National Stationery Show - part 1

I'm pretty tired - running on full steam for the past few weeks. The show is going really well, though, and I wanted to post a snapshot of the booth. I'm really happy with the look - more finished and sophisticated than previous years, and more in keeping with the style of the cards and how I'd like to represent myself and Albertine Press.

More on the people we've met, things we've seen and everything else show-related (and the major problems with every single aspect of the show) coming soon.

Bembo-licious

The Stationery Show kicked off today, but I don't yet have photographs or energy enough to recap quite yet. In the meantime, I wanted to share a link sent to me by a Boston bookbinder and fellow Letterpress Guild member Cynthia. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did.

www.bemboszoo.com

Stationery Show preview

As we finish up our preparation for the Stationery Show next week, I wanted to give everyone a little preview of what's new.

Our two big features are the introduction of over 15 new designs in our popular Lines series, and the debut of our new Jet Set collection of note cards.



We're delighted to announce that the Jet Set cards have been chosen as part of the Best New Product display at the show this year and we can't wait to show them off!

We've also added several new Marisa cards including these bathtub prints.



In addition to our own work, this year I headed up a collaboration of several small design and print studios to produce a limited-edition book and series of prints as a promotion for the Stationery Show. This year the group consists of Albertine Press, Linda & Harriett, Spruce Avenue and Two Trick Pony.



We chose Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" with each studio creating one or more illustration plates for the poem, while I designed and produced the book structure. It's an accordion-fold pocket book, which neatly holds each card alongside the stanzas which it illustrates.



In order to complete the full set, attendees at the show will need to visit each of our booths to collect the book and all of the illustration plates. If you'll be attending the show, please stop by (we're in #1934) and take a look!

I was so excited to receive the print samples from everyone this week. I feel pretty confident that they'll go fast, and I'm already eager to plan next year's "Small Studios, Big Ideas Print Production."

Now, if I can just make it through the next week...

Seeing Green

Several months ago I was approached by the Friends of the Public Garden to design and print the invitations for their annual Green and White Ball. It's an ambitious project consisting of many pieces, and one of the challenges was to redesign the cumbersome set of invitation, sponsor cards, reply card, thank you notes in a more elegant and simple fashion.

The final design was a single book structure, each piece of which had a different original illustration from the Public Garden (swan boats, statues, bridges).







I used Italian, cotton, loose-weave ribbons from Carta, Inc. This is what a mound of over 700 cut ribbons looks like:



Each step took a day or more. After the ribbons were cut they needed to be threaded through the outer book leaf. This is just a few hundred of the be-ribboned covers:



Of course, while cutting and ribbon threading were happening on one side of the room, on the other I had The Beast churning out invitation pieces.





Invitation panels then were affixed onto the inner leaf of the structure, which involved many fine hours and a newfound love-hate relationship with our tape gun.



Though the timing of the project set our Stationery Show preparations back a few weeks, I am so utterly delighted with the result. I can't wait to hear the responses from the invitees...

A humongous thank you must go out to Daphne, Becca, Melissa and Will for their tireless (though not un-complaining) help in creating these amazing invitations. Until next year.

Lots cookin'

It has been a busy time here at the studio. We've wrapped up the summer wedding invitation season (nearly), held classes, hosted open studios, and all while trying for dear life to prepare for the National Stationery Show next weekend in New York City.

Thus the lapse in any kind of regular blogging.

So here goes a recap of the whirlwind of happenings:

Two weekends ago we welcomed six talented students for a second weekend Limited Edition Journal workshop with Angela Liguori. Everyone worked hard to create some really original typeset pages, and made great use of the brackets which were our second color and coordinating element amongst all of the pages.



Day two, Angela led everyone at a much more relaxed pace through the simple-yet-beautiful pamphlet stitched, hard-bound books. For more, visit here or here.



Next up. Last weekend we participated for the second year in Somerville Open Studios. After New York City, it's the largest open studios weekend in the country, with over 300 participating artists. That doesn't even count the "unofficial" ones, like E. B. Goodale, or Melissa Gruntkosky of Pressbound, both who exhibited in the studio with Albertine Press.



I love Pressbound's new series of mini books with art deco covers. It was a great find we made when trekking up to look at a press on the north shore. Melissa was smart enough to snatch up the batch of cuts and has put them to great use here.



Emily's prints are a charming as ever. I still need to get me a lonely violet print before they're gone. On a different note, Emily has a collection of animal figurines and every time she shows somewhere she brings a different set to use for her business card display. These horses made my day.



Of course for us, Open Studios was our first chance to display and sell some of our newest designs. So here they are, Jet Set:



If you know about my little stamp obsession, you might understand how completely thrilled I am at how these came out. In fact, they've been chosen as part of the National Stationery Show's Best New Product display! I'm still fine tuning the packaging - vinyl folders are easy and showcase four of the six designs, but not so classy. I'm leaning towards glassine envelopes - the kind you get your stamps in at the post office. How perfect?

I can't wait to share some more of the new cards and some pretty spectacular projects underway. Until then...