¡Ileana y José están consiguiendo casados!

Just a quick little post this morning because I'm going to be thoroughly busy printing pretty much all day.  Remember those cool wedding coaster's that I printed for Lynn & Matthew? Well, Lynn posted about how much she liked them here on Wedding Bee and shortly after that I got an order from a new couple, Ileana & José, for the exact same coaster design - only with their names and wedding date.  So, what's so different and special about this job, you may ask... Ileana & José are from Puerto Rico and wanted their coasters in Spanish.  I just finished them last night.  Check them out: 

I think they turned out really cool.  What do you think?

Espresso Colored Calling Cards

I finished up a unique little calling card job on Thursday right before I went out of town to Portland.  The client already had the design, so this was a quick, just-print-it, sort of job.  What made it unique though was that I got to try out a new paper stock.  These calling cards are printed on Crane's Palette Espresso Brown Cover Stock.  This paper is 100% cotton like a lot of the other papers I use, 134 lb. and very, very stiff... but it's brown, which is cool.  I was trying to match a very light, creamy, off-white for the ink.  The off-white ink almost looks slightly silver on the brown paper, but I really like how the color turned out.  I really like them because they're so different.  Let me know what you think!

Good Design

I was blog hopping earlier today and ran across this poster. The first thought that came to my head was, literally: "Dude, that would look pretty cool letterpress printed, with some nice old wood type." The second thought was "Wow, that's sad, but painfully true."

(Image via Design Crush)

Carlos Lascano

I'm headed up to Portland this afternoon to run a few letterpress-related errands and potentially do some shopping.  While I'm away, you can tide yourself over with this lovely stop motion animation.  I recently discovered Carlos Lascano, and I think that I may be in love (with his work).  As another blogger put it: his talent truly runneth over.  More letterpress tomorrow.  Enjoy!

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

Featured on Stiksel!

I woke up this morning to find a lovely message in my inbox from Karin, a graphic designer in the Netherlands, who blogged about my new green scroll cards.  These cards were originally sold in red, yellow and blue, but I have had a few different custom requests that they be printed in other colors, the most recent of which being green.  Here are some photos of the custom ones I printed shortly after they came off the press:

I liked the green so much I printed up a few extra and listed them in my etsy shop.  You can find the boxes here and the singles here.  Want to see the feature blog post?  Check it out here on Karin's blog!  Thank you, Karin, for the feature!

Vote!

I'm proud to say that I dropped off my ballot for the upcoming November 4th election this morning.  If you live in Oregon you will probably be receiving your ballot by mail this week if you haven't received it already.  With one of the most important elections of our time (in my opinion) occurring only 16 days away, I would encourage you to educate yourself about the issues if you haven't already, and then have your say about what the next four years are going to be like in this country, by voting.  

Normally, I intend to keep my personal opinions about everything other than letterpress and graphic design off of this blog, but in this case I feel I can make an exception.  This month I created 250 of the cards you see pictured below in support of the Obama campaign.  Each card is approximately 4" x 5" and was printed in three ink colors (red, blue and black) on Crane Lettra's Bright White 100% cotton letterpress paper. Each card features the following quote from one of Obama's campaign speeches: 

"Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young men and women to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.  Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be." Barack Obama, January 3, 2008

I sent 155 of these cards off to the Amalgamated Printer's Association for inclusion in their monthly mailing and I gave several out to family, friends, neighbors, etc.  I have approximately 50 left, if you would like one for your very own, please contact me and I would love to send one to you (while they last).  

I hope as a country we can come together and make better decisions for ourselves than we did the past eight years, because making the wrong decision in this election would only cause us 4-8 more years of the same failed politics that we're dealing with now.  If you need more convincing that voting for change is the way to go, watch this video: 

Seriously.  Think about it.  Happy Voting!!

Featured on Mixed Plate!

Back in June, before I had this blog up and rolling, my "This is how we roll" Sushi Cards were featured on the design blog Mixed Plate.  If you're just tuning in and missed this awesome feature, you can still check it out by clicking here.  I hope you're having a great weekend!  There will be more new stuff to show/blog about next week!