Lunalux letterpress stationery

You could win free personalized stationery!

Jenni — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:23:42 +0000

This weekend we’re hosting Stationery Saturday at our studio – July 31, from 11a.m. to 6p.m., we’ll be creating personalized letterpress notecards for customers while they wait (click here to visit our Stationery Saturday page and read all about it). As long as the press is up and running, we’re going to print a few extra sets to give away! So here’s the deal. Click here to visit the Lunalux blog; find an interesting post from the last few months, and leave a comment (it’s got to be more thoughtful than “I hope I win the contest!”). Comments must be submitted by Friday, July 30, 2010, at noon central standard time. And be sure to put your e-mail address in the comment form. Friday afternoon, we’ll put the names of all the commenters into a proverbial hat and pick 4 winners. The winners will be contacted Friday afternoon, to find out what they want printed on their cards. Pictures of the winners’ stationery will be posted on our Facebook page next week.

The fine print… Only one entry per person will be accepted (but you won’t be disqualified for leaving multiple comments – comment away!). If you don’t include a valid e-mail address in the comment form, you won’t win. We reserve the right to edit comments. Winners will be notified via e-mail on Friday afternoon; winners MUST respond to the notification e-mail by 10a.m. Saturday 7-31-2010, or no dice. Good luck and have fun!

Stationery Saturday: little folded notes

Jenni — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:29:19 +0000

This weekend we’re hosting another Stationery Saturday at our Loring Park studio. If you haven’t made it to one of these personalized-stationery-while-you-wait events, this is a great one to start with! For this mid-summer Stationery Saturday we’ve designed refreshing little folded note cards. Simple, modern icons are pre-printed on bright white 3.5-by-5-inch folded cards. We’re offering four options: teal duck, tangerine owl, honey bee, and lavender fleur – you can choose your favorite, or a combination of multiple designs. We’ll use 10-point-Clarendon type to set the name or phrase of your choice (up to 20 characters/spaces), and letterpress-print the cards in cool gray ink. You can watch while we make the magic happen on our printing press, or spend some time shopping in the shop or strolling in Loring Park while we take care of your order. The cost? Just $29 for 10 cards. We think these petite notes are ideal for August correspondence: “A note from the lake…” “You host a mean cook-out.” “Looking forward to our trip to the State Fair.” Splurge on yourself, or get some as a sweet treat for the paper hound in your life. As always, we’ll have coffee and homemade cookies too. Check out our Stationery Saturday page for all the deets. And we hope you’ll help us spread the word – you can invite all the stationery hoarders you know using the event listing on the Lunalux Facebook page. Click on the images below for larger views of this weekend’s designs.

In Books!

Jenni — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:33:31 +0000

Two new books include spotlights on Lunalux. Our little shoppe is featured in the second edition of eat.shop twin cities, a guide to the best local shops and restaurants in Minneapolis and St. Paul. You’ll also find a few photos of our work in Impressive: Printmaking, Letterpress & Graphic Design, an overview of contemporary design in letterpress and screen printing. Lunalux was included in the original edition of eat.shop twin cities (published in 2007), and we are honored to have made the cut the second time around. Once again, the editorial staff did a top-notch job selecting the most interesting Minnesota-grown shops and eateries. The design of the book, the artistic photos of all the businesses, and even the quality of the paper it’s printed on, all help make this the most irresistible local guide, great for natives and newcomers alike. The book is available in the Lunalux studio store, along with eat.shop guides for many other major U.S. cities.

Impressive is more of a coffee table book, bursting with letterpress- and screen-printed eye candy. Designers from all over the world are included in the tome, with a focus on Europe and North America. The styles vary from crusty wood-type posters to polished business collateral to dreamy arty prints. The 200+ pages of images are studded with interviews with innovative printers (including Ben Levitz of Minneapolis’ own Studio On Fire). We particularly love the text-based posters of Douglas Wilson, and everything from Mike Burton (“The Cranky Pressman”). One of our thank-you cards is featured on page 15, while page 98 is devoted to a series of wood-type ice cream signs we printed for Izzy’s Ice Cream in St. Paul. We’re not carrying this book in our shoppe, but you should be able to find it at a giant bookstore near you.

Click on the images below for larger views of Lunalux pages in these books.

