hot off the press

September was possibly the busiest month of printing EMprint Press has ever had. One of the biggest and most rewarding of our projects were the wine labels for Big Table Farm winery.

I worked with Clare Carver and Brian Marcy of Big Table Farm Winery to problem-solve and print their wine labels. Clare is actually a wine label designer and does the illustrations for the labels herself, so her expertise was key. In the past they have glued each letterpressed label onto the bottles by hand (!!), but they were hoping to find a slightly easier application method this year. 

Considerable research and experimentation yielded a finished product that I think we are all very happy with. I ended up applying an adhesive film to large parent sheets of a thick cotton printmaking paper with a cold lamination machine. There were a few tense hours in the studio as I discovered/invented a good method for the adhesive application (and any poor soul who happened to stop by the studio most likely got a glimpse of my lovely Irish temper). Luckily, I eventually found my groove with this new material.

Once I had the adhesive-backed paper prepared, I thought it should be smooth sailing. But I had to run my dear ol’ Miehle to her limits, in order to get as deep of an impression as possible. (Punch-through wasn’t a concern, since the backside would never be seen.) The adhesive backer paper (release liner) had a bit of static attraction to the cylinder tympan, so for the larger press sheets I had to slow/stop the press at the top of each stroke to make sure the printed sheet had cleared the press before the next sheet started printing. (I learned my lesson early on when two sheets on the cylinder caused the worst paper jam ever. Fortunately I had machined some special tools just for loosening the necessary bolts the last time I had a jam, so it only took me a couple of hours to clear this time.)

Once the printing was completed, I spent days and days at the trimmer, cutting down the press sheets into heaps and heaps of lovely little labels. If I have the opportunity to print their wine labels next year, I might try to setup a ‘kiss cut’ on the press (a die-cut through the paper and adhesive, while leaving the backer paper intact). Hopefully this will not only eliminate the endless trimming task, but also make for easier removal of the backer paper during the labeling process.

This job was a challenge, but one that I was particularly interested in overcoming; I have been wanting to letterpress labels for my family’s vinegar and the main obstacle was the trouble of having to glue them on the bottles. Hopefully in the future I can adapt this same method for our labels as well!

I highly recommend this lovely video about Clare and Brian and their Big Table farm. It was such a pleasure to work with them and get to know them a little during this process. 

Cheers! to farm animals, good wine, farm fresh ‘letterpressed eggs’ and getting sh*t done.

We finally have streamlined ordering for simple, affordable business cards. 

This same order form could be used for any other little cards you might want: calling cards, coupons, moving cards, etc. Quick & easy. 

Let us know what you think!

Very cool new website for finding the perfect printer.

Saturday August 20th, 2011

11am-5pm
$2 from 11-2pm (to get the good stuff before it’s gone)
FREE from 2-5pm!

323 SE Division Place (adjacent to Em Space Book Arts Center)

“An annual fair featuring local Letterpress printers and book artists, suppliers of letterpress equipment and type, ephemera, rarities, broadsides, cards and more!”

Both Julia and I will be at weddings that day, but we’ll still have a table, shared with artist Mia Nolting. We’ll have cards and off-prints and type and quoins and reglets and borders for sale.

I’ve been having tense (but boring) dreams the last few nights about web coding. Every few years I (re)learn HTML and CSS and revamp my web presence. It’s a fun but necessarily absorbing task. I am very much looking forward to less computer time and more press time very shortly. But I’m thrilled with the new site so far and it NEVER would’ve happened without my lovely genius assistant Julia.

Hurray for clean slates!

{{{and curly brackets}}}

One tool that I was very excited to find and implement into my new site is a shopping cart program called Ecwid. If anyone is looking for a way to integrate a shopping cart into their website, I recommend checking it out. The interface is simple, highly customizable, web-based, and free.