07/18/2013

9TH LETTER PRESS: Studio Tour

Hello, hello! Today, I thought I’d show you around the 9th Letter Press studio! We moved into our space about a year ago and have spent quite a bit of time getting it to look exactly like what was in my head. I have something of a very nostalgic nature so of course I wanted to decorate the studio to look like a turn of the century cafe. I’d like to think Edith Wharton could come in and feel right at home (nerd alert: I majored in English). Think old New York style during Prohibition meets the industrial revolution. In order to pull off that aesthetic, I used lots of dark wood (in my favorite stain: WALNUT), a variety of vintage furniture and pipes. â€“Isabel of 9th Letter Press

Meet our 119 year old printing press, St. Peter. He can be quite cantankerous but works so hard I inevitably forgive him at the end of each day.

We keep our Â in house inks in mason jars which sure look cute but sure make a giant mess when accidentally dropped. Just ask me, I’ve dropped my fair share.

When it came to finding furniture for the studio, I enlisted lots of friends to keep a lookout for anything cute that might fit. Our register was just one of those finds which we bought for the grand total of $30! We gutted out the drawers and made shelving to accommodate our shopping bags and the like.

Photo Credits: Betsy Hansen

07/17/2013

Happy and Gay Letterpress Wedding Invitations

Weâ€™re back! Ladyfingers Letterpress here, reporting today on a subject very near and dear to us. As some of you may already know, our company is owned and operated by two ladies, Arley-Rose and Morgan, who wed in Massachusetts in 2011. We have always taken marriage equality very seriously, making donations to equality efforts for every invitation suite ordered since we started our business in 2011.Â On June 26, the Supreme Court voted DOMA as unconstitutional and gave same-sex couples access to 1138 rights that were previously denied to them. Weâ€™ve always proudly worked with same-sex couples and are excited to share some of our favorite invitations with you today.Â â€“Arley-Rose and Morgan of Ladyfingers Letterpress

Jeremy and Joe’s Mexican Fiesta Wedding

These guys are good friends of ours – Jeremy is a talented type designer (I designed a typeface thanks to him!) and Joe is an amazing playwright. They selected a hidden gem in Mexico to wed and wanted an invitation suite to reflect the culture and fun their guests are about to have. They sent us colorful and vibrant images of Mexican hand-lettering that appears on storefronts and signage, as well as old broadsides that advertise Mexican wrestling matches.

After some deliberation, they decided they wanted to create an invitation that resembled a wrestling match featuring Lucy, their â€œEl Bulldog FrancÃ©sâ€ as the headliner. We letterpress printed a full bleed rainbow roll flat, with a black letterpress layer on top. The invitations were two sided, with a step-by-step story illustrating the exciting journey that lies ahead to their destination wedding.

The invitations were then rolled and sealed with a red sleeve with the words â€œVamos a Celebrar!â€ letterpress printed on it. What did we do with the invitations next? Well, hide them inside a piÃ±ata, of course! The â€œmiÃ±atasâ€ were then placed in a box and shipped off to their small list of friends and family!

Lauren & LaQuet’s Interactive Invite

When we were first approached by these fabulous and outgoing ladies, we knew their invitations would be totally fun. LaQuet is a Broadway star and Lauren is a TV producer, so naturally their invitations would have to reflect some element of performance! Their wedding website was amazing, with videos of them speaking to the viewer on nearly every page. When they received their save the dates, they recorded their reactions and sent them to us. So adorable!

Their save the dates were designed to resemble old Motown and ’60s Soul posters, featuring a three-color letterpress print on an oversize poster and shipped in a large kraft paper envelope.

For their invitations, we created illustrations of the couple and letterpress printed them on kraft paper. The ladies were then laser cut and placed through a slit in the invite, which was designed to look like an old school record player. The result was an irresistible urge to make the ladies dance together, getting this party started early!

Liz & Janis’s Cuban Social Club Invitations

This was another friend couple of ours, so naturally we were psyched to help them out with a set of invitations! Their wedding took place at an amazing Cuban restaurant in Brooklyn, so we aimed to create a suite that reflected their artsy taste, their love of travel and the Cuban flair of their venue. We used a brush lettering for their script and paired the letterpress chip board invites with actual maps that were torn out of an atlas and individually die cut into an envelope shape.

We created two sets of invites for them since their wedding had two rounds of guests: An earlier crowd who would enjoy the ceremony and dinner, and a rowdier bunch arriving later for dancing, revelry and drinks.

Ladyfingers Letterpress is a member of theÂ Designer RolodexÂ â€“ check out more of their beautiful workÂ right hereÂ or visitÂ theÂ real inviÂtaÂtions galleryÂ for moreÂ wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits:Â Ladyfingers Letterpress

07/17/2013

9TH LETTER PRESS: Jessie + Andrew’s Rustic Wedding Invitations

My sweet friend Jessie got hitched this past spring to the love of her life and she put me in charge of her wedding invitations! I was not only super honored to be a part of her big day but also excited to help her come up with a custom design for her paper goods. Jessie decided she wanted to get married outside, surrounded by trees and on a honey farm. For her wedding invitations, I drew her a large tree with little twinkling lights hanging from the branches. Jessie wanted a map too, and I probably had way too muchÂ funÂ drawing a cow and a peach stand than any person should, but there you have it. â€“Isabel of 9th Letter Press

And here is the lovely couple in all of their married glory.

p.s. 9th Letter Press is a member of the Designer Rolodex â€“ you can see more of their beautiful wedding invitation work right here!

