One might say my love of letterpress started with chipboard. I recently chuckled over a delivery of this recycled wonder in the shop as it made me pause to marvel at its humble magnificence. This batch was two-tone… two very different shades on each side, as shown by this month’s Print Club postcard.
Chipboard is a 100% recycled material designed for multiple utilitarian uses. And we definitely use it this way as evidenced by a look around the studio. Nearly every cutoff is saved for padding paper in the guillotine, collecting unwanted ink, packing orders, bulking up prints, etc.
Back in the 90’s, I took breaks from university studies by visiting record stores, which ultimately meant stumbling over new ideas in music packaging. At the time, CDs were king and this meant a considerable amount of plastic. Those that bucked the system immediately stood out; they were printed on chipboard packages! This magic immediately caught my eye and to my delight, I discovered many were made here in Chicago at Fireproof Press. Fast forward a few months and I got a job there while continuing to build a collection of unique packaging. Below are a few projects we printed at Fireproof and one CD by John Upchurch (the man behind Fireproof) that was printed at Starshaped.
These are a few records and CDs printed by Independent Project Press using chipboard as well.
Many of these packages were pre-fab and ideal for the versatility of a platen press. They came from Calumet Carton, not far from Chicago. They no longer offer CDs but I still purchase all of the mailers for the studio from them.
Below are a few of the music packages printed at Starshaped. You can see how even with similar packages, the chip itself shifts in color and sometimes texture.
Chipboard has shown up for a number of studio projects over the years, including this silent film-inspired poster for an annual open house. This particular stock had a grayish cast and was perfect for the job.
Chipboard is also the first choice for CHIRP Radio projects! These are a few of the invitations and cards we’ve done together over the years.
I’ve also used chipboard for a number of prints in the studio, including both of these below. The ampersand uses the back sides of wood type blocks to print translucent rectangles that allow the chipboard texture to show through. The snowy barn demonstrates how the color of chip can work for printing both light and dark colors.
The Dollhouse Gig Posters project in 2016 was an opportunity to combine all of these loves together. Each month of the year, I produced a tiny, 2x3” ‘poster’ of a musical genre and subscribers received them in the mail. The tiny posters were mounted onto 7” square chipboard showing what genre it was, with a nod to 60s-style ‘collect them all!’ design sensibilities.
And here’s a recent job for Mark Lerner, a longtime fan of the almighty chipboard and letterpress combo!
Chipboard features heavily in the Print Club. Not only is the postcard used to share info about the Club printed on it, but the monthly postcards are as well. You can see by the collection of postcards here that the chip itself changes over time with each delivery, even as the spirit of each design remains the same. It’s my favorite piece to create for the Club each month.
I get chipboard from Andrews Paperboard, the same place that supplied Fireproof back in the day. Again, I like to keep it local, and my delivery driver pal, Steve, always brings a laugh when he shows up with a pallet of fresh, newly recycled chipboard. It’s not the fanciest paper, it’s not high class, it’s often inconsistent in appearance and wasn’t designed necessarily for ‘lofty’ letterpress. But chipboard is the great equalizer and when it moves on from my shop, either in the recycle bin or for finished projects, it has every opportunity to become a fresh, new project for another lover of the mighty, humble chipboard.