Tonight... and every night after

Charlotte came to me with a request for a customized poster that she wanted to give to her fiance on their wedding day. Her ideas were all fabulous, and text rich, which makes for challenging experiments with type. Having lived in Nashville and being huge live music fans (Alex proposed while attending a show), she wanted something reminiscent of Hatch Show Print, but with a more urban, Chicago-y feel, given that this is now their home. We decided to go large with a poster that would be 14x18", with bright colors that would match their home. Here are a few shots of the form I put together. With a few tweaks, it was ready to print!

And here's the final print, done in three colors. The teal and bright red overlap on their names to make them pop. Little Stella is their sidekick dog.

Conveniently, this little Chicago cityscape existed in the studio collection, along with the Chicago stars and music notes.

Charlotte and Alex have lived in numerous places, many of which are listed in the style of concert tour locations. They enjoyed a lovely trip to Europe, which shows up here as a 'multi-city European tour'.

Congrats to both! If the marriage is half as fun and entertaining as this poster was to print, it's made to last.

Cocktails, lemurs & dinner

Marissa and Ned came to me with the idea of printing a poster for their wedding invitation that would fold down to fit into an envelope. Their inspiration was their location... the Bronx Zoo, and specifically this vintage poster:

I felt we could reduce the awesome hippo to a two-color linoleum cut and combine it with some of the 20's era type in the studio, both metal and wood. Here are the linoleum cuts along with some of the type used. There's a great deal of tricky spacing with more stylized typefaces and forced justification. It was also an opportunity to use brand new casts of the swirly ornaments from the fine folks behind Skyline Type.

And here's the final piece! It measures 7x20", and folds like an accordion down to 5x7". The accommodations card (which has directions on the reverse side) and reply card are both perforated so they can be torn off of the invitation to be both used and returned. Who will have the most fun at this wedding, the guests or zoo residents?

The Vandercook 100

What a pleasure to be featured in the new book, The Vandercook 100, celebrating 100 years of the Vandercook proof press with a look at 100 shops around the world that utilize this press. This is a must have for any letterpress enthusiast, as it focuses more on the fine folks at their presses and offers a wonderful sneak peek into these studios. Well-designed and self-published in badass fashion, make sure to check this one out.