Mrs. Lollipop, Pittsburgh
Age and Occupation: 26, Computational Linguist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Project Manager
Engagement Date: August 2, 2006
Wedding Date: September 2, 2007
Blogging Since: July 17, 2007
Venue: The PPG Aquarium at the Pittsburgh Zoo
About Me: I'm a Pittsburgh transplant who grew up in the deep south. I have a weakness for exotic alphabets, DIY projects, mobster movies and international travel. My fiance and I are both non-native Japanese speakers and we have a bullfrog named Skinny.
Now I Know Why Letterpressing Is So Expensive
July 17th, 2007 @ 3:07 pm by Mrs. Lollipop
I never imagined that it would take so long to letterpress our invitations. Back in June, I spent two days in a letterpress studio setting type for our invitation wording and directions. If you’ve never set type before, just imagine setting tiny metal dominoes.
I was able to use the studio for free as a favor from our friend Nick. It is located in a garage in Squirrel Hill with no running water or toilet facilities. After my hands got too dirty from the type I couldn’t rub my eyes. Happily, it rained later that afternoon and I was able to hold my hands out in the downpour to clean them off. The next day I brought a bottle of water and a towel.
A few days later Nick helped me to get the type ready for printing. We spent from 8:00 pm until 4:00 am just setting up the press and adding pieces of onion skin paper so that the type would hit just right. We spent six hours the following day printing and resetting for the next page. Once we finished adjusting the press it took less than an hour for the whole 200+ print run. The same amount would have taken four hours with a silk screen and would have suffered a much higher error rate.
The press itself is from (circa) 1895. It runs on manual power and moves smoothly despite its age. First, the roller grabs ink from a plate and rubs it on the type. Next, the type pivots forward and kisses the card on the platform. While the roller grabs more ink a human (Nick, in this case) takes out the printed card, lays it out to dry, and then places the next card. All this happens while someone (me or a trained monkey) provides the power by spinning the wheel.
By the time we finished our two sets of cards my arms were ringing and I was sick of looking at my invitations. I gave up on letterpressing rehearsal dinner cards and returned home. I was tired of invitation work, but they had to be assembled and mailed. I would have killed for a crafty post office fairy.
It’s standing room only in the garage:
An iron frame for holding type and spacers called ‘furniture’ in the type industry:
Some of the type I set:
Paint and shelves of wooden type:
Drying prints:
to be continued…
21 Responses to “Now I Know Why Letterpressing Is So Expensive”
I’m having custom letterpress STD’s, invitations and menus made. Reading this makes me feel a little bit better about the amount of money we are spending to do this. I didn’t realize the amount of work involved.
Wow! That is so neat! Now that is a labor of love. They look great!
Wow, good luck with everything!
wow… i love the antique look of all of the machinery and supplies. you can make prints of those photos and put them up around your house.
That is fabulous. I came so close to having my stuff letterpressed, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it myself. Those are beautiful!
That’s old-school letterpress right there! Traditional presses are so rare nowadays, you’re lucky that you got a hold of one.
Present-day letterpress rely on polymer plates to make images, so no hand-setting metal slugs.
Good job on hand-setting all those slugs of type yourself. You must be a pro in reading mirror image 
WOW - and i mean, wow, that is really dedication! Really impressive!
Those look awesome! I took a letterpress class in Portland (http://www.iprc.org/) with the intention of letterpressing my own invites. However, just silkscreening my Save the Dates is taking so long, I’m starting to reconsider doing all the invites myself.
ooh, can’t wait to see more about your invites–is that letterpress on top of silkscreen?
cool post, thanks for letting us in on the process
Yep. They invitations are screen printed and then letter pressed.
I did consider having custom photopolymer plates made, but I was too cheap and stupid to realize how much time it will save me. Still, it was fun to pretend that I was living in the 1890’s for a few days.
*makes silent pledge to proofread comments for grammar and spelling before posting*
Those look absolutely beautiful! Very nice job
Very interesting post!
Miss Lollipop,
I liked your post. Seeing that you have interest in process I thought you might find our videos of interest on how paper is made, sheeted, making envelopes, etc.
Here’s a link to these videos, http://www.thepapermillstore.com/pages.php?pageid=409 .
I hope you find these interesting.
All the best,
Brian
You’re so lucky!! I would absolutely love to do my own letterpress- the labor is worth it they’re awesome!
That is too cool. Seriously. DIY at a whole new level. As if letterpress wasn’t yummy enough.
So…When do we get to see more of those invites?
that is so super duper cool.
[…] In a nice post, Miss Lollipop records her experience setting up and printing on a letterpress in “Now I Know Why Letterpressing Is So Expensive.” […]
Doesn’t everyone love letterpressing? Getting to tour other peoples shop is always fun especially if you’ve never printed before.
Our design studio and print shop doors are always open to the public who are curious about the process.
Great blog!
