✦ Est. 2014 · A working letterpress studio · Providence, RI
We print the old way — one sheet, one impression at a time. Photopolymer plates, hand-mixed rubber-base ink, and a cast-iron platen that pushes type deep into cotton paper until you can read it with your fingertips.
01 The catalogue
Three things, done to the depth. Everything is set in metal or plate, proofed by hand, and printed in small runs on paper worth the ink.
№ 01 · Wedding suites
Ampersand
& forever
Invitations, day-of, and thank-yous as one considered system. Blind-debossed monograms, edge-painted card, and envelope liners printed to match. We letterset the couple's names in metal so the impression never loses its bite.
№ 02 · Fine-press editions
Poets, presses, and museums bring us a manuscript; we return an object. Hand-set text faces, deckle edges, sewn signatures, colophons printed from the same forme. Numbered and signed, printed to last a century on the shelf.
№ 03 · Correspondence
Personal stationery with a spine. Monogrammed note cards, business & calling cards on triple-thick duplex, and the small runs that make a mailbox feel like an occasion.
02 The method
Letterpress is a relief process — the parts that print stand up, the rest falls away. Three steps stand between a file and a finished sheet.
Your artwork is imaged onto a photopolymer plate and washed out under water, leaving the printing surface standing in sharp relief — the modern stand-in for a locked-up forme of foundry type.
Rubber-base inks are knifed together on a slab against a Pantone chip until the swatch dries true. It's rolled onto the plate in a whisper-thin film — enough to sit in the paper, never enough to fill the impression.
Paper meets plate under a ton of platen pressure. On cotton stock the type sinks into a soft valley you can feel — the "bite" that flat printing can never fake. One pull, one sheet.
"Ink is only half of it. The other half is the dent the letter leaves behind."
03 Live specimen
Run your cursor across the characters — or drag on a touch screen. Each glyph presses into the sheet the nearer you get, the way a platen would drive it home. This is blind deboss: no ink, only shadow.
Libre Caslon Display · 96 pt · blind impression on 220 lb Lettra
04 The shop
What we keep on the shelf. Papers chosen for their bite, inks mixed to order. Hover a chip to read its story.
05 Commissions
Six to eight weeks from first note to boxed delivery. Here's the arc.
We talk stock, colour, and quantity, then send a fixed quote and a paper sample pack in the post.
Two rounds of digital proofs. We set the type, choose the impression depth, and mix ink to your chip.
A single printed sheet, pulled on your real stock, mailed for sign-off. Nothing runs until you hold it.
We print, then trim, edge-paint, score, and hand-fold. Every sheet is inspected against the proof.
Rush work is possible with a surcharge — ask. Minimum engagement is $650.
06 Say hello
Tell us what you're printing and roughly when you need it. We answer every note within two working days, samples in the post soon after.