Continue reporting from last Saturday’s Brooklyn Flea… it was the launch day for the Flea Design Co-op! It is curated by Lena Corwin, featuring top Brooklyn artists in design, painting and printing, ceramics, letterpress, and more — it was worth checking out!

The limited-edition poster designed by Wayne Pate:

One of the tables… MAPTOTE – Wayne Pate….

Wayne Pate posters and mini prints — the mini prints were letterpressed! I had to grab some… I love his work.

Lovely Moontree Letterpress:

Wren Handmade (so cute!):

There were more from Lotta Jansdotter, Marcie McGoldrick, Sesame Letterpress, and of course Lena Corwin, but I couldn’t take all the pictures, I was busy shopping around :) (and lots of people were there, too so.)

The design co-op is at Fort Greene every Saturday now on (through they close for the winter time) so if you have a chance, stop by! :)

Posted under NYC, design

This video is so cool – from Hatch Show Print in Nashville – I have to visit here someday. Very inspirational and I see the Vandercook press I’ve been using!

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but again, this book is highly recommended!

Posted under Inspiration, letterpress

Happy New Year 2009!! I hope you are having a great start. May year 2009 be filled with love, hope and prosperity!!

This year, I’m going to keep working harder, keep motivated, enjoy and take advantage of this great city, New York, and start and finish lots of projects that I have on my list. I am very excited where it all leads me!

To kick off, I am participating this project with Samantha Hann at Maquette, I was so honored to get included, it’s going to be so exciting! I’ll share more about the project later soon… and also, I am participating letterpress print exchange that Kelly from Paper Stories is organizing with many of my favorite talented letterpress artisits, this is going to be super cool!

Plus, I am so excited to finish sfgirlbybay new site this year along with a few projects that I am still working on from 2008, and I am going to print more of the “Live What You Love” prints this weekend. Thanks to everyone, the 1st edition and the 2nd edition of the print is all sold out!

Speaking of… my friend Sarah sent me her print in her lovely wall — it looks sooooo great, Sarah! Thank you for sending me! Makes me happy so much to see it on your wall and hear that you like it!

Love all the frames she has, too. I am gracious that my print made it on her wall.

I think this is such a good reminder for everyone because it is important that you are living what you love. Right? I’d love to start taking clients for customized letterpress project, too!

Happy 2009!!

Posted under Inspiration, studio news

I just bought my 2009 calendars, but I found another one I’d like – Jim Flora calendars! I love Jim’s work, jazz influenced and whimsical, and this calendar is no exception.

Hand-printed and letterpressed by Yee-Haw Industries… ohh, you gotta love that.

Posted under design

Last Thursday, I learned how to do typesetting with small metal types. It could be a very tedious work, especially, if you are typesetting a whole book in 10-12pt or something (oh boy, I don’t know how long that would take!) I really like typesetting it by hand, though, I guess I’m on computer too much.

This is a composing stick. You use this to assemble pieces of metal type into words and lines.

This is a whole set of “Garamond 24pt”:

We each got a cheat sheet / Layout of the case. This helps a lot when you are setting a type one by one:

My work in progress. You start from the left bottom side, the letters are all up side down, but this is the top of the line. Yes, very tricky, at first:

As the composing stick gets full, you place them into the tray and keep setting the types:

When you are done with typesetting, bring the tray and slide everything onto the press (so it won’t break or anything):

And you set the metal types tight by using those bars so they won’t move around and you are ready to print!

Here is what I printed this week – A birthday card with a little bit of DIY:

You just have to circle one that you think the birthday girl/boy looks! You can circle multiple if you’d like, and add more to it, make it funny, make it cool… it’s going to be personalized by you.

I am thinking to giveaway this letterpress card for my fellow readers today! Just leave your comment here by Wednesday, October 29th, and I will randomly select a winner. I will ship it Internationally if you are not in the US and you won the giveaway so please don’t worry.

It is an A2 folded blank card (4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches) printed on 157lb rough surface white paper with an A2 envelope.

Thank you!

Posted under typography

Bellis Studios have beautiful letterpress coasters – good for your fall day / Halloween parties?

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As I mentioned, I’ve been working at this agency this week, it’s a nice change and nice to get ready in the morning and “go to” work, and work with talented people! And ohh SOHO is so so fun (/dangerous) with lots of cool stores. Surprising to see not every store has Halloween decorations… because in San Francisco, I remember everything was HALLOWEEN.

(In case you are wondering, I’m not blogging at work, I’ve been scheduling it to publish my posts in the morning – I love that you can schedule your post at certain time!)

Have a great day everyone.

Posted under design

Last Thursday, we learned how to make a polymer plate and how to print from the plate, how to do 2 color print.

Here’s what a polymer plate looks like (I had no idea it was that thin!) – You use it with the board underneath:

I also learned about how much ink to use, I kept putting too much ink and that wasn’t good… You really don’t need that much ink to print.

So we have no class next week and we have to order the plate by following class so we can start printing from the plate – I have so many ideas and things I want to print, I have to work on it! You create a digital file and then order the plate.

For the rest of the class, I used wood type and printed some posters:

“Live What You Love” Green:

“Live What You Love” Black:

After reducing the ink (I had too much at first), the “U” showed an interesting texture:

And then, I had 30 more minutes to play around so I just took letter “S” and did some fun with it:

So I’ll come back to Letterpress Monday in 2 weeks!

Posted under typography

Sycamore Street Press has this cute alphabet letterpress poster – very simple and clean, yet so fun and cute!

They also have these letterpress gift tags that are just so cute. Makes your gift even more special and who doesn’t love the little hearts!

And I’ve been meaning to purchase their letterpress frame mats, they are just so gorgeous.

I think I am inspired and ready for tonight’s letterpress class!

Posted under design

Here is my favorite work from the first class. Lot of different Hs and a few ampersands and dollar signs and printed twice in different way. I love the overlapping part, makes different red and gives different shapes.

This one had less ink and a little different red and I like the texture this one has!

Posted under typography

I had such a fun time at my first lettepress class last Thursday. I could have kept printing all night long!

Here, I’m gonna briefly explain what I’ve learned with pictures I’ve taken during the class. This was the first class so it was an introduction to letterpress, how to set type using wood types, and how to print by using Vandercook Press.

So many wood types! I love the big ones:

We started picking up letters that you want to print.

It’s so fun just looking at them.

And then, we use these

and these to set type in the Vandercook so the type won’t move around while you are printing. You need to measure the empty spaces and get the perfect ones to go along – lot of math, lot of eyes, it is like a puzzle, too.

On the press. When you set the type, you also tighten from the side and the bottom by using the tool:

It is hard to work with mirrored letters, actually, the instructor suggested that you use mirror and make sure it reads right.

When you are ready to print, you put ink on the roll, and go back and forth to have the letters inked.

Vandercook Press. You set the paper and grab the big handle and just roll…

and you have your letterpress prints!

Here, I printed twice by just moving a little bit so it overlaps:

Other pretty letterpress prints on the wall:

Can’t wait for next class!

Posted under typography