Harold first fell for letterpress at a small town college in Northfield, Minnesota called Carleton (Carleton also happens to be the school where Harold & Debbie fell for each other, but that’s another story!). So we were so excited when Carleton’s art department asked Harold to write his story for the college’s web site, to show (we think) prospective art majors and their parents that those art degrees do go onto do great things. Read Harold’s romantic letterpress saga here!

One of our esteemed Boxcar platemaking customers, Suann Song from Simplesong Design, is guest blogging on design*sponge this week where she showed off her Boxcar base and KF152 plates and is sharing insight into letterpress printing, design and more. Check it out!

Printed for CardsInk, this cool XO greeting card is our idea of a sweet Valentine’s Day card. We’re with CardsInk on this one – while we don’t exactly know when, how or why XOXO came to mean hugs and kisses, we’re digging this quirky illustration.

We printed these cool letterpress save the dates for Rebecca Ashby of The Pink Orange for a client of hers seeking a design with a distinct beachy feel, but a unique edge. We printed these with a letterpress flood in yellow and they are paired with a sweet 2-color letterpress #10 business envelope with a string and button closure. You can read more about the design on Rebecca’s blog.

Along with being our esteemed pre-press expert in our platemaking department, Anthony is also our resident expert in all things poutine. Wondering what poutine is and how you can enjoy some of your very own? Anthony is here to the rescue. Poutine is a traditional Canadian dish, originating in Quebec and it involves three basic ingredients near and dear to many people’s hearts – fries, cheese and gravy.

Now, our sources tell us that the best place to get poutine is in Montreal, naturally, at a place called Peel Pub. While you can get poutine in Upstate NY, our restaurateurs are sadly not up to par with the Canadian originators of this fine delicacy. If you’re in Syracuse, you can check out Empire Brewing Company, where they serve up poutine that Anthony gives a rating of “okay”, but he notes that their fries are sliced too thickly. Therein lies the secret to good poutine, folks – thin cut steak fries.

Bearing that in mind, Anthony suggests you cook up some poutine of your own instead of risking a run-in with bad poutine out in the wild. You’ll need steak fries, remembering to ensure they are thinly sliced so you have more surface area to coat with your cheese and gravy. On top of the fries goes a big pile of shredded cheddar cheese – Anthony prefers mild although he notes you might want consider sharp cheddar if you’re into that kind of thing. Drench your cheese-topped fries with beef gravy and you’ll have awesome poutine in no time. Anthony’s secret is that you’ve really got to have warm fries, cold cheese and then warm gravy on top, in that order. If you’re wondering, yes, it’s imperative that your cheese be cold in order for the flavors to meld properly. Traditional poutine often uses cheese curd, so you could give that a whirl, too, but Anthony suggests you give the shredded cheddar a go first. Hungry yet? We are! The entire Boxcar office is now thinking about poutine.

Oh, if you’re not already, you should probably be following Boxcar Press on Twitter where Boxcar Press founder Harold Kyle happily shares endless insight into all things letterpress and occasionally, on days like today, poutine as well.

{Photo from Splitbrain.org}

There are some exciting changes going on here at the old Boxcar – we’re now offering free shipping and faster service to better serve our platemaking customers. Hooray! And while we’re at it, we’d love to get your feedback! Tell us what you think: take our high tech, 4 minute survey and we’ll happily plant a tree for every survey participant. (Oh and you can now follow Boxcar on Twitter, too!)

Free 2-Day Shipping

Be gone, shipping charges! That’s so 2008. We now offer free 2-day UPS shipping on all domestic platemaking orders over 90 square inches. That’s less than 8.5 x 11, if you don’t have a calculator handy! (View our international or other shipping charges)

One Day Turnaround On All Orders!

One day rushes, get out of here! Our standard turnaround is now one day, which means:

* if you send in your order and your ready-to-go files by 4 p.m. EST, we’ll ship your order on the next business day. (see new turnaround chart here)
* same day turnaround rushes are still available if you submit your files by 1 p.m. EST (see pricing here)
* if your files aren’t ready to go, keep in mind this may delay your ship date (unless you request that we process your plate no matter what seems wrong with the file)

Questions about any of these changes? Let us know and we’re happy to help!

