September 29, 2008 – 7:00 am
Graphic design is tons of fun, but it’s also work—and it takes a lot of mental energy. Sometimes you just have to get away and play. So how do you play and relax?
As many of you know, one thing that I’m enjoying a lot at the moment is letterpress. I’ve successfully restored a Vandercook SP-15 press, and today I cleaned up the C&P (not sure the model number or size at the moment. I know there’s a chase somewhere, but I haven’t measured it yet). And again, I must say, Evapo-Rust is a wonderful product!
Check out the results of the Evapo-Rust and see what I’ll be printing as my first official project on the Vandercook!
September 12, 2008 – 7:00 am
So now that the press is up and working, I need some project ideas! I spent snippets of this week mulling over ideas and creating little thumbnails.
The hard part about not knowing all the supplies (fonts, ink, paper) at the shop is that I can’t plan things out too specifically. I don’t want to take this design into the digital world and get totally attached to a font or an image and then not have it when I get up there.
Come see some inspiration I found from Etsy along with my own thumbnail sketch ideas. If you have a great idea and I can use it, I’ll send you 10 free cards from that run!
August 11, 2008 – 7:00 am
I was able to finalize the restoration of the SP15 on Saturday! Yay! I’m finally ready to print, but I’m going to take a break for a couple of weeks to recover. See before and after pictures, get a link to the Flickr set to see more photos of the restoration process, plus a step by step guide to reassembling the paper gripper and announcing the winners of Creative Curio’s birthday giveaway!
Last Saturday was my final letterpress class. I really enjoyed it! If you’ve missed my previous letterpress articles, you can visit week 1 and week 2. I’m a little sad it’s over, but that’ll give me more time to get the Vandercook SP15 press up and running! I printed my second set of cards on the Vandercook again (never got a chance to use the C&P). Even though this was only my second time on a press, it was definitely easier than the first time.
The real exciting part for me this week was more cleanup on the SP15! If you’ll remember last time, I shared that I’m restoring a Vandercook printing press so that I can use it. It doesn’t belong to me, but it’s not being used by anyone right now and it needs some love and attention and a gallon or two of Evapo-Rust! Click any of the pictures below to see a larger version on Flickr.
Last week I told you about the letterpress class I’m taking. Well this week was my first time to print on the press! It was a ton of fun! I’ll show you a couple of pictures of me actually printing on a Vandercook 4 and as a little bonus, get a peek at my progress on restoring a Vandercook SP15.
As many of you know I’m taking a letter press printing class! So far it’s a lot of fun, but we haven’t even gotten to the printing part yet. The first week we watched the instructor print some cards. We saw how the C&P inked itself (it’s automatic and runs on a motor) and then watched as she set up the job. The second week is when we finally got to do some hands on work! Yay!
From generic to specific, Flickr groups and individual member sets abound in this social media center for images. Flickr isn’t just for your vacation pictures or your latest lolcat photos anymore. Flickr is a great place for loads of inspiration from letterpress to graffiti, typography to doodles. As a graphic designer, I’m always in search of new sources of inspiration for a wide variety of projects. Flickr is the answer!
