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I had the opportunity to chat with Jordon Berry of Letterpress Digest a few weeks ago. It was nice to take a break from the hectic workday to reminisce about the early years of Boxcar Press. This month marks our 19th anniversary, and, if you’re interested, you can hear some highlights of those years on the Letterpress Digest podcast. Read more...
My Instagram feed started as a family album for me. I posted photos of Stella reading her first book and Jasper writing his first computer program not for your enjoyment, but because if I were to squirrel away the photos of these moments I’d have a hard time finding them again later. I never was good at scrapbooking or journaling, but the visual nature of Instagram has worked well for me. Read more...
Last night I gave a geeky presentation at the Wells College Book Arts Center. Before I had kids I spent a lot of time in Morgan Hall, but had fallen out of touch in the years since. Walking in the front door for the first time in six (or so) years was surprisingly emotional. It felt good to be back. Read more...
From Clifford Burke’s Printing Poetry: The magic secret is: Less Ink, More Impression This was also the advice given to me verbally by Phil Gallo of the Hermetic Press after he saw some of my blotchy early printing. These four words stuck with me over the years: solid printing advice and also words to live by. Read more...
In September, I will be a two day business class for letterpress printers at the Ladies of Letterpress conference. Joing me at Type on the Cob III in Mt Pleasant, Iowa September 13 to 17, 2016: Letterpress Variation Even while most manufacturers have systematically reduced variability in their operations, letterpress printers embrace inconsistent printing. After all, the inherent variability makes letterpress more “hand-made” and desirable. Customer expectations are also highly variable and often unknown; those who spend more money for the slight inconsistency of letterpress printing are usually not happy with too much inconsistency. This balancing act has always been a challenge at Boxcar Press, as fewer than 1% of customers are on-site for a press check and fewer than 25% have direct contact with us at all. In this class I will cover some of the techniques that we use to bridge the gap between variable customer expectations and variable printing quality. We’re far from perfect, but I will share some techniques that seem to improve our odds of satisfying customers. Read more...
Earlier in the month I had the opportuntity to speak at the Ladies of Letterpress Conference. It was a terrific venue and an inspirational group of people on hand. After morning classes we got hands-on with a lot of cool letterpress equipment–including some scary/fun non-OSHA compliant wonders: Read more...
I was very pleased to have some quality time on the handpress over the weekend at the Type on the Cob 2015 letterpress conference. My handpress instructor Sara McNally shot this photo while I was “in the zone.” It captures a nice moment for me being creative on press for the first time in years. Read more...
In June, I will be teaching a two day business class for letterpress printers at the fourth Ladies of Letterpress conference. Joing me at Type on the Cob in Mt Pleasant, Iowa June 11 to 13, 2015: Letterpress costing and product development Most letterpress companies make money by selling products. Survival depends on setting products’ prices above manufacturing costs and overhead costs. Let’s put aside pricing for two days, and focus on tracking the costs of letterpress printing; “pricing” a product to sell might be more sexy, but it’s “costing” that printers have the most control over. The first day I will race through the principles of cost accounting in a letterpress shop, and the second day I will use these lessons to put a new letterpress product under the microscope. I will share the tools and techniques that I have found to minimize costs (and risks) when approaching letterpress products. Read more...
I pulled together this graph in the course of researching the competitive position of printing companies. This shows the industry-wide profit margins of the printing sector versus manufacturing as a whole. Looking at this chart feels like a punch to the gut, but explains a lot: Click to open interactive graph On the other hand, I suppose you could look at upward trend in printing over the last three years and also imagine that the worst could be behind us. The Internet happened, and printing has found its bearings in the new landscape. This reminds me of a New York Times article that I enjoyed last week, describing the renaissance of the printed catalog. I wonder if the shifts in the industry towards marginally higher profit margins will be enough to pull it out of the cellar over the long term. Source: US Census Business and Industry Time Series/Time Charts. The percentage is the net income before taxes relative to net sales, receipts, and operating revenues. Read more...
You’d think that after 16 years of selling millions of sheets of I would be somewhat jaded by paper. I found out today this was (thankfully) not the case. In August I decided (impulsively) to order a new type of paper from a paper mill that I had never worked with before. Custom paper is not something possible on a small scale, so I was putting thousands of dollars on the line. Read more...