In-house calligrapher, at your service

Jenni — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:30:57 +0000

Helen & Erik live on the east coast, but they discovered Lunalux while visiting Erik’s family in Minneapolis. Erik gets credit for designing their wedding invitation suite, including the fantastic tree illustration. I suggested a few minor edits to the text and the layout, but my main contribution was calligraphy on the invitations and envelopes. The hand-written names are letterpress-printed along with the rest of the invitation text; I wrote the bride and groom’s names over and over again, until each curve was just right, then scanned the best versions and dropped them into the layout like a graphic. The full set – wedding invitation, rehearsal dinner invitation & response card – was letterpress-printed in black ink on pearl white 100% cotton Lettra 110# cover, with matching invitation and response envelopes. When all the work of printing and trimming was finished, I set to the hefty task of hand-addressing the envelopes too, so the mailing address matches the text on the invitations themselves.

I have worked at my penmanship for many years, so it’s a great honor for me to share it with my clients. I have addressed a few wedding invitations in my time, and have occasionally incorporated my handwriting into greeting card designs, but this is the first time that my lettering has been letterpress-printed on an invitation. And it was such a thrill to see the finished product! Since this project was completed a few months ago, I have taken on a few other exciting hand-lettering projects – I look forward to featuring them here in our blog in the coming weeks.

Curious about our letterpress-printed wedding stationery? Click here to read more about our design and printing services. You might also enjoy browsing through our blog archives, where we’ve featured many of our favorite wedding projects.

Picturesque alley made even more picturesque

Jenni — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:55:48 +0000

The alley behind Lunalux, lined with old brick buildings, has long been a hot spot for photographers in need of a romantic urban backdrop for engagement photos or fashion shoots. Now it’s been made even more picturesque. This spring, the ragged pavement was replaced with cobblestone, transforming the once-gritty space into a lively corridor. Many businesses in the neighborhood have contributed to the bustle back there: Loring Corners, the company that owns most of the buildings on the block, spearheaded the renovation project and sprung for the new flower boxes and hanging plants; Olson & Co. has tables at the far end of the alley, so the advertising peeps get to enjoy their brown bag lunches al fresco; Nick and Eddie added seating in the alley, covered with a new currogated tin roof to shield diners from a few of the elements; and we beautified our back door with hibiscus plants and a little cafe table (look for Lunaluxers out there on coffee breaks). The spruce-up even garnered the attention of the Downtown Journal newspaper and Channel 5 news. We’re thrilled to see our block made even more gorgeous (we never thought it was possible) and are enjoying the additional energy and excitement this project has brought to the ‘hood.

Our visit to the Stamp Shoppe

Jenni — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:03:29 +0000

With yesterday’s mailing of bills and thank-you notes, we used the last of our Expressionist stamps and thus cleaned out our stamp stash. This necessitated a visit to one of our favorite places – the Stamp Shoppe at the main post office in Downtown Minneapolis. We love this sprawling Art Deco building, but even more we love the little stamps-only storefront inside, with its striped awning and unparalleled postage selection. Philatelists frequent the Stamp Shoppe for obscurities like first-day-of-issue postmarks; we say it’s the go-to source for anyone in search of Just The Right Stamp for a special mailing. Because the Stamp Shoppe don’t handle many standard post-office transactions, there’s rarely a wait and the employees are cheerful and chatty. On this visit, we stocked up on newish first-class stamps, Priority Mail stamps, 2-ounce stamps, and assorted small denominations. Now we’re ready to mail anything!

The Stamp Shoppe is located inside the main branch of the Minneapolis post office, on First Street South (click here for full address and directions). The Stamp Shoppe is only open weekdays 9a.m.-5p.m., and it closes for a bit each day around lunch.

Stationery Saturday: icon letter sheets

Jenni — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:59:19 +0000

We’re looking forward to another busy Stationery Saturday this weekend. What will we be printing, you ask? Personalized letter sheets! June 19, customers can choose from four designs: gold fleur de lis, silver moon, red book and blue ship. Pick your favorite or a combination of all four; we’ll print 10 sheets while you wait, for a measly $29. Depending on when you show up, the waiting might be 10 minutes or it might be an hour. You can use this time to learn a little about letterpress (follow us through the steps of pulling the type, setting up the printing form and running our antique press) or do a little shopping while we do the dirty work. We have lots of clever Father’s Day and Graduation cards in stock, and we just received a shipment of Field Notes notebooks that we think are going to fly off the shelves! You might even duck outside for a lap around Loring Park, or stroll down our recently revitalized cobblestone alley.

