Let's get together and have some fun

We like to think that if we are honest and our hearts are true - when the bow of creativity is bent back and our eyes are fixed on the prize.... That goodness will spring forth like a deer bounding through the woods and the sky will smile down on our creations. And heaven will dance in the embrace of love.

Or you might say

Into every box of cereal you reach, we hope you find a prize.

Often life is a puzzle and you must struggle to find the gem of day.  So hard to do.  Why couldn't it be easier?

Today we hope that we can make it a little easier for you - with a few pieces of paper you
(we) can be clever enough to put a little zip in your zing.

That's it!!! Tell me more chippie!

3 posters that merge in to one. Three parts that make a whole!  Bird into man, man on paper, birds made from space. Space defining matter.....One becomes all.....

Pleasing both in a cosmological sense AND reading high on the gee whiz scale.
14th century technology living it up with the best of the 21st century
Electric lights
Rock and roll
Movie stars

That's some crazy stuff!!!!

but wait check this out 

Each part (poster) was conceived to thrive on its  own when necessary but like a lot things in life it only gets better when you find a few friends to share the party with......

Someday perhaps we'll lay down the microscopic biopic details of how this puzzle got from here to yonder but until then check out this lovely short film by Leigh Jurecka that does a stellar job of telling the tale In moving pictures. Which I do hear the kids love these days. 



A few final thoughts:

#1 Yes each black print was letterpressed twice with silver and silver blue ink

    #1a. Everything went through a press and was touched at least once probably 50 times!

#2 Two of the three prints were cut only by a laser (a laser!) connected to a computer which was 

    connected to my paper sketch pad!!!!

#3 This was a collaboration between Matthew Jacobson and Bryce McCloud at Isle of Printing. It was          a lot of fun - (try it sometime!)

#4  All stunts were performed by the actors (and Bryce IS available as a hand model)

#5 150 of each poster will be available over two days and nights at 3rd man records and the Ryman            Auditorium (which means 75 of each design today)

#6  Though inferred from reality no poster presented claims to really be a peacock, vulture, or musician

     #6a. It takes a tough man to give a tender forecast......

#7 Time is short - be good to those around you and choose love over greed whenever life gives you the      choice. 

more info here at Jack White's website

Many thanks to Jack White, Matthew Jacobson (co designer), the fine folks at Third Man Records, and everyone else in this world who actively support bringing novelty into our lives as a testament that the simple joys available in art and music CAN make our lives 1000 times better than they were before.(*)

Enjoy the show
Your humble servant
Hiram Kneesch

ps Take that Portlandia!

*my current entry for 2012's longest useful run on sentence

This is not a trick!

I just saw this a few minutes ago - as an avid admirer of sidecars, art, and wire sculptures - I am amazed!

Shi Jindian is the person responsible - neat-o!

that is all
carry on with your Cinco De Mayo fun!

H Kneesch

Can an 11th century Bayeux hang in a modern world?

                                     



I'm not sure where inspiration comes from ultimately but I do know that one day last year there seemed to be the most unlikely answer for several design projects we were working on concurrently.

It is a long story of how we got there so.......
Let's just jump to the middle of the story where  I recall thinking immediately oh well that reminds me of the Norman invasion of England.  And when you think of the Norman invasion of England - we all know you can't see anything but the Bayeux tapestry!

I've always loved the Bayeux tapestry but I never really studied it in detail until recently!  Though the true origin of the tapestry is lost to history - it is thought that the Tapestry was made to celebrate William of Normandy's conquest of England.  These events culminated at the battle of Hastings where Harold, the current King of England, was killed.  Heady stuff right?

After months of obsessive study - I can say without equivocation that it is a true master piece of art and design.  It seems to me as fresh and relevant today as the day it was made. (thanks to my hip 21st century mentality!)

The stitching is effortless and a it amazes me how a  few carefully chosen colors and lines convey such a HUGE amount of gesture and motion.  Hats off you embroidery artists of olde.  I thought I had embraced a medium of restrained production but really letterpress and carving blocks is jet age stuff compared to hand embroidering a 206 ft long tapestry!!!!

You can see the whole thing at this crazy site which might have been designed shortly after the tapestry was finished - and flashing gifs invented - http://hastings1066.com/

Anyhow the more I thought about the Norman conquest of England the more I thought how much of the world can be summed up by that continual process of surging tides that rush around the world era after era.

Some for good and some for bad and some for the sake of overwhelming the old with the new.

And as you probably know by now we here at the Isle like a good theme to keep everything tidy as we hop from world to world in our design campaign - conversion - metaphor machination!

So I present without further adieu our song to the soul of the Bayeux tapestry - expect more of this in the future my friends!

your Friendly neighborhood conqueror
 Hiram the Great

Stuff for When People Get happy

Some think romance is romantic but we here at Isle of Printing know the truth.

