As a normal human being, it drives me a little bit nuts that stores are exploding with holiday swaggery for two full months before Christmas proper. But as a store owner, I understand why this is – people want holiday cards and gifts, and they want them 6 weeks ago! So even though our hearts swell with love for the crisp leaves and earthy smells of autumn, we’re putting all of our holiday cards and wrap on the shelves as soon as Halloween is over! And we’re excited that this year’s holiday spread will include cards created by our newest intern (click on the pictures for larger views).

For the past few months, Carrie has been packing wholesale orders, setting type for Stationery Saturday designs, updating sample displays in our store, even making coffee on occasion. She’s also an avid knitter, and you can read about her creative exploits on her blog. Here at Lunalux, We finally put her designs skills to good use (she is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s design program, after all) on a series of modern holiday cards that we’ll be selling exclusively in our studio store this winter. They’re elegant, asymmetrical designs that make excellent use of negative space.

The snowflake card is letterpress-printed without ink on a bright white wove-finish card stock. Geometric shapes pressed deeply into the paper create striking shadows, really capturing the spirit of a brilliant white winter snowfall. My favorite is the ornaments, printed in rich black ink on a sparkling white card. The card feels very festive and wintery, without relying on traditional Christmas colors or motifs. Carrie’s most excited about the holly cards, which she printed in lime green ink on soft white wove-finish cover – it’s a fresh take on a very classic holiday icon.

While letterpress printing is an ancient process, we do it the modern way – invitations and cards are designed on the computer, then the designs are transferred to steel-backed photopolymer plates that we can use in our Heidelberg Windmill. We still have a modest collection of wood type (including the font pictures at the left), which we use for posters and other small projects, but we rely on the photopolymer plates for our day-to-day work. This new way of letterpress printing has all sorts of advantages, but it’s important to understand and appreciate the roots of the craft. That’s why we’re excited to go to the Walker Art Center next week to see Typeface, a new documentary about the Hamilton Wood Type Museum.

Typeface promises a fascinating peek into this unique institution, which houses an incredible collection of wood type for letterpress printing, and is the only place in the U.S. that continues to manufacture and sell wood type. A must for graphic deisngers, type geeks and letterpress enthusiasts. The film shows at the Walker on Thursday November 6, at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. The 7p.m. screening will be followed by a discussion with the Justine Hagan (the film’s director), Blinc Publishing’s Bill Moran (designer, letterpress printer, and co-author of a book about the museum), and Greg Corrigan (designer and technical director of the Hamilton Museum). The early show is sold out, but tickets should still be available for the second screening.

You’ll also see Lunalux in the lobby, along with a few other local letterpress studios, displaying work we’ve done with wood type. You can read more about the film and purchase tickets at the Walker website. Visit the Hamilton Wood Type Museum website to learn more about this one-of-a-kind organization.

The double-happiness motif we created last winter for Michelle and Joe’s wedding invitations turned out so great, I’ve been jonesing for another opportunity to use it. Which brings us to this addition to our wholesale line of greeting cards, the new double-happiness wedding card. This traditional Chinese symbol is letterpress-printed in red ink on a natural white 88# wove-finish card, which folds to 5.5×4.25 inches to fit into a vibrant red envelope. Right now, the card is for sale exclusively at the Lunalux studio store for $4. Later this year, when we get our act together and assemble updated sample decks for our sales reps, the card should start showing up in other stores too.

Interested in our wholesale line? Read about other recent additions in our blog archive, or click here to download our full wholesale catalog.

When we have interesting scrap paper and some free time in our production schedule, we love to make scratch pads to sell in the studio store; it gives us a low-pressure opportunity to make something cool, and it’s nice to have a constantly rotating selection of pads for sale in the store. In recent weeks, we’ve gone a bit overboard in this department, so we have a ton of great new designs for sale. My favorite was created by John, who used cool vibrant ink colors for overlapping floral silhouettes, printed on bright white textured card stock. These pads are bigger and more elaborate than most of our other designs, so we’re selling them for the top-shelf price of $6.

We’ve also got pads featuring images of bicycles, bunnies, Mexican wrestlers, sunflowers, golf balls, owls and our fine neighbor to the north, Canada! Most recently we printed the state of Minnesota in three colors (red, blue and dark charcoal) on light gray felt-finish card stock. These we’re selling individually for $4 each, or in bundles of three pads (one of each color) tied with a satiny bow for $12 – we think the set makes an excellent present!

All of our pads are letterpress-printed on high-quality papers here in our Loring Park studio, and for sale exclusively in our store for $3-$6 each. They’re so nice and so inexpensive, once you try a Lunalux Deluxe Scratch Pad, you’ll never settle for anything less. Have we infected you with scratch pad fever yet? The only cure is for you to come to our shop and buy some pads. Check out our store page for hours and directions, or read more about recent store news in the blog archives.

John first came to Lunalux as a shopper, browsing our selection of paper goods and making the occasional purchase from our studio store. We often chatted about his association with Metro Independent Business Alliance, and his search for a new job. When he started to job-hunt more earnestly, he came to Lunalux for custom-designed letterpress-printed business cards. In these competitive times, he wanted a card that would make a big impression – not something that looked like it came out of a computer printer. To this end, we went with Lettra 100% cotton pearl white cover – this paper really shows off the lovely texture of letterpress printing, and it feels remarkable to the touch. John knew from the start that he wanted something simple, so it was just a matter of nailing down the perfect fonts and ink color. We used a sophisticated script for his name, and kept the details to a base minimum. The finished cards are printed in a blue-gray ink and trimmed to the non-standard size of 2×3 inches.

Click here to read more about our custom design and letterpress services, including business and personal stationery options.

Click here to see other custom business stationery projects that have been featured in the Lunalux blog.