Letterpress: The Berkeley Suite

My sister got married at the end of this past summer and Chris and I gifted them a custom, letterpress invitation suite for their special day. The venue was an old church, built in 1871, that has now been converted into a hip venue space. I was given free reign for the design and because the venue was so unusual I decided to something outside of what is typical for wedding suites. My sister had mentioned that she liked carnival-era posters with a heavy focus on a combination of different types of font. I played around with designs for a bit before landing on the idea of building everything around the circular design. I wanted it to be interesting but also clean and modern.

I worked with Snap and Tumble for the letterpress portion of the invites. Tanya was extremely patient during the whole process - in total the printing took 10 hrs (!). Each of the 120+ invites had to go through the press five times and that's not counting the designs on the envelopes and the reply envelopes (not shown) that had the bride and groom's return address. The colours were hand-inked and the registration was all done by hand on the letterpress.

It was a huge project but I was pretty happy with how everything turned out. I love that the invitations communicated the individual style of the day and the fun nature of the couple.

Custom Letterpress Wedding Invitations: MF Miller
Letterpress Rental: Snap and Tumble

Inspired Writing

I sent out a beautiful little postcard earlier this week.
It was a thank-you to one of my most favourite ladies, who had treated me to a superbly delicious lunch this past weekend.
And then I went home to spot Kerry's lovely autumn portrait.
I'm always surprised when I see things connect like that.




Stationery by Snap and Tumble.

Letterpress Business Cards - Cambie Design

A few months ago, I had the supreme pleasure of whipping up some custom business cards for a great friend of mine. She left to go out east for the summer, working her creative design magic on a wonderful hostel, Skerwink Hostel, in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. The hostel is geared at a younger crowd but that didn't mean the owners wanted juvenile interiors. They commissioned Cambie Design to bring together a look that was thoughtful and whimsical while staying true to its coastal location.
I have been watching the projects develop all summer - you can check them out here! It's been such a treat to see Camille's creativity keep growing. She constantly surprises me with her fresh and clever ideas.

The blind impression

Hand-mixed ink

The inspiration

But back to the beginning of June. I worked on the cards above one night, literally between work and getting ready to leave town for one week. It was a bit of a rush job because I wanted the plates (for the printing) to be on their way for processing before my vacation so I could come back and print them on the last day I had off before Camille left town. After some brain-storming we ended up landing on the idea of doing a blind (no ink) impression on one side and her contact info on the other side, done in a pale grey, which was actually inspired by an Essie nailcolour we both bought at the same time in different  cities (weird, right?). I spent an afternoon printing them over at Snap & Tumble's lovely studio. I think they came out beautifully. Simple, chic and I like to think quite special.

Camille tweaked the backs with hand-applied watercolour. She's that good!

Letterpress Action Shot

This is me, inking some beautiful wood type.
Thanks for the shout-out Tanya!

Valentine's Day Love Poster

Okay so here is what I worked on for Valentine's Day.
A custom poster made for my darling!
I did several runs on several different pages until I ended up with a composition that I felt looked pulled-together and cool. I spent a good chunk of time inking, testing, printing and repositioning type and I relished every single second of it. I loved the uneven result and the strangeness of the different types. Wood type, in particular, is really wonderful. I had never used it before and it really provides such charming character.

I was lucky that my letterpress workshop at Snap and Tumble landed on the 12th of February.
I was thinking about what I was going to want out of the day. I knew I wanted a ton of stationery for all of my letter-writing (I write a lot) but the top priority for that day was a special gift for my husband. Having worked on letterpress before, I knew the best results always let the type's strange curves and angles be the focus. I wanted something simple in its design and strong in its message.
So I got thinking...
I decided on an image based around our special dates.
The first is our first date.
The second is our wedding date.
And the last line is the most important date of all...
Forever!

Letterpress Lovelies

A couple of weekends ago, I had the pleasure of doing a letterpress workshop at Snap and Tumble.

I was working with another participant and we had a splendid time working on two different presses. Tanya, the lovely lady behind S&T, was so incredibly patient and totally cool about explaining every little detail. I printed stationery and bookmarks using one her designs 

- that "PRINT IS NOT DEAD" was just great! And then I put together a little phrase of my own to do some personal letterheads. I had such a blast working on the presses and I'll feature my little Valentine's Day project tomorrow.

Check out Tanya's blog here. It's always a source of inspiration.