Green Chair Press Blog

Waiting to Print…

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m moving to Santa Fe, NM this winter. My shop is all packed up now, and I probably won’t be able to print or make any books for several more months while we get my new studio ready and get all our copious belongings moved east. So of course I’ve been seeing all sort of things that make me want to get out into my studio, if only my stuff were all set up. One source of inspriation from last week is the print below — one of Phil Gallo’s visual poems, printed partially on the deckle.

Oscars for Typefaces

In this blog post, Ellen Lupton wishes there was a “well-wrought typeface (that) could attract as much attention as a 90-minute film.” Then, using the “best of 2009” font lists on several blogs, she rolls out the red carpet and selects her picks for best actress (Liza Pro, sample at left), best actor, etc. of the font world. I wish she’d included an ampersand in all the examples — I quite like the one for Liza Pro — and most of the choices are headline faces, suitable for titles but not for poetry or book text. Maybe no one is designing those anymore…

Storytelling

This week I read Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. It’s a set of linked short stories, with the character of Olive Kitteridge, an older woman living in Maine, appearing, sometimes peripherally, in all of them. From the first chapter, I was struck by the stories the characters told themselves, about how they developed into their present selves and why. It was, for me, a sad book — Olive isn’t particularly nice or likable and the plots are usually about some sort of betrayal. But the writing is excellent and made me want to read on.
As I’ve thought vaguely about storytelling throughout the week, I was taken with Radha Pandey’s post on the Bookbinding Etsy Street Team about the Katha-Peti (or story chest) from India. It’s a large and colorful artist’s book! Here are a few pictures below, but do look here to see many more, and a fuller explanation.

Presses in a Row

On one of the letterpress lists I read, someone asked for references for women working in the printing trade in 1879 St. Louis, MO, and doing “a menial job where she’ll get very inky through the course of her daily job.” There were quite a few answers, and one was from Richard Polinski, who referenced his blog post about the printing trade circa 1958.
What interested me about the picture, and made me then read his post, were 2 things. First, when I got my press, my friend Eric told me it had probably been set up as those in the picture — by some sort of overhead pulley system that provided electricity. When I later tried to add a motor to my press, I found that I’d have to make quite a few modifications to accommodate one. Second, I was surprised to see so many women in the drawing, in the background. According to Polinski, they are feeding the presses. Read his entire post here.

Ink Usage

Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth took “a selection of the most commonly used typefaces (to) compare how economical they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface.” See them drawing here. (Found here.)

Infinity Cards

I’ve written about flexagons before — if you aren’t familiar with flexagons, they are flat “books” made from folded paper that are then unfolded, or flexed, to reveal a number of hidden faces. From my post, you can download a PDF on how to make them. They can be tricky to construct and tricky for the recipient to unfold-refold them.
I ran across another similar structure, the infinity card which also folds and refolds but is far easier to design and construct. The video below shows how to make them. You can download Marilyn Scott Waters’ design to make your own at the bottom of this page. Waters also has a website with lots of free downloads of paper toys you can make.

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