hooray!
The Black Keys as seen through our eyes
Well friends – We are very excited to be presenting the latest Black Keys poster this weekend in Tulsa. In a rare bit of foresight, I had our shop historian take a few pictures of the process as we hurtled towards completion. Thanks be to the documentarian! If you are interested we put a large pic of the poster at the end of the post.
While making this print it occurred to me that the process we use to make prints is a reflection of our values at IOP or maybe it is the other way around. I always tell people that we are an environmentally conscious company because we try not to make useless crap. Let’s face it - there are faster ways to make an image appear on a piece of paper than carving 4 blocks, setting 500 individual pieces of lead type and running them all through a press one color at a time. Knowing how much effort it takes to make it happen keeps us honest and it sure keeps us from tossing off a half-baked idea just for the hell of it. You will have to be the judge yourself I suppose.
I hope you enjoy our little show and tell of the process of turning an idea into a genuine letterpress show poster
These prints will be on sale at the show on Sunday and here on our site Monday morning. Signed Limited edition of less than 180, 4 color hand carved letterpress posters size 26”x16” – don’t be slow or you might have to cry yourself to sleep this week.
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The historian didn’t take any pictures of me dreaming this print up so I will describe the gist of it. Basically we draw and draw and draw – while you are asleep – we are drawing – while you are at the bar we are drawing – then we have a great idea and all is right with the world.
After that…….
We generally sketch out the ideas in pencil – from there the image is sized up to the actual dimensions and transferred to tracing paper. Here we are transferring the drawing to the linoleum from which we will cut the plates out of later– one plate per color.
Here is what linoleum carving looks like – if you have any ideas of what we can do with all the lino shavings IOP creates send us a note on a twenty dollar bill. Dogs love to eat them for some reason – but I do not approve.
On to printing - after we carve all the blocks (in this case 4) we glue them onto wood and print each color one poster at a time on our Vandercook proofpress. Generally we start with the lightest colors first.
Our print with 2 colors
The press helps us register the prints – that is - it keeps the image printing in the same place on every poster so that we can be assured that each color will line up with the next one.
Then we did two more colors but the historian had gone home by then so there are no pictures of that.
After the lino blocks are printed I set the type. We are using both wood type and lead type on this print. Some of the type is at least 100 years old. Crazy!
There is no spell check on the press but I wish there was….
After the last color we set the posters aside to dry and then sign and number them. After that we go out for cocktails and milkshakes.
Thanks Mr Gutenberg
Hooray for Printing!
Hope you enjoy the prints – give us a shout if you have any questions and we will see you on Monday!
A few more detail shots of the final product
If a tree fell and nobody blogged about it would you still hear about it on twitter?
This last weekend IOP took a much needed break from digitizing the last 4 years of our lives and watched a movie. Little did I consider that the film would in fact revolve around the very same concept. If you haven’t seen it - the movie Julie and Julia is about how writing a blog can destroy everything it touches – including people, books and food from the past.
Luckily since we employ no professional writers here - the titanic powers of the blog are muted at best, but the movie still left me with a self-loathing ennui that only someone with a blog can truly fathom. After all as the movie proved thoroughly via fiction- today we can blog it, photograph it and lay it out so nicely - but who or what going to put substance into our lives? Titans of the past? Us? LOL cats?
Since we at IOP have not done much to destroy culture in the past few years – I spent a little time thinking about where the true blame might fall.
Who made the idea of typing some nonsense on the computer equal to saving a life or translating French cooking into a vernacular Americans could understand?
Who indeed …and then it came to me in a flash – I know the first time I saw someone pecking out their most intimate thoughts onto the glowing screen of a computer monitor. I know who encouraged us all to take the grand events of a real life and encapsulate it into a few quips to never fade away. Season after season he brought us closer to the brink of mass self projection and perhaps we should recognize him now for what he has done.
Doogie Howser brought us the blog and thus perhaps our ruin.
I trusted him - we all did - because he after all was a genius child doctor.
Now I just don’t know what to think every time I read:
Frankly it scares me – Why? Because I love it all too much and I think you might feel the same way.
Perhaps as penance we should ask Neil Patrick Harris to write & sing us a song about the heavy burden of the invention of blogging
Perhaps that would ease the imbalance I sense in the universe.
Hiram Kneesch *transcribed from a text via Bruce McClure
Luckily since we employ no professional writers here - the titanic powers of the blog are muted at best, but the movie still left me with a self-loathing ennui that only someone with a blog can truly fathom. After all as the movie proved thoroughly via fiction- today we can blog it, photograph it and lay it out so nicely - but who or what going to put substance into our lives? Titans of the past? Us? LOL cats?
Since we at IOP have not done much to destroy culture in the past few years – I spent a little time thinking about where the true blame might fall.
Who made the idea of typing some nonsense on the computer equal to saving a life or translating French cooking into a vernacular Americans could understand?
Who indeed …and then it came to me in a flash – I know the first time I saw someone pecking out their most intimate thoughts onto the glowing screen of a computer monitor. I know who encouraged us all to take the grand events of a real life and encapsulate it into a few quips to never fade away. Season after season he brought us closer to the brink of mass self projection and perhaps we should recognize him now for what he has done.
Doogie Howser brought us the blog and thus perhaps our ruin.
I trusted him - we all did - because he after all was a genius child doctor.
Now I just don’t know what to think every time I read:
- A blog about Japanese biker gangs riding vintage American motorcycles in Japan posted in American blogs about Old school motorcycling in America.
- A blog linking to a site offering us all the ability to dress EXACTLY like Mel Gibson in the Road Warrior.
- A blog about someone’s house - on the other side of the planet - that is way cooler than your house will ever be.
Frankly it scares me – Why? Because I love it all too much and I think you might feel the same way.
Perhaps as penance we should ask Neil Patrick Harris to write & sing us a song about the heavy burden of the invention of blogging
Perhaps that would ease the imbalance I sense in the universe.
Hiram Kneesch *transcribed from a text via Bruce McClure
The Process of chocolate
If you haven’t tried Olive and Sinclair’s chocolate yet here in Nashville you really should. Over the last two years we have had to do a lot of “product research” as we worked on creating packaging befitting such an awesome local product.
Here are a few shots of the process:
Early sketches as we worked on creating the original wrapper designs – Since eating chocolate is pretty fun we tried to convey that same feeling in the artwork.
Possibly the first incarnation of the design
Working out the details
Early color version
One of the final team effort production versions based on our art
A few shots of the hand printed boxes we helped design for O & S to use as both packaging and display. In the spirit of multiple reuses - the boxes will soon feature prints on the bottom of the boxes to keep after all the chocolate has been sold.
More to see soon! Check out the O&S website and blog here
Be your own Genie
Two Etsy sales and climbing!
For every parent that thinks art school is a road to ruin I like to think there is a shop like ours proving them wrong. Follow your dreams - if you dare – life doesn’t last nearly as long as you think it might.
Also………..
Remember buying a print is like granting a wish.
OKAY - my personal hover craft is waiting– gotta split!
Hiram Kneesch