Letterpress Shop is Open & New Letterpress Blog

My Sweet Harvey Letterpress shop is now open on ETSY! Today I uploaded some of our new greeting cards in singles, 3 packs and 6 packs. There is so much more tome come so be sure to check the shop regularly for new goodies!

CHANGES - thanks to all of you who have been following my letterpress progress so far. This blog has mainly been for my illustration & fine art but I wanted to introduce the letterpress business here as well. However, letterpress is an entirely different subject, one of which I would like to explore more about not only with my shop but the art of letterpress in general.

With that said - for those of you who want to follow my letterpress journey and learn more about letterpress I have started a new blog dedicated completely to letterpress here! I hope you will join me there as we all learn more about this vintage technique!

Introducing "Sweet Harvey Letterpress"

As you might have seen over the weekend www.brandipowell.com got an update including a link to my new letterpress business "Sweet Harvey Letterpress." The introduction was meant to take place a little later when I had more actual letterpressed samples photographed - however, a recent issue with my web host bumped up the timing of the change.

Sweet Harvey is named in honor of my grandfather Harvey who passed away in 2006. A tribute to him has been included on my letterpress site here!

Anyway, my packaging is done and all of my Sweet Harvey inventory created so far is ready to be photographed and added to the website and soon to the store for purchase.

Hope you enjoy the images I took of my inventory nicely packaged and ready for a new home!

In Production

I had so much fun this weekend with the Pearl! I am working on both learning and inventory. Mostly creating greeting cards right now while I really learn the in-and-outs of the press. Doing pretty well though, I have to say.

Now I am working on packaging and the website. I am having trouble with my hosting service so I am now in search of a new hosting service for my website before I can open my new site. I would hate to introduce my company only to have my new website down for extended periods of time.

Anyway, the plan is still to have my letterpress shop opened by the end of the summer and have an open house in the beginning of October. I am waiting for some parts for the Pearl that wont be available til the end of September to fully restore her.

If anyone has suggestions for business hosting services - please let me know. I hate to switch over to another service only to have the same or worse problems.

Letterpress Production

I finally got my registration issues taken care of and have printed my first round of production. These are all one color and the type will be added next as a second color. Each color of letterpress requires another run through the press so if you have a two color job - you print everything in the first color first. Then let dry. Then register and run the second color. It may be a few days but I will get the next color run shortly!

Moving Right Along!

Things with the letterpress are moving right along. Today I got a bunch of cardstock cut and creased to ready for print. I mixed several ink colors as well. Letterpress ink is like offset printing ink in that it comes in the standard primaries and then you have to mix the colors via a PMS pantone color guide. The ink is a bit like thick frosting but more sticky. The ink must be stored in air-tight containers so I was only able to mix five colors since I only had 5 small containers. Anyway, the next objective is registration. Since letterpress is printed with plates - each color you intend to print has its own plate. You print the first plate and then line up the next plate to register. It sounds easy but it is a bit of a bear expecially when you have wording that is two colors right next to each other. I will be working on that this week now that I received my good gauge pins to hold the paper in straight!

Wish me luck!

In Transition - Bare with Me!

As you are all aware I have started a new venture in learning letterpress which is amazing!

So far things are going very well - the hold up has been 1. waiting for all of my materials to arrive (you cant just walk into your local store for letterpress supplies - at least not one that I know of), 2. learning the difficult aspects of the trade (adjusting the press, packing to create impression depth, registration of image on paper, ink mixing, cutting/scoring 110# cardstock evenly to finish the product - to name a few), 3. branding of my work.

The plan all along was to create my illustrations in letterpress and offer them as greeting cards, social stationary, ect. Well in order to really get going on making the work - I needed a logo for the back of the product and that let me to a website & packaging, ect. I have been working on that while I was waiting for my supplies.

Then that led to the decision on what connection there would be between my art (www.brandipowell.com) and my new letterpress business. After a lot of thinking I have decided to make my letterpress business its own entity however, the two will be branded the same with the same color palette, type choices and similar design.

With that said I will be working on updating this blog and www.brandipowell.com shorty so bare with me during the transition. It might be a work in progress for a little bit!

Finally, I will be introducing my new new business name and logo shortly for the letterpress business!

Welcome Pearl, The Studio & More

Well, I returned home from my trip with much more than I bargained for. Not only did I get the Pearl that I had purchased but the seller threw in a Poco Press as well. I don't know much about that style of press. I think they call this one a Proof Press where as the Pearl & Craftsman that I already have are called Platen Presses. Anyway, I am including a photo of her - she is the one with the big roller. She presses up to 12 x 18 poster size which is really cool. She is 210lbs so I don't have a stand for her yet so she is just on the floor! I also got a great plate cabinet and 24 shelves of type/plates and spacing material. Good thing I brought a big van!

The Pearl is running smoothly except that her ink plate is not rotating so I have put in a couple of requests for help on that as I cant run her without the ink plate rotating. Other than that - she is a dream!

I also got my first mag plates in so I am including an image of those as well.

There is a lot more work to do to get my printing studio up and running but give me a week or two and I should be good to go!

I am thinking of having an open house this summer once all is running if anyone is interested - I will keep everyone posted on that!