Letterpress work

I'm having a letterpress couple of days around here. On Monday I ran my first holiday cards and also did some posters for Cooper-Young festival this weekend about my note cards. On the poster, I got to play around with my new fonts and show a bunch of them off.

Above is the holiday card as I intended it when designing. However, it's hard to keep something that solid that dark on the letterpress, which was built to print type (with small amounts of dark and lots of white around each letter -- less pressure needed). So as the inking cycle made its way around, I got lots of notecards like the next one.

This is where the press can be a partner in the creative process, and not just a passive tool. I decided I liked the effect of a glowing sky, so I didn't fight to keep each note card dark, and I have a spectrum of them available. Folks can choose which they like.

I finished up using my saxophone carving from the Park Friends Month of Music poster to make a note card as well. I paired it with a word in my wood type (the "PEACE" is the same font of wood type, only capitals) and ran a series of these. They're inspired by my friend and neighbor Jim Spake, saxophonist extraordinaire and a part of my favorite band anywhere. Memphis is lucky to have so many amazing musicians.