First Impression

Last Friday, I visited Twin Ravens Press here in Eugene. For those of you who don't know, Twin Ravens is a letterpress shop run by one of the least-surly press operators that I've ever met, Kristin. I approached Kristin about a month ago to help me with my new business cards. The contact information on my old cards (printed by greenerprinter.com) was outdated and the design left a lot to be desired. The conditions were perfect. It was business card time.

I was as interested in the process as I was in the final product, so I passed along the information I wanted on the card and then gave Kristin carte blanche to design the cards. I was so incredibly pleased when Kristin came back with nearly a dozen designs, 3 of which were so spot-on that it took a while to decide which was the most awesome.

I went with a 2-color die-cut design printed with soy inks on handmade, custom, seeded, 100% recycled, 100% cotton paper by Porridge Papers. Once we fine-tuned the design, Kristin ordered the plates. The plates are made out of a photopolymer material. The cool thing about the plate maker, Boxcar Press, is that they have a brilliant recycling program for the plates after they are printed. Usually, these big chunks of plastic get tossed in a landfill. The used plates are recycled into car parts and consumer goods. How cool is that?

On Friday, Kristin invited me over to watch the printing process, start to finish. My inner print-nerd was stoked! I brought my little point+shoot camera along to watch the 1912 Chandler & Price letterpress spring into action. I was not disappointed. I'll post a short video and a handful of pictures below. If you want to see more pictures from press day at Twin Ravens, check out my flickr set.