How to Reach Us (it’s easy, trust us!)

(A happy note: we have finally fired our auto-attendant for our phones. You now get to talk to a real live person when you call during our business hours, 9 a.m.to 6 p.m. EST. Hooray!)

We like planting trees for you.

Remember, for every platemaking order you place over $100, we plant a tree with American Forests. Over its lifetime, each new tree planted will absorb roughly 740 pounds of carbon dioxide. Go trees!

Need coaching, tutoring, or one on one help for preparing your letterpress files?

We’ve been doing prepress for letterpress for a decade now, and we love helping out both new and old printers & designers overcome technical challenges to create the perfect pre-press files. If you’re new to the polymer world, or if you simply hate file prep, give Cathy a shout out (cathy@boxcarpress.com, 315-473-0930 x 12), and we’ll find ways to make the file prep process a breeze for you. (You also might want to take a look at our file prep tips and our FAQ’s on our web site).

We want to hear your thoughts (and we want to plant you a tree too)

We know Boxcar Press wouldn’t exist without you, so we’ll be honest—we love each and every one of you guys. We admire your enthusiasm for letterpress and we share your passion for cool heavy machinery. And we care a whole lot about what you think. We hope that you share your thoughts, great ideas, and disappointments with us whenever you can—but wouldn’t it be fun to also fill out a high-tech survey about how we’re doing? All you need to do is go here by August 8. It’ll take about 4 minutes of your time, and in return, we’ll plant a tree in your honor with American Forests. Thanks!

Get profiled on the Boxcar Blog!

One of our favorite things to do is recognize our platemaking customers and the great letterpress printing they create with our plates. We’d love to profile your print shop and your work on our blog! Drop an email to cynthia@boxcarpress.com if you’re interested, and check out previous customer profiles on our blog here.

At Boxcar, it’s all about letterpress and the printers who love old presses as much as we do…

Boxcar Press began 10 years ago, with a guy named Harold, a polymer washout brush, a tray full of warm water, a dream about an easy-to-use printing base, a few rescued presses, poetry, and a lot of caffeine. When employee #2 (Debbie, Harold’s wife) joined Boxcar in 2000, Harold was still hand processing plates himself in the basement sink of their Syracuse, NY house and keeping track of orders on a white board. There were no order forms (or auto-attendants either!). Our little company has changed a bit since then. We’ve learned a lot. We have order forms now. Our home is now 12,000 square feet of space in an old artist warehouse in Syracuse, New York, and we have a team of employees here that keep your happiness close at heart. We’ve processed tens of thousands of plates for thousands of letterpress shops internationally. We’ve fallen more deeply in love with letterpress and this cool printing community. And we’ve had the amazing experience of helping shops, both large and small, figure out how to get their hulking cast iron presses to print well. But we’re still the same friendly folks at heart who love coffee and who are doing what we do because we love letterpress.

Our practice of donating letterpress paper to local art programs and schools has become one of the most rewarding things we do, and it never goes unappreciated by the kids who benefit. Recently, we received a visit from a local teacher whose students used the donated paper to create books that they then read to children in the local area. The visit was a happy reminder of why we do what we do to help the kids in and around Syracuse.

As show of their appreciation for our recent donation, the seventh grade students at Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse made us our own book full of their praise and thanks. Each student wrote us a personal, heartfelt and touching letter. The book is absolutely one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen. It’s awesome for us to know that our donation touched these kids and that, in turn, the stories they wrote, the books they made and the time they spent with younger students, touched even more kids in a positive way.

One student wrote, “Dear Boxcar Press, Thank you for letting us use your paper. We got to touch many hearts with the books we provided for the children…”

Thank you, to the students of Jenny Albicelli’s seventh grade English class. We are so happy you enjoyed the paper and so grateful for your gift to us.

Since the Boxcar Baby #1 just reached his 2-1/2 year milestone, we thought it was time he started pulling his weight around the office a little more. Luckily, energized by a peanut butter sandwich, he was more than willing to help out with our ink jet printer upstairs and try his hand at answering the phones. We’re looking forward to more contributions from Boxcar Baby #2 (due July 30, 2009)!

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.)