Well Spoken

A while back, Mr. Starshaped shared the story of meeting a Russian man in a coffee shop, downtown Chicago. This man lamented that he hadn't seen the cafe culture in the city that he longed for: the camaraderie, the discussions, the sharing, excellent coffee. My response was that he was in the wrong part of town, as all of this exists in a tiny, magic corner of Ravenswood, the neighborhood Starshaped calls home. For years we've visited the shop formerly known as Beans & Bagels, situated next to the Montrose Brown Line stop. We've witnessed many exciting and positive changes happen during this time, not the least of which included a makeover of both the interior and the menu. And when Will & Sido, the tireless leaders behind the counter, took over as owners, it was time for a name change as well.

I was honored to be asked to contribute a print to commemorate this grand reopening, with the only art direction being to retain the new logo (with its hint of a Cypress tree and nod to Will and Sido's home state, Louisiana) with the name.

The print was actually planned as 4 colors but became 5. After laying down a light texture of wood as the first layer, I started what would be a 3-color reduction linoleum cut, meaning it would be carved then printed, then carved and printed, then carved and... you get the idea. The first was solid and printed in the same very pale brown as the wood type to give it more depth. There were a few late nights of carving alongside my Wedding Present albums. It's a good way to work.

The second run of the linoleum cut was a deeper moss green.

I brought in a pop of blue to tie the elements together.

The linoleum cut, carved down to its final color.

I wanted to create a modular type for the title so I wouldn't have to carve it or find something similar to the logo type. This took a few different arrangements to get right. These are just a few of the carbon paper proofs done while testing out what I set.

The 4th color, before the final blue, was a slight texture of ornaments that included Chicago-style 6-pointed stars. The first plan was to print this the same as the green for the logo but that was too deep to live behind the text and not clash. So it became another run through the press.

It was such a treat to see one of the final prints framed and out the night of the grand re-opening. Everyone that came through the door to enjoy a drink and some cajun-style cooking was invited to sign. Seeing a Starshaped print at the center of this outpouring of support from the community was a humbling moment I will always remember.

When you're in Ravenswood, go and visit Will, Angela, Sido and the rest of the gang. Get some coffee. Meet a friend. Make some plans to conquer the world or just your tiny corner of it. Whatever your agenda you'll get solid service with a smile. Tell 'em Starshaped sent you.

A Wild Rose

Every so often we get to pour a lot of effort into creating a single, special print, and it's usually commissioned as a gift from one spouse to another. In November I was approached for a project like this, using a poem that was read at the couple's wedding. The wife wanted something blocky, bold and straightforward with a little bit of ornamentation and ample white space. This is the result of the collaboration: Here's a close up of the 12x18" print, done in 3 colors on soft white cotton paper. It's a nice mix of both metal and wood type that, while slightly beaten up and rustic, mostly keeps to a straightforward sans serif diet.

The is the type in the final lock up. We usually set up the entire print if possible then pull a proof. If everything is spaced accordingly and looks well together, then we can go in and separate individual colors and print just one at a time.

Some of the wood type for this piece is pretty rough, as noted in the uneven and speckled forms. The catchword 'THE' is new, however, and is one of Moore Wood Type's laser cut pieces.

The print features two-color ornaments from the Keystone Type Foundry known as 'wild rose' ornaments. It's not every day that named ornaments tie in directly to the words being printing, but they sure did here. These are beautiful in their detail and include two different sized sorts, making it easier to fit them into any line length. I'm certain this charming print was a touching Christmas gift.

Join the Club

Back in the early days of my design life, before my typographic attention span was largely limited to 100 year old typefaces, I acquired a lot of digital type. A lot. And no type foundry crossed my screen as much as P22, partly because of my Western New York upbringing and mostly because of the high quality and delightfully quirky nature of the faces themselves. And while I've had the pleasure to work with the foundry from time to time, the recent creation of P22 Member Club cards was finally the perfect project to combine the digital and metal forms. My first P22 font was Constructivist, of which these great letters are a part:

Absolutely perfect shapes into which our little metal ornaments can be placed. The foundry commissioned the logo sorts from Jim Rimmer, meaning there's a little new metal type here mixed with our old.

The subtle base layers of the card were pressure printed with the back side of a piece of wood type; by adding a cut piece of chipboard (or two) to the makeready on the press, the print area varies accordingly. I adjusted the chipboard layers so that just the round areas for the logo would remain mostly white.

The magenta and yellow were mixed with transparent ink so that they'd remain light and would create overlapping colors and even more texture.

The main text was printed in process blue, which took on a greenish tint over the pressure printed areas. The space in the bottom of the P was left open so that they could be numbered, which I also did so that the ink matches.

A small but mighty project, these cards are Starshaped's little love note to P22. If you're already a member of the club you'll get one. If you're not... what's wrong with you?!

Reverie

Before hitting the road on our Letterpress Trail this summer, we designed and printed a charming little cd sleeve for the local gypsy jazz (is there any other kind?!) band, Fumée. Obviously they hoped to create something that was indicative of the style of music and built an inspiration board that included references to Erté artwork. I riffed on that and drew this smoke-like image:

Double it up and there you go:

Conveniently, I had just acquired a set of accent characters so we could actually set the name correctly. Since a plate was required for the artwork, I cut into it to insert the hand set text.

The back side of the sleeve has a smaller version of the main text, so I used a tinier accent here. These curly ornaments from Skyline Type also came close to matching the art of the front.

Beautiful Parisian and Bernhard Gothic, two of the studio's workhorse typefaces.

The band found a cd duplicator that offered vinyl-looking disks, which was a perfect fit for this project. If you want to check them out, you can find more info here, or head over to Rogers Park Social every Monday night for the real deal!

Maria, Dan, Butterflies

We're pretty lucky to have had some great clients looking for wedding invitations. This Spring I met Maria and Dan, fellow Ravenswood dwellers and fans of working with local sources for their wedding planning. Maria definitely wanted to include floral images and liked our 19th century inspired collection. Here's the final invitation: This was the perfect project to work in a new cast of Arboret, courtesy of Skyline Type Foundry. This lovely set includes both 12 and 24 pt of floral type as well as ornaments that can be set in endless configurations to make the type look like it is part of an arbor. And while I didn't use any of the type (apart from two characters, including the ampersand), the ornaments created plenty of ways to add floral elements to the invitations.

Here is the lockup for the green and gold at the top of the invite. Both are set together to make sure they will line up appropriately, and then each color is swapped out for spacing when the other color is ready to print. Worked into the Arboret ornamentation are a few actual 19th century pieces from our collection (the flowers and right side stems).

Here is the Arboret ampersand, printed with the rest of the main text. Maria and Dan's names included 100 year old initial caps, mortised to include a 20th century typeface.

Here are a few more of the ornaments at the bottom of the invitation. Their website was printed in green so as to be a little less prominent than the important text.

This is the second character worked into the reply card text. A great shot of all of the elements coming together.

Maria's family does a lot of work for butterfly conservation, and she was hoping to work this into the invitation. No problem, thanks to Skyline and a recent cast of this little guy:

He also makes an appearance on the envelopes, which were a shimmery gold to tie into the gold ornaments on the invitation. It's remarkable that such detail holds up with metal type, much more so than digital type converted to plates for printing. And we're lucky to have an opportunity to work these historic typefaces into our everyday projects.