We get so excited when we see Boxcar’s photopolymer plates & the Boxcar Base hard at work making really beautiful stuff! Thanks to Chandler for sending us pics of “Prop Cake,” the latest installment of the Feminist Broadside Series, designed by Chandler O’Leary of Anagram Press and letterpress printed by Jessica Spring of Springtide Press, using a Vandercook Universal One, Boxcar’s 94FL plates, and the Boxcar Base. The Feminist Broadside Series has been such a success — the last two broadsides are SOLD OUT (yay!), and this one is going fast too I’m sure. Jessica and Chandler will be speaking at the Tacoma Art Museum on May 12, and the power duo had a great mention in City Arts Magazine. To purchase the latest broadside, go to Anagram Press’s etsy store. Check out the first broadside and the second broadside in the series

Chandler writes about the new broadside, “Because we believe everyone deserves an equal slice of wedding cake, the next broadside in the series features a quote by Alice Paul: ‘There is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.’ ‘Prop Cake’ features an original illustration inspired by the architecture of San Francisco, epicenter of the battle over Proposition 8 in California. The broadside is printed from hand-lettered typography, on 10 x 18-inch archival, 100% rag, recycled paper, in an edition of 108, and is priced at $30.”

We’ve continue to enjoy printing a lot of letterpress business cards for cool companies. We loved the strong black ink and clean design of this one — it reminded us of drinking a really good strong cup of (not decaf) coffee, back when we drank coffee… Iron Maiden Powerslave
For this letterpress business card, we did offset printing on the back to add some nice solids and color, and then used letterpress printing on the front. We love the cool square size too! Take that, old-fashioned business card holders!

One of the things that give us great satisfaction over here at Boxcar Press is doing pro bono letterpress printing for causes that we believe in. Are there other letterpress shops doing the same sort of thing – donating their printing skills to help individuals/nonprofits/the world? If you’re a letterpress shop who does pro bono work, drop us an email or leave a comment to this post and we’d love to feature you on a future blog post.

This is our latest pro bono job for the Nest, a cool nonprofit who gives micro-credit loans to women artists in developing countries. They’re funded in part by products sold on their web site (some letterpress products there too!). We donated the printing of a Valentine’s day card for them to send out to potential donors and a donation card. The interior of the card reads, “The life I touch for good will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” (Frederick Buechner).

The Nest sent over these sweet mugs for everyone in our print shop as a way of saying thanks. In addition to being the most cheerful red, these mugs have also proven a favorite of the Boxcar Toddler, who refuses to use sippy cups, but prefers a sophisticated travel mug instead.

(Also note, if you have a line of letterpress cards, try selling your work on the Nest! They have gotten great publicity – including a mention by Oprah!. It’s kind of like etsy, though you donate a % of your sale to Nest. The designer application is here.)