I’m excited to announce that I’m resurrecting Papillon Press letterpress workshops this Fall 2021! Come to our studio in Westport and learn how to set type and print your own notecards using all our old printing equipment.
Dates are available through weekends until mid-November (except for Thanksgiving weekend because we have plans). Book through AirbBnB Experiences.Book your spot on AirBnB Experiences
Guests will be introduced to our 70-yr-old letterpress in our studio, learn the basics of setting type and will ink and print their own personalized note cards (qty. 50, value of $100) by hand on the press. They will create their own stationery choosing from a selection of over 50 typefaces from our vintage typecases and etched graphics.
Day of workshop schedule
10am-11am The first hour of the workshop is spent discussing the history of letterpress printing, basic typography, types of papers and each participant’s project over coffee and Chantal’s homemade muffins. Each participant is given a handout for their own personal reference that they can keep
11am-12pm The rest of the morning is devoted to learning how to compose type in a composing stick, choosing from over 110 cases of type including lead type and wood type and from our dozens of cuts (pictorial etching
12pm-1pm Break for lunch.
1pm-3pm– Work on composing your type, then learn how to mount the type in the chase using furniture, leading & slugs. Each participant will proof their project on our proofing press to ensure there are no errors before printing on the big press.
3pm-5pm Each participant will learn how to mount the chase containing their type on our floor model 10×15 Chandler & Price letterpress and take their turn printing 50 pieces of their own
That time of year is coming up; the time when you start thinking about which card your business will be sending out for the holidays. Is your business looking for a fun alternative to boring corporate Holiday cards? Look no further. Any of our Papillon Press holiday cards are available to be customized with an inside greeting of your choice. We’ll even design it for you!
Below is a card we did last year for Dent Craft. They chose our Festive Reindeer card and requested that the string lights be printed in their company colours, with an inside greeting printed in one colour.
Interested? Go ahead and fill out the Get An Estimate form and we’ll get back to you with a quote.
Our customized Festive Reindeer card
A one-colour greeting is printed inside the customized Festive Reindeer card.
People often ask us if we can print in languages other than English. The answer is a resounding “YES”, as you can see with this English/Arabic wedding invitation. I love the choice of colour and the lovely artwork on this letterpress invitation. We don’t print many folded wedding announcements any more, but this is a fantastic example of what it can look like.
Specs: DesignSam Weber | Paper Crane Lettra, 300 gsm, pearl white | Size 5×7″ (folded) | Ink Colour custom mixed PMS swatches
You know what one of the perks is to owning your own letterpress business? Being able to print sweet, over the top business cards for yourself, that’s what! The other half of the Papillon Press team, illustrator Joel Kimmel, needed a business card to attend a conference so of course he designed and printed a fancy one, featuring his own illustrations and big, bold type.
Specs: DesignJoel Kimmel | Paper Crane Lettra, 600 gsm, flo white | Size 3.5×2″ | Ink Colour Turquoise & PMS Black
Here is a fun letterpress wedding suite we printed for Brooklyn couple Matthew and Krista. This is a pretty full suite, including thank you card and favour tag, all in a coordinating red and rust ink.
Specs: Paper Crane Lettra, 300 gsm, pearl white | Size A7 announcement and envelope (5×7″) 4 bar (3.5×5″) reply card & envelope, 4 bar Thank you card & envelope, 1.5×3″ favour tag with coordinating baker’s twine | Ink Colours custom Pantone swatches | Vintage stampssendmoremail.com
Here is an elegant wedding invitation we printed for Melissa and Richard. The calligraphy was created by Allison at Allison R. Banks Designs. If you love the look of calligraphy, a great idea is to hire a calligrapher to design your invitation suite and then convert it to a digital format so it can be printed in whatever method you want. In this case, Melissa wanted calligraphy AND letterpress printing, so we worked with Allison to convert the calligraphy artwork to a letterpress-ready format. The result is the best of both worlds!
Specs: Paper Crane Lettra, 300 gsm, pearl white | Size Oversize announcement and envelope (6×9″) and 4 bar reply card & envelope | CalligraphyAllison R. Banks Design | Ink Colour Gunmetal Grey
We took a little time off in the past few weeks to roadtrip in the Pacific Northwest and to attend ICON, but we’re back now and ready to work! We’re continuing to dig back through the archives to post work did during the year.
We don’t get a lot of call for die-cuts, so we were glad this business card came in from La Closette which allowed us to flex our die-cutting muscles. Printed in a full flood of black on the front of the cards and black on the back, it’s keeping it simple. Throw in a round die-cut and it gives it that extra dimension needed to make a really stunning, classic business card.
Printed on Crane Lettra, pearl white, 600 gsm, 2.5″ in diameter in PMS Black.
This fun design was sent to us by Angela and Dima for their Toronto-centric wedding. This invitation is a perfect example of how a budget-conscious wedding can still include letterpress invites. A postcard invitation like this one forgoes the need for envelopes. The couple also chose an RSVP by email rather than reply cards (although if asked, we will always recommend reply cards because it’s so great to receive real mail).
Printed on double-thick 600 gsm flo. white Lettra in black and yellow ink, 4×6″.
We were positively thrilled when we received the design files for this business card from friend and illustrator Jonathan Bartlett. We are big fans of his illustrations and the chance to print this illustrated beauty was such a treat. We did a bit of an overprint, taking advantage of the opacity of gold letterpress ink and printing it over the black in the vines. Registration was tight between the two colours but we can handle it and are very happy with how it turned out.
If you haven’t heard of JB yet, you will now that his beautiful illustrations are painted all over Ralph Lauren’s Supply and Demand Soho outlet in NYC. The Ralph Lauren brand is celebrating JB’s art and donating proceeds from the sales of the t-shirts he has designed to the School of Visual Arts MFA Illustration program. We love it! Read more about it here.
Printed on Crane Lettra, ecru white, 300 gsm in Gold and Black inks
Jonathan Bartlett mural in Soho, NYC for Ralph Lauren. Photo by Read McKendree
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