LETTERPRESS is the TRUE reflection of love!

Just like love - letterpress leaves and impression, can be beautiful, and can be messy or painful if you don't know what you are doing......

Every year we are fortunate enough to help guide many a happy couple through the perilous rapids of bad wedding design into the safe calm eddies of balance and harmony.  It is a personal journey and we feel protective of that experience for our clients.  The truth is it is a personal experience for us too!  Most jobs we do at IOP are fully custom - so our sweat and blood go out in every card.  Why? because we believe that if you are going to make something it should be worthy of taking up valuable space on our increasingly overcrowded planet!

However if you like mediocre design - you're in luck too - the paperless society is a perfect solution!  Just send an email so the poor soul receiving it can delete it as soon as possible.

but I digress.....

After a full year of pumping out the wedding jams for people who I'd like to think are our friends and family now  - we thought we would share them with the wider world

This invitation is a 5-color ode to the tree of life,  circle of life and love.  With a perforated rsvp at the bottom -  it folded up into a self mailer to save real trees from the paper mill.  After all you can't love trees in design if you don't love them for real!  We are very excited to have been involved!

Meg and William's invitation was commissioned by William and his parents after many years as fans of our art prints! We wanted to illustrate the good times the wedding party would be having at their Texas rehearsal dinner and give a bit of western feel.  So the family brought us pictures of the event space and we hand drew the night time scene and then hand-carved the blocks for the barn illustration below.  Once again this is a tri-fold self mailer with a detachable rsvp card.  

Afterwards, we carved MORE blocks for a full-sized print of the barn party!  Which is now framed at the newly weds house!!!

When Ben and Tara came to us to help them with their wedding and save the date cards - we really wanted to do something unique!  Ben owns a handcrafted drink emporium - so we thought it fitting to incorporate the high art of toasting into the save the date cards.  And since we are always trying to give our products a second life and keep them out of the bin - I suggested we make the save date info into drink coasters.   It was also our humble hope that every time their friends had a drink they would raise a glass to the future of the friends...and remember to save the date!

We sourced coaster paper to make them legit and used some of our favorite flourishes from the 19th Century design world to accent the wood type.  After we handprinted them on our press we then die-cut them into actual coasters to pop out and use!

For the invitation we revived another popular design element from the late 1800's.   It consists of a border set that a letterpress printer could put together much like legos to create endless permutations of designs from a few simple shapes.   Here we used it to create a graceful and unique border for the invitation that would compliment the spirit of the event - without becoming too fussy. This invite was printed deeply on all cotton stock one by one, then folded with an embossed envelope and letter pressed belly band.  Classy - just like Ben and Tara!

Mandee and Wes wanted an unpretentious wedding invitation that celebrated a love of nature and represented the venue over in the hills of East Tenn.  We found a beautiful woodcut frame in our collection and a funny border off an old ham bag that fit the bill perfectly!  The cuts are rustic, but the invitations retain a sense of simple elegance through the choice of silver ink on a creamy heavy stock paper.

This invitation is full of ornaments and filigree, but what really sends it home is the custom illustration of the wedding location: Nashville's Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge.  We all liked the idea that a detachable portrait of the Bridge would be a really nice way to remember the day and be something the guests and family could hold onto long after the wedding had come and gone.

We love to draw here at IOP, and we definitely love to illustrate mice!  Imagine our delight when our friends Mike and Rachel mentioned they liked the idea of a mouse sized representation of the wedding weekend's events!!!!!   Happy days!  Thanks for letting us create this completely hand-drawn invitation of tiny mice doing the things that people do at weddings on the coast of California.....etched into two magnesium plates and then run in two colors by hand on cream stock.   Another trifold self mailer - cause mice need some air!

Trains, trains, trains! Can't go a day in our neighborhood without hearing a train go by. These fine folks decided to tie the knot at the old Houston Station down the street (also near the tracks).  Thus we made them a locomotive to deliver the details to their friends and loved ones with a few details of the historic water tower. Choo choo!

All our clients are hip and on the move come wedding day it seems!

                                        

Here's another completely hand-drawn wedding invitation featuring mice, partying hearty on the Music City Queen! Even though this one was only a one-color job, you definitely can't call it "plain!"

That's all for now, folks! Remember, tons of people get hitched every day, but only the genetically superior have their invitations letterpressed, and the best of those folks have them done at Isle of Printing!

love- Gal Friday Rothenhöfer

and your old pal Hiram Kneesch

Stamping out your blues

We have been playing around a bit with our new space technology this week. Like magic we produced our first official production stamp for a friend. Pretty neat. More on stamps soon - contact us for custom work.

your faithful servant

B McC