Photo Credits:Â 9th Letter Press TeamÂ &Â By The Robinsons

07/16/2013

Todd + Sasha’s 1920s-Inspired Elegant Hand Lettered Wedding Invitations

Hi Again! Today weâ€™d like to share with you a recent invite we did for an amazing couple who was having a sophisticated ’20s-era wedding. Although â€œGatsbyâ€ was one of the words they used to convey the feeling they were going for, their suite was more about capturing the elegance and modernism of the era rather than trying to replicate the cues taken from the recent Baz Luhrmann movie.Â â€“Arley-Rose and Morgan of Ladyfingers Letterpress

The suite features a two-sided, super thick invite thatâ€™s letterpress printed on both sides, with an application of silkscreen on the front, and edge painted in antique gold. If youâ€™re familiar with letterpress printing at all, you may be aware that printing flats are a little more challenging than printing line work. We wanted to try a new approach where we attempted to letterpress a silver layer on top of the charcoal base flat layer, with the cream text knocked out of the charcoal layer. We had done a test in the studio before we pitched the idea to the client and it looked great. Somehow, by the time we were ready to print the silver layer, it didnâ€™t look as legible as the tests and we had to come up with a new approach. We opted for silkscreen since itâ€™s more viscous than letterpress ink. Another solution could have been hot foil stamping.

On the back of the invitation, we letterpress printed a cross section of a piece of wood, since the groom-to-be was an avid wood worker.

Their wedding was set to take place on Shelter Island, and features a letterpress print of a vintage map that acts as an inner envelope. These were then addressed in gold guache by our in-house calligrapher Tammy Ann Tan.

Their RSVP is also letterpress printed on thick cotton paper, edge painted and is double sided to accommodate menus, events and additional info. Their folded letterpress Info Card features directions, accommodations and vintage illustrations of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

p.s.Â Ladyfingers Letterpress is a member of theÂ Designer RolodexÂ â€“ check out more of their beautiful workÂ right hereÂ or visitÂ theÂ real inviÂtaÂtions galleryÂ for moreÂ wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Ladyfingers Letterpress

07/16/2013

9TH LETTER PRESS: Trade Show Lessons Learned from a Rookie Exhibitor

Hello, all. Today’s guest post consists of all the “ah ha!” moments Sheli and I had while exhibiting at the 2013 National Stationery Show. If you’re planning on exhibiting or are just curious in general, this post is for you. â€“Isabel of 9th Letter Press

The 9th Letter Press booth at the 2013 National Stationery Show

I tend to think in “lists” (which is the extent of my organization talents) so I thought I’d provide one for you all with the most important lessons worth sharing:

Absolutely research, prep, and plan for the show. The best resources available come from Trade Show Bootcamp, Show Time and Pushing the Envelope. Grab a highlighter and take lots of notes. I can’t tell you how useful these resources were!
Excited to fill out order forms at the show? Get equally excited about printing inventory before you leave. You’ll be so happy doing the legwork beforehand and not afterward. Make your best educated guesses of what your bestsellers might be and have those printed, packaged and ready to go for when you come back. If you letterpress print your products, I would suggest having twice as much of everything printed before hand, because you may be surprised what gets ordered. We were shocked by how much more we needed to print once we got home! We will certainly be printing more inventory ahead of time in the future!
Make sure you have a good selection for the most popular card-giving occasions. Ex: birthday, thank you, sympathy, etc.
Make sure to bring extras! By the end of the show your cards will not be in the pristine shape that you brought them in. It will give you peace of mind knowing you can switch out a card that has suffered from being dropped, stolen or gotten dirty in some way throughout the show.
Ship and pack a set: we ended up shipping a set of our products directly to our hotel and also packing two carry ons full of our products. If something happened to either set, we figured we’d be covered. (We were).
Don’t forget to decorate your booth! Adding little touches of your brand throughout your display will go a long way.
No matter how cute they are, leave your wedges and heels at home. Your feet will thank you.
Make sure to have something to send to your retailers before and after the show. The first should arrive somewhere between two to three weeks before the show. We opted to do a more elaborate mailer to a smaller group of retailers so that we could focus on stores that we knew were a good fit for us. I also liked the idea of the mailer being personal with lots of detail and an accurate representation of our brand. Doing a mass run can limit just how creative you can be.
You might consider getting an app like Handshake that will consolidate orders, information and reports to help with turnaround time after the show.

Here are a few pictures of our booth building out in New York, which was an adventure in of itself:

Meet Sheli, the left brain of 9th Letter Press. She’s the person who puts into motion my big ideas. Without her, I’m not sure how anything would have come together, let alone have gotten to New York. We packed up our booth on an 8 foot pallet, which we packed with lots of care in the studio parking lot. When the freight company came to pick up our wrapped up pallet, we said goodbye, and crossed our fingers it would arrive safely in New York â€” it did!

That’s me working on our signage! I wanted the booth to match the look of our studio in Winter Park, Florida, which has a very old New York meets the industrial revolution feel. In order to keep with that aesthetic, we built a super tall bar complete with purse hooks and a brass rail, added dark walnut shelves, and found foam “wood” floors.

And here’s the end result! Sheli and I were thrilled with how everything turned out. We did spend a few late nights at the convention center to get it done, but it was well worth it. I really hope all or at least part of that was helpful!

Our mailers were travel themed so we included an old fashioned train ticket, a packing list, gold foil pressed luggage tags, and a gold pen to write down their information on the tag. After the show, we followed up with sending sweet little cards with an illustrated lady liberty on them.

Photo Credits: 9th Letter Press Team