Featuring Hammerpress!

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Today we're thrilled to bring you our friends from Hammerpress! Hammerpress is a design studio and letterpress company based out of Kansas City, Missouri. You may remember our delightful tour of the Hammerpress studio earlier this year. The crew was enormously kind and showed us a fabulous time. We love their mix of vintage and modern and their cozy, woodsy designs. They offer tons of cool cards and paper goods in their shop, perfect for any holiday gift! Keep up with their blog here for updates on new products!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

Our inspiration for this project was, with all of our work, to create a collection that we like and feel good about. The unique thing about this project was not being quite so limited with color since it was not being produced in house. All of our work is letterpress so we typically don't have as much freedom with the amount of colors. Also, there are some things that just would not work on press here at the shop that we can do digitally. Also, working with Hello!Lucky wasn't too hard to swallow either.

What are you currently working on?

We are fortunate to have many different kinds of projects going at all times. We are currently working on some identity work for a new soda fountain / coffee shop project here in Kansas
City.  We've been involved in the project in a very hands on way ( i.e. demolition and finding materials, etc.) so it's a great a joy to work on the back end of the project as well. Currently we've got a lot of return customers for holiday mailers which is great. Some of them we have been working with for years. We just finished a large project with Boulevard Brewing Company here in Kansas City.  Boulevard is a highly respected brewery and has continued to grow since there impetus in 1989. We have had a lot of their beer so it's an honor to work with such a great company. As usual, we are also constantly working on new card ideas and larger print work as well.

What influences your style the most?

I think we have a lot of influences here at the shop, we all look at different things. Primarily our ideas stem from ephemera and design work from the past. Anything from postage stamps and matchbox labels ( we just bought a huge collection of 300 or so Indian matchbox labels ) to broadsides, rodeo posters, ticket stubs, old faded signs, found photos, you name it. We have a lot of stuff laying around.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Spending time with family and friends. We usually have a Hammerpress dinner party and I really like that.

Best holiday memory?

My best holiday memory would have to be when i was 8 or so. I woke up and ran upstairs to the tree ( why our tree was upstairs I don't know ) and found not only the Hot Wheels mountain race track set but also the giant Godzilla action figure with the handle that made what I think was a plastic flame come out of his mouth. That was just too much to handle.

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To see the entire Hammerpress holiday collection for Hello!Lucky head here!

Visit to Kansas City!

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Letterpress lovers take note! Recently, one of our intrepid employees took a trip to Hammerpress in Kansas City, Missouri and came back with some great photos of their lovely studio!
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Check out their very organized shelves of metal and wood type, as well as the impeccably well kept presses.
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In their impressive brick and mortar storefront, they sell greeting cards, posters and lots of one-of-a-kind goods.
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A closeup view of their beautiful wooden wall and display.
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Thank you to Brady, Matt, Eric and Jenn for the tour around the studio!
You can purchase their awesome posters here.

Fresher than Fresh

Picture 7 We need your help! Our friend Lindsay (wife of Brady from Hammerpress) is trying to raise money for Fresher than Fresh, her snow cone business based out of Kansas City. She's got a few hours left on Kickstarter (an amazing resource to raise funds for individual projects) to raise enough money to get her business off the ground. She'll even throw in anything from recipes to t-shirts for those generous patrons out there. You might even get a flavor named after you!

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With flavors like Watermelon Basil, Pineapple and Serrano Pepper and Lemon Prickly Pear, and a mascot named Snowie, how can you resist?!

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Visit Fresher than Fresh to learn more about the business, and visit Kickstarter to donate! Good luck Lindsay!

National Stationery Show: Our friends & neighbors

IMG_5455 At this years National Stationery Show, we were honored and excited to participate in a booth community with three of our favorite designers - Egg Press, Hammerpress and EIEIO. Besides the camaraderie, treats and gossip, their work was incredibly inspiring! We especially loved the bus thank you card (above), gift wrap and calender (below) from Egg Press.

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Fellow letterpress printers Hammerpress had some fantastic new journals, calenders and cards:

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EIEIO had some great new wrapping paper, but unfortunately, we don't have any photos! Check it out here.

National Stationery Show

Yellow Owl Workshop LED Card As always, there was a lot to take in at the National Stationery Show! It was hard to pry ourselves away from our booth, but we did manage to nip out to see what's new with some of our favorite designers. One of our favorite new products is this genius LCD card by Yellow Owl Workshop.

Hammerpress Calendar

Also love this lucky horseshoe calendar from Hammerpress.

EIEIO Gift Wrap

New gift wrap from EIEIO.

Pikku Scrap Cards

New cards featuring stitched scrap materials from Pikku.

Button magnets

Pretty fabric-covered magnets and tacks from Girl of All Work (these would be great for hanging wedding seating cards!)

Spilt Milk Quote Boxes

Simple, elegantly packaged boxes of quotes from Spilt Milk and Cookies -- a great favor idea for showers. The lovely owners happen to be the parents of Jon Retsky, co-founder of the Bay Area's leading special events lighting design firm, Got Light?, and a friend of H!L (small world!).

Fugu Fugu Press

Fantastic graphic cards from Fugu Fugu Press.

Binth Joker Prints

Prints of the designs from Binth's amazing Joker playing card series, along with stunning new card designs.

Dancing Draedels

One of our favorite new cards, by H!L designer Shauna Leytus - dancing dreidels! Yea!

Another great show, and always inspiring!