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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

merry christmas.

last night saw a late visit to my favorite local letterpress shop, the trip print press. it's always fun to visit nicholas and all the big crazy machines he keeps company with there. on top of being an operating shop, his space is also an absorbing museum of both his past works and of arcane devices/stuff. nicholas is the dude who made the backing cards for the sweetie pie press commissioned artist sets (and helped me engineer the packaging), and he also does a lot of work in toronto's music scene (i spy a poster for leah's band).



but i was visiting with a purpose last night; i had commissioned some business cards and calling cards for both aitor and his collective, the misanthrope specialty company, and was going to pick them up. they were supposed to be aitor's christmas gift but with nicholas and i being the busy folks we are, the cards came into being now. i think our faithful compositor did an incredible job with the design (all his own doing) and even went to the trouble of laminating a bunch of them - this involves putting the cards through a machine that coats them in glue and then applying another sheet of paper to the back (minty green, in this case). they are fantastic, nicholas.

in the photo below, the business cards are also resting in a holder made by mike kennedy of two toques design. it is pretty keen to have such skilled friends.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those are lovely photos of that lovely and chaotic space!

sweetie pie press said...

thanks, dory! the space isn't actually so chaotic to be in. it's just huge and full of things. it has some nice open space, i just happened to be standing in it when i took pictures.

Marnie said...

dude, way behind on all the busy stuff you've been doing - even with the stomach flu, you are a busy gal! (throw in balls and playgirl, and my head is all awhirl!) hey - i know absolutely nothing about letterpress, and before i contact this guy and insult him by a small order in very little time, was wondering if you had any idea how long 20 copies of a poem on a small card would take (um, could it be done by Wednesday?) is it silly to be asking you? i just don't want two toques to think i'm too clueless, 'specially if i'm saying i heard about it from you :-)

sweetie pie press said...

marnie, i am going to advise you against this idea.

(also, two toques design is the maker of the card holder not the cards themselves; that is the trip print press.)

nicholas charges a basic set up fee for compositing (i think starting at $150 and going from there) then charges for things like ink colours and paper stocks on top of that. this makes ordering in volume a greater value. he is also...how should i say this?...not speedy with small custom orders. nicholas has taken a job with a big local print shop so the trip print press is now sharing his time. in my experience, rush jobs are not his strong point. i mean, maybe they are if you are doing a big order for big bucks but not these small run things. i usually order at least 500 of anything from him to make it make sense.