I never realized that there is a whole community of people who champion the use and preservation of antique letterpresses. Obviously, here at Sesame, we are all enthusiasts and we have quite a few presses which we are constantly caring for and printing with. But there are also some amazing online resources with active members who are regularly posting about their printing projects, design ideas and love of old letterpresses. Here are a few suggestions if you want to start exploring letterpress. And these sites also have listings where you can buy and sell old presses...Briar Press - this is our go-to site with nearly 70,000 printers, artists and designers!

British Letterpress - as the name suggests, this site is quite UK-centric. It features lots of hands-on guides and ideas.

Happy exploring!

Update, 1/15/13:

Thanks to Shayna at Steel Petal Press for letting us know about another excellent new website for letterpress fans:

Letterpress Commons - great new open source site built by the letterpress community. Loads of really awesome information and links.

 

Thanks to Melissa who sent us these gorgeous photos of the stationery we printed for her wedding. We especially like the personalized belly band around the invitations.

All photographs by Todd France (tfrance.com)

We have put together a lovely range of customizable holiday cards. They are designed so that clients can choose their own photograph to incorporate into the card.All of us here in the studio adore this gorgeous faux bois design. Perfect for Christmas and especially perfect for letterpress: the impression makes the paper actually feel like woodgrain!

- Jana

Kate just inked the press with the most wonderful, rich, saturated blue. It looks like the perfect summer sky. It reminds me of International Klein Blue - a color first mixed by the French artist Yves Klein.

She has been busily printing some lovely, simple ceremony programs that we're sending out very soon - it's going to be a nice crisp weekend for a New York wedding!

- Jana

We have been printing loads of gift tags lately. They are a lovely simple way to dress up a gift. As well as our year-round range, we also have a suite of holiday-themes tags:

We had lots of fun wrapping up (fake) gifts to showcase the tag range:

I was chatting to Breck the other day about the presses in our workshop. We have quite a few of them - all different shapes and sizes. She was telling me that sometimes when she has bought a press and installed it in the studio, she has discovered an old remnant of the previous life of the machine. Tucked away behind the rollers or under the chase, she has found a bit of printed ephemera from when the press was last operated.Here's a photo of something she found in the press we use daily:

It's funny to think that before we started using the press to print wedding invitations and business cards it was used to print garment tags! It's lovely to imagine the press in a whole different workshop, being operated by a different master printer. I reckon our presses have been through a great many reincarnations! Here's that garment tag tucked in amongst the parts of our Golding Jobber No. 7:

- Jana

We were so pleased to be asked to print a batch of custom Christmas tags for a London store. Caramel Baby and Child specializes in gorgeous clothes for little ones! Here are some photos of the finished tags and the printing process. And if you want to check out Caramel's wares, there's even a store in New York!

- Jana

We are so pleased to be featured in a Japanese book all about neighorhoods in Brooklyn:

We love the vintage-style map on the front of the book. And we like all the photos of Sesame included inside...

- Jana