We are thrilled that Stationery Saturday has been growing in popularity over recent months. In June, we actually ran out of the two most popular designs with a couple of hours to spare in the day. So for maximum selection, you should think about coming earlier than later. As always, we’ll have coffee and homemade cookies for you to nibble. We hope you can stop by! And if you have any Paper Addict friends, be sure to tell them about it too (you can even invite them to the event on Facebook).

Visit our Stationery Saturdays page for more details about the event; to see a schedule of dates for the rest of 2010; and to see what we’ve got planned for next time. Special thanks to letoilemagazine.com for featuring Stationery Saturday in this week’s roundup of the best sales and retail events in the Twin Cities.

Design + Print: edged business cards

Jenni — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:35:07 +0000

Photographer Josh Hackney came to Lunlaux with an existing logo for his business, and asked us to develop a memorable tag/business card. We agreed right away that the composition should be very simple, and the wow factor would come from the use of luxurious materials. So we printed these jumbo cards (they’re 2.5×3.5 inches, instead of the standard 2×3.5 inch business card format) on super-thick 220# Lettra cotton cover. The perfect shade of pale blue-green ink (we decided to call it Sea Glass) looks dreamy on the slightly textured bright white stock. The card is so thick that when you hold it in your hand, you can’t help but really pay attention, to turn it over and study the way the type bites into the paper. It’s in that moment that the best detail catches your eye: painted edges. We’ve only recently started to offer edging service, and this is our favorite deployment of the process yet. Edging works best on the thickest of stocks, where you can really see the color. The cards were gorgeous before we did the edging; the last little touch of color really outs it over the edge though! We drilled tiny holes in most of the cards, so they could be attached to his new bags with lovely grosgrain ribbon, but some were left intact to be used as business cards. The business stationery package was rounded out with correspondence cards and coordinating envelopes.

Are you considering adding a little letterpress to your business collateral collection? You can read more abut our design and letterpress services for business stationery in the custom section of our website. You can also browse our blog archives to read about other business stationery projects we’ve worked on in the past.

Stationery Saturday: botanical silhouettes

Jenni — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:21:15 +0000

This weekend, we’re personalizing pretty floral notecards for Stationery Saturday. We’ve pre-printed three botanical silhouette designs, and shoppers can select their favorite to be letterpress-printed with the name or phrase of their choice. We’ll wrap it up with ribbon and a classy Lunalux tag when we’re done, so it’s ready for gifting. The cost is just $29.00 for 10 cards and matching monarch envelopes. Could you ask for a better last-minute Mother’s Day present? The May 8 Stationery Saturday runs 11a.m.-6p.m. If you want to help us spread the word, you can use the Stationery Saturday event listing on the Lunalux Facebook page to invite your friends.

If you’re curious about the ins and outs of letterpress printing, Stationery Saturday is a great opportunity to see how the process works. We encourage visitors, wether they’re buying personalized notecards or not, to look over our shoulder and ask a bunch of questions as we set the lead type (that’s 18-point Caslon italic) and run the press (that’s a 10-by-15 Heidelberg Windmill). Or you can shop for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards while we print your order, it only takes 15 minutes or so. We’ll also have complimentary home-made cookies and fresh coffee on hand. For more details about Stationery Saturday, including a list of dates scheduled for the rest of the year, visit our Stationery Saturdays page.

We’re a Minnesota Original

Jenni — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:16:46 +0000

original short: Lunalux from mn original on Vimeo.

Clear your calendars, pop some popcorn, and get ready to watch some letterpress action on your TV tonight. Twin Cities Public Television launched a new program last week called MN Original, which highlights the diverse arts community of our fair state. Tonight’s episode will include a segment about Lunalux! We spent a few hours filming with Mark Fischer and Chuck Olsen back in January, when the show was still just a glimmer in the production staff’s eye. So we’re excited to see what they’ve put together for broadcast. To whet your appetite, they’ve created this video short in which the sounds of our Heidelberg Windmill mingle with the music of Savage Aural Hotbed. The show airs at 7:30 p.m. tonight (that’s Thursday, April 29) on TPT, and there are a few rebroadcasts scheduled throughout the coming week. The full episode will also be posted on the show’s website, mnoriginal.org