Happy New Year

Although I am of no religious persuasion and eschew most holiday celebrations in general, I still like to acknowledge the passing of seasons, the beginning of a new year, the rebirth and restatement of hope and renewal. As a consequence, most years I produce a new year’s card as opposed to a holiday card. I have always figured that if I manage to get them out by January 31st, it counts.

This year I mailed all my new year’s cards by January 20th. With good reason! I am celebrating the inauguration on that day of Barack Obama as 44th president of the United States. I would type the previous sentence in all caps, italicized and underlined with 44 exclamation points after it, were it not to go against the grain of everything I hold dear typographically and be abhorrently ugly to boot. I am that excited, thrilled and hopeful.

Nearly 150 of my closest friends, family and associates received my card, but I wanted to share it on this website as well and talk a little about the process of making it. I am often curious about people’s processes and I thought you might be, too. While I don’t believe that my creative process is particularly unique I would like to spell out how I worked on this card, just to share with you.

Generally, of course, I mull things over in my mind for quite a while; this might be days, weeks, months (in some cases dare I confess, some of my projects have been sitting on the shelves for years). I think about several things at once and various things swim to the surface at different times. Content, of course. Time available to work on it. Working full time, teaching evenings and weekends, other projects all crowd in on the hours when I am not walking my dogs. Design. Followed by or, hand in hand with…Materials on hand that I could use without having to go out and buy any thing new, such as paper and/or envelopes, &c.  In which case, I open cabinets to see what paper I have stashed and search out boxes I have stored in the room under my deck. Whether or not I want to set the type by hand, have it set in linotype by my friend Bill Berkuta in Los Angeles, or have a plate made by East Texas Engraving (Tyler, TX). That decision is made and changed frequently as I mull over the content and how much type, after all, I would need to set and how much time I am using up working out all the other things.

As to this card’s content, I knew from last November 4th that my new year’s card would have something to do with Barack Obama. In spite of being a letterpress printer, I am not one to turn my back on  the wonders and convenience of computers (in fact, I love my Mac), so I downloaded the text of his victory speech in Chicago. The guy can really write a speech! (or has good collaborators which count just as much). For a long while, I settled on working with the last paragraph. In the meantime, in my searches I had found some envelopes in boxes left over from a job at work and some paper stacked about two feet high on a table in my studio. By cutting off the printed ends of the envelope flaps and scored the flaps myself, they held a sheet of paper about 7 by 9 inches or, at most, 7 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches.

When I am trying out layouts, I usually cut several pieces of paper of varying, but similar, sizes to see how  they might work. When I begin to do the layout on the computer, I look at various paper size possibilities and border areas for the type. At the same time, I enter the text of what I want to print, choosing a typeface and point size on the computer that I also have laying in one of my cases in the studio. This begins the process of trying out anywhere from a few to twenty or more variations on a theme. I lay out the type in paragraph form with small caps beginning the first sentence, or a large initial capital. I lay out the type line by line, flush left, flush right, centered, force justified. With some words italicized, some words in small caps, &c., &c., &c.By this time, hours have passed and it is time to give it (or me) a rest.

By the time I got back to it, days had elapsed, the time frame for when I wanted to mail the cards was nearing which made the production time shorter and I revised my vision of what I wanted to do. I had thought about having the type set in linotype by my friend, Bill Berkuta. That would save me time in typesetting, but cost some money. Another costly option was to finish setting the type on the computer and then have a photoengraved plate made (yes, I still prefer photoengravings to polymer plates) by East Texas Engraving. But that would mean knowing for sure how I wanted everything to look and I wasn’t there yet.

The clock was running so I decided to just jump on the press and see where I could go with it. I started with Barack Obama’s inspiring and now famous phrase “YES, WE CAN” which was always going to be the background image/text of my card. At the same time, I decided to distill the essence of his speech to some of his final few words…”out of many, we are one.” Just to keep it simple.

Often times, when I print, I put one color on the press and then keep going from there by adding other colors, sheeting off ink when necessary, but keeping within the same tones. I like the harmonious effect I can get that way.  Starting with a muted color, I set the first words in wood type, trying out different fonts and different orientations (first vertical, then horizontal). When I came up with something I liked, I jumped right into printing a couple hundred impressions. The next day, I came back and tried several different typefaces for the date (big, small, serif, sans serif), but settled on another wood type face just so it could hold its own against the large background letters. Also, I tried out several fonts for the main phrase, again looking for something that could hold its own against the background and balance with the very important (and, need I say?, longed for) date. Before I felt sure enough about printing these two lines, I penciled in lines for the third color playing with placement, and size and looking for balance and clarity. Once I felt I found it (it seems like small type can so often hold its own against the big stuff) I printed the last two colors on the first side.

I printed a two color credit line on the back of the card and a two color envelope as well and, I managed to get it in the mail in time to celebrate January 20, 2009 with my friends and family.

Best wishes to everyone for a Happy New Year! And the warmest of congratulations and good wishes to President Obama and his family.