New site: The Beauty of Letterpress

Today marks the launch of a new website, The Beauty of Letterpress, from Neenah Paper. If you're a letterpress fan (and who isn't?), you might enjoy this online gallery of modern letterpress prints and resources. The site posts selections from a new curator each month.

Everyone is welcome to submit their own work, and printers can add themselves to the list of letterpress vendors sorted by location.

The website is also trying to raise funds to help preserve the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, WI. If you donate just $5, you'll receive this Beauty of Letterpress print, and Neenah Paper will match your donation. Terrific! See more photos of the letterpress print here in designer Jennifer James's portfolio.

Library of Congress images for download

I'm always on the lookout for photo and illustration sources for work or personal use. When I saw this wall art idea in the April issue of Martha Stewart Living, I followed the source of the balloon illustrations back to the Library of Congress's prints and photographs catalog. It's a gallery of digitized images you can download and print, sorted by collection. All the images I looked at had "no known restrictions on publication," and in most cases, you can grab high res files ranging from 3"x5" to 11"x16" at 300 dpi.

The hot air balloons on the clipboards are from this collection. I also loved the WPA poster collection. Enjoy!

Printable New Year's gift tags for bottles

As 2012 draws to a close, I wish everyone a happy new year! Thanks so much for reading, commenting, and sharing ideas with me this year.

If you'll be heading to a party, you might make use of these printable gift tags I whipped up. Download, print, trim, and fill out the "to" space to make a bottle of wine or champagne a little more festive.

Download the PDF here (2.4 MB)

On a related note, I used a gift certificate from Moo.com, the printing company, to make some matching greeting cards. I'm always on the lookout for good printers in my line of work, so I was eager to give them a try. Opening the box I got in the mail was like Christmas, since it had fun stickers and graphics printed inside. I've never seen a commercial printer put so much thought and care into their packaging. The cards and envelopes were snuggled in their compartments securely, and they were flawless. Vibrant colors and thick paper stock. And the cool thing about Moo is that I could have put a different design on every single card in the pack if I'd wanted to, all included in the price. I'm impressed. Put Moo in your rolodex for future reference.

And with that, I'm signing off for now! I'll resume posting the second week of January, after a holiday break full of traveling and hosting visitors. Happy 2013!

Generate mini typographic posters

If you've got a favorite quote, you can visit recitethis.com and turn it into a graphic for display on websites and blogs. If you don't have a favorite quote, you can pick from a big library of phrases. Generated images are low resolution (about 2" wide at 300 dpi, standard print res) but they're amply sized for the web. Have fun creating and sharing!

(Thanks, Tania!)