TRASK BEDORTHA
Love Letters
Letterpress printers off er beautiful customization
BY VANESSA SALVIA
manating from Kristin Walker’s garage
is a rhythmic clatter, a sort of thump
and squeal of metal clanging against
metal. It’s the sound of her letterpress
machine, built in 1912 by Ohio company
Chandler and Price. Walker has modifi ed the
machine a tad, replacing the foot-operated
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treadle with a small washing machine motor,
but to operate the printer she still has to
manually start it by spinning a wagon wheel-
sized rotor.
Letterpress is one of the oldest forms
of printing — the Gutenberg Bible was
letterpressed in the mid-1400s. The
technique traditionally uses individual
letters made of lead (sometimes wood),
which must be set in place by hand. With a
mechanized press like Walker’s, the washing
machine motor powers rollers which spread
a thin layer of ink across a metal plate. Once
the type is set, the rollers ink the raised
surface of the type and then move out of the
way, while a padded plate holding the paper
quickly oscillates to press against the type.
The padded plate swings back, the paper
is removed and the next piece inserted by
hand, at a rate of about one per second. “It’s
a long, dirty process,” says Walker, “but it’s a
really cool process.”
Letterpress became obsolete during
the 1980s as technology allowed anyone
with a computer to desktop publish, but
today, the allure of hand-set type has
revived the craft. Walker studied design at
the UO and acquired her business license
for Twin Ravens Press in November 2007.
Surprisingly, most of Walker’s customers
aren’t from Eugene or even from Oregon —
people from California to New York fi nd her
website, www.twinravenspress.com, through
internet searching and word of mouth.
The advent of photopolymer platemaking
has brought letterpress into the modern era:
A negative of the text or image is made,
fastened onto the plate and exposed to
intense ultraviolet light. The parts that are
exposed harden, and the rest becomes
water-soluble and washes away, resulting
in a hard, raised surface to which ink can be
applied. “You can do really small type, or big
images,” says Walker. “Basically anything
you can draw or design on a computer you
can make a plate of this way.”
For those seeking wedding invitations
that can’t be found anywhere else, a craft
letterpress like Walker’s represents the
ultimate in customization. Walker’s machine
can emboss, perforate and die-cut, so there’s
not much she can’t do for customers. “I’m
willing to try just about anything they want,”
she says. “The nice thing about letterpress
is you can print on any type of paper and
substrate, like coasters and wood veneer,
even fabric, if it’s stiff enough.”
Some of Walker’s clients have requested
invitations in the form of small, bound books
with maps, die-cut paper envelope liners
and matching reply cards, thank-you cards
and placeholders for the table. Some have
even planned enough in advance to have
their dinner menus printed with matching
designs. (Later, many of these clients hire
her for baby announcements.) But this can
take time, lots of it. Walker often works with
clients for six to nine months to create their
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wedding invitation package. “People expect
this to be like a regular printing service,
where you drop it off and pick it up three
hours later,” says Walker. “You have to plan
in advance for this. I ask a lot of questions
and try to get a feel for who they are and
what they’re celebrating.”
Because the design work, platemaking
and printing are done by hand, it is labor
intensive and time consuming. Walker
charges by the number of colors used (each
color requires a separate plate), the size
of the paper and the quantity. Walker has
created wedding invitation packages from
$200 to $2,000. “Budget is defi nitely a
factor for a lot of people, and I try to help
them as much as I can,” she says. “I try to
give them a preliminary quote and ask if
that’s do-able for them. If not, then I make
suggestions to make it work for them.”
At Nick & Nora’s Classic Interiors in
downtown Eugene, manager Heather
Upton works with nationally known
companies catering to clients who desire
the customization and appeal of letterpress.
“The people that come here, I fi nd, want
something that’s truly special that defi nes
them, not something they can go anywhere
and pick off the shelf,” Upton says. The
store’s bridal area is lined with albums
from major companies and designers such
as William Arthur, Crane and Co., and Vera
Wang, all of which have created customizable
designs for their own letterpresses. Upton
can offer brides a choice of just about any
design in four printing processes that vary in
price: letterpress, engraving, thermography
(using heat to transfer letters or images to
a sheet of paper) or digital printing. “Brides
can’t always budget what they want for
invitations,” says Upton. “I have options. My
companies have some great design elements
in a price structure that people can afford.”
Most of the invitations that Upton helps
her clients select are priced from $2 to $5
apiece (a digital printing option can be as low
as 98 cents per card), and the customizable
options allow brides to get exactly what
they want, with proofs arriving in about
three weeks. “I think that people are really
wanting to go back to the special handmade
art of our world,” she says. “People are tired
of disposable things. They’re tired of mass
production. They want less in their life, but
they want more beautiful, well-constructed
things.”
Twin Ravens Press, 345-3857,
www.twinravenspress.com
Nick and Nora’s Classic Interiors, 484-5522,
191 E. Broadway, Eugene,
www.nickandnorasclassicinteriors.com
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From the planning stage to its happy
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4 Eugene Weekly’s Weddings
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