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On June 18th, we enjoyed attending the exhibition reception at the Irvine Fine Arts Center for Rock, Paper, Scissors: Printmaking & Book Arts Exhibition.   We are ashamed to admit that we had not yet been to this facility and we were quite impressed!  We were amazed at the quality of handmade books, lithography, letterpress, photo processes and more.  It’s always fun to see what others are doing and we left feeling thoroughly inspired to create some unique images ourselves.  We wish to congratulate our friend, Rachelle Chuang, winner of the Juror’s award for her handmade book art!  Also, friend Gina Pirtle did an excellent job designing and letterpress printing the posters for the event.

If you haven’t been, there’s still time to see this amazing exhibit.  It continues until July 31rst, so drop on by and check it out!  You won’t be disappointed.

Though it’s been a while since we’ve blogged, we have been remaining quite busy! In early spring, we worked hard printing cards, gift tags and coasters for the Unique LA Independent Design and Gift Show. This was our first time vending at this amazing show in late April. We were extremely impressed with the venue and the quality of items sold by other vendors. The response to our products was rewarding and we want to thank everyone who visited us. We debuted four new card designs and are thrilled to report that all were received well. In fact, our top selling card was the “Best Husband” card that had not yet been released until the Unique LA show. We look forward to attending the holiday Unique LA show later this year on December 11th and 12th.

Summer is here! Don’t forget the party coasters for your summer shin-dig. These coasters are irreverent and always popular!

Graduation is near! Celebrate your new grad with a “Gold Star” card.

Upcoming Events:
Los Angeles Printers Fair 9/25
Unique LA 12/11-12/12

It’s been quite an exciting week! Our “Better Loving Through Chemistry” card was nominated for the “Naughty or Nice” contest on Etsy. We were so excited that, in all our haste, we neglected to spell check the e-blast we sent out requesting votes!! Thanks so much to all of you who voted but, alas, our geeky Valentine’s card was no match for the jewelry and lacey cheek hugging panties that inevitably got the most votes. We did receive a great deal of attention, however, and got an overwhelming number of emails and orders throughout the voting period.

This custom wedding invitation project was a lot of fun. The bride and groom crafted some humorous text and Michelle Warnke created the custom design. Have a look for yourself!

Oops, not quite right

We certainly use a lot of paper here at HawkGerber…and then we use it again. You see, there are several steps required for many of our designs, especially the ones with more than one color. Once one color has been letterpress printed and the paper has dried, we need to set up the press for another color on the same image. This can get tricky…

Re-gis-ter (rej-uh-ster) noun : correct relation or exact superimposition, as of colors in color printing.

When setting up a second polymer plate to print another color, we must be sure that the registration is very nearly perfect on many of our designs. This can be very challenging since even just having that second color be off by a micron, the image will be poor quality.

This one was printed on a previous test page.

Re-use (ri-yoos) verb : the recovery of materials and products for the same or a similar end use.

While we’d like to claim that every print job is perfectly printed and registered from the start, that’s not always the case. Alright, well it’s never the case. We must run several test pages to measure, eyeball and jerry-rig to ensure proper registration. On a simple design, this may only take a few test print pages. More complex designs can be, well, more complex. Often there are multiple pages wasted as we experiment during the registration process. In order to be economical and ecological, we reuse pages that have been printed on previously. Most of our test pages have been printed on as much as 4-8 times before being tossed.

Re-duce (ri-doos) verb : to bring down to a smaller extent, size, amount, number.

Now thats more like it.

By doing this in conjunction with using environmentally friendly papers, we hope to reduce the amount of paper wasted and the effect on the environment.

Well, we’re quite proud of our newest addition to our studio.  However, it was not an easy transition, initially.  You see, we purchased a Gordon 8×12 platen letterpress at the Los Angeles Printers Fair in late August and were immediately presented with several challenges.

The press arrived in good condition, however, it was rusty and needed a lot of cleanup.  We both got pretty dirty oiling the press and getting it in order.  The biggest bane for us was the throw off lever.  For those of you who aren’t obsessed with letterpress printing, the throw off lever is basically the “on/off” switch for the press.  While the press is powered by a flywheel and treadle, it’s the position of the throw off lever that determines whether the machine is going to print or not.  However, once attached, the throw off lever never was working properly.  It would wobble in and out of position and was very difficult to engage.  We tried troubleshooting, but it was never quite right.

Finally, we decided to merely try printing with the new press, regardless of whatever the issue was with the throw off lever.  We also tried to attach a treadle, but that was another headache.  We made an attempt at removing the rod in the back of the press to attach a treadle, but metal caps on the inside of the press were painted in place making us very nervous to try any harder.  So we quickly gave up on the foot treadle and decided to move on.  Our clean machine was oiled and greased and moving much better now.

The rest should be easy, right?   Again, more frustration.  After some cursing and muscle flexing, we finally determined that the rollers we had didn’t fit this press.  It was while struggling with the rollers that we both saw our biggest problem of all–a huge crack in the 2″ thick iron that holds part of the press together.  Clearly, our efforts to move the throw off lever combined with the rust and age of this antique were to blame.  We couldn’t believe that our new press was broken before we’d even had a chance to print!

Thankfully, our hero, Mark Barbour,  executive director of the International Printers Museum, saved the day.  He was able to find a Chandler and Price 8×12 platen press that was in slightly better condition than the Gordon.  This press was built in 1889 and, in spite of the dirt and rust that burdoned it, it’s been in good working order from the beginning.

As it tradition, we gave a name to our newest letterpress.  After much deliberating, we decided that the name “Mulligan” we suited this second chance of a press.

We were thrilled to be invited to be a vendor at the First Annual Los Angeles Printers Fair on August 29th. There were letterpress and book arts demonstrations as well as many vendors selling letterpress cards, posters and letterpress supplies.  One of the big draws for us was the equipment sales.  We look forward to adding our new 8 x 12 platen press to our “studio” soon.

The feedback we received on our cards and products was phenomenal and we look forward to attending again next year.

Check out some photos from this year’s event:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aigalosangeles/sets/72157622189273864/

We regret that we haven’t blogged in a while…but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been busy.  The LA Printers Fair is less than a week away and we are cranking out products and doing our best to be ready for this exciting event.

Among our most recent additions is the Eat, Drink and Be Mary set of coasters.  Hawk generated these images long ago and it’s taken us a little while to determine the best way to present them.  We had originally tried to place the images on a card, but it didn’t feel quite right.  Gerber suggested coasters and here they are!  We are quite pleased with the results and we hope you will be too.

OK, so apparently it’s customary to name your letterpress. Our first press, a banner press, has been named Kernel Presston (seen in “Here We Are”, below).   No, the title is not misspelled; kerning is a typographical term referring to the spaces between letters.   It’s pretty much a design geeky name and we’re really okay with that.

Our “newest” press has been named Tiny Tim (shown in “New But Slightly Used”, below). Tiny Tim arrived with a broken leg, if you will, as one of the arms that holds the ink rollers was broken in shipping. Gerber has been working hard to mend Tiny Tim’s “leg” but is still searching for someone who can weld this break. If we were to make a card for Tiny Tim it would be:

One never really knows what to expect when placing items for sale.  It seems that some products are overwhelmingly popular while others are, well, not.

We came up with this illustration a few years ago while making recipe cards and boxes for family members as a gift.  Once we started getting inky with the letterpress, we decided to make a polymer plate of the “lovey oven” and press some recipe cards.   Much to our surprise, this has become our most popular item to date!