float by without my being aware of their passing as I work on blocks such as these.

Cut into end-grain maple, this illustration is about 3 inches square and served its purpose well.

One of the benefits of using letterpress printing for the production of promotional pieces is the reluctance of the recipient to throw the work away. And if a prospective client saves your promotion there is a greater chance that they will end up hiring you to do some work at some point in the future.

For the most part that train of thought stands to reason although when a growing St. Paul company called Affina contacted The Nomadic Press about doing some promotional printing we thought we would take a different track.

Affina chose a paper that has been made from a flower seed infused pulp with the idea that their beautiful graphic design would catch the attention of the companies they hoped to do work with.

After that the work could be tossed into some dirt and the relationship would start to grow.

Flowers and letterpress printing. Bloomin’ beautiful.

This last year I was thrilled to have the opportunity of printing the business cards for the Minnesota chapter of AIGA. Not only was it nice to be chosen to do the printing that represents an organization of such high standing in the graphic arts community, but it was also nice to be chosen by such a sizable group of graphic artists.

These are people from wide and varied backgrounds who’s styles and areas of expertise are far-flung.

The paper the cards are printed on, which was donated to the organization by Neenah, is a Classic Crest 165 pound stock which took the ink beautifully and accommodated such a nice clean impression that I’ve taken to using it as often as I can.

And the red. How I like a bright red on a bright white stock. With black. Oh, yea. Red and white and black.

Say what you want about the sixteen jillion colors that you can have me mix, printing does not get much more fun than this.

When Gutenberg was working on perfecting his printing process in the 1450s the major source of power was water (well, that and draft animals). In mills across the world water power was used for, among other things,  the grinding of grain and the beating of pulp for the making of paper. In 2010 French Paper is still using a water powered mill to create perfection in the form of their delicious whip cream 140 pound cover stock.

This is the paper that the gang at Charles S. Anderson Design Company chose to work with when French, CSA and Nomadic Press teamed up to produce this poster showcasing the interconnectivity of all of our skill sets.

Think about it. If CSA had no paper or printers to work with then what would be the point of their coming to work every day. If French existed in a world void of printers and designers then why crank up the macerators at the beginning of the week. If I never had a design to print or the paper to print it on then I would not be a printer and would probably be up to no good. 

Together we complete each the other and thrive on the creativity of the work of those in related fields.

A great deal of that creativity (and a fair amount of basic hard work) went into completing this piece. Starting with the making of the paper and the imagining of the design, and culminating with the letterpress printing of the finished poster. Now that it is all said and done one might consider it water under the bridge.

Or, better yet, water through the hydroelectric generators. Power to you French. Thanks CSA.