Friday Special - The Wonderful Sense(s) of Letterpress
We have always had a keen interest in anything with heritage and history, so we are super excited to announce our collaboration with brothers, Jeremy and Graeme from Planet Press, a letterpress printing company based in Cape Town.
The Heidelberg press itself is really something special. It has some great design features, some of which are the many instructional signs and well-manufactured cogs, knobs, and levers. You know that old saying, “they sure don’t make things like they used to” best describes it.
Wish they made smell-o-vision, then you could catch a whiff of the incredible smell of the rubber inks! Ahhhhh, open those nostrils wide man...
That silver bar with all those tiny adjustable bits that look like they belong at the top of a guitar for tightening strings are actually mini vacuum suctions for moving the paper about (forty three words in that sentence including these, beat that!). It’s an art to work the machine, but resident printing guru Greg took care of that, with over 35 years of experience he makes it look so easy! Letterpress printing is a timely affair because of everything involved but it’s so worth it, the results speak for itself and in today’s digital era it’s great to have something tangible.
Spinning rollers with a colour of our choice, let's call it Pink shall we.
Two plump Bullfinch birds (Domherre) made up as a tag, for making a special gift to someone special, even more special! Check out the neat debossing and fine grain of the Savile Row rich cotton paper.
Freshly stacked cards prior to scoring and cutting.
We love old typewriters; we have a vintage one that was bought second hand about 14 years ago and it still works like a dream! It is not only the design of an old machine like this that's attractive to us, but also the sound it makes, and the smell of ink and metal! And what could be more fitting in celebrating the old typewriter then with the traditional printing of letterpress.
We will be selling these soon, watch this space!
A pile of, let's call them 'Collaboration Business Cards' hot off the press neatly stacked waiting to be guillotined.
…and lastly, is the first thing we did on letterpress. It's a hand-out (Collaboration Business Card) announcing the collaboration of K&i with Planet Press, and to introduce the wonderful sense(s) of letterpress: sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste. Now, we wouldn't recommend eating paper, but each to their own...
We also made a pretty rudimentary video to highlight one of the senses, in particular sound, give it a watch or should we say listen.
If you are interested in introducing letterpress to your company's stationery, looking for a unique wedding invitation, an exclusive coaster for your bar, or anything else you can think of, drop us a line. We would love to make a piece of art just for you!
