tHE ART dept. studio | events and what's new

Sh*t You Say When You Haven’t Blogged In Forever

Is anyone still out there?

Is this thing on?

OK, now that that is out of the way, we really have been busy. The first thing I should mention, and this happened even before the last post, is that tHE ART dept. studio has a sister site, Factory 43! Basically, Factory 43 is our retail site and tHE ART dept. studio is our custom design site. Some of the things available are:

Music Posters by Andrew

Blitzen Trapper, Dawes and Belle Brigade at the Neptune Theater in Seattle, Nov. 11, 2011

Noah Gundersen show at The Big House, Seattle, January 13, 2012

Pickwick, Campfire OK, Jessie Dobson at The Neptune Theater Seattle, Dec. 8, 2011

Apparel!

Two-Headed Chicken tshirt

And in time for Valentine’s day, our Love Bird Card

Love Birds Valentine Letterpress Card

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Veronica, January 25th 2012 | Posted in Apparel, letterpress, posters, printing, tHE ART dept. happenings

Because we HEART you.

We know it’s been a while, and LOTS of stuff has happened since we’ve been away, but we thought we share something recent, before we backtrack on what we’ve been up to the past few months.

We printed some really adorable Valentine’s Day cards and here’s a short video of us printing one of the colors on Pac Man.

If you would like one of your own, check out our Etsy store.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/67245908/valentinelovebirds

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Veronica, February 1st 2011 | Posted in heidelberg, letterpress, printing, tHE ART dept. happenings

Kandace and Dan | August 8, 2010

Photo courtesy of the lovely Jenae Weinbrenner

So being a graphic designer, you would think my family members would bug me nonstop about making invitations or announcements, but you would be wrong. The German press in my garage, or … I don’t know … the fact people NOT related to me PAY ME to design things for them, might suggest I would be a good resource for such things.

Luckily for tHE ART dept., Andrew’s family is happy to take advantage of his creativity.

His brother, Dan proposed to Kandace in April, and next thing we know, we were off brainstorming ideas for their wedding.

Both Dan and Kandace are adorable, funny and giving, but it’s their faith that best defines their bond to one another. The phrase ‘a match made in heaven’ would come up over and over as Andrew and I would sketch ideas.

I think the photos will speak for themselves, but the following is a list of everything we did for the wedding.

Save the date email

Website

Letterpress wedding invitations

Letterpress RSVP cards

Map and info inserts

Custom stamps for all the stationery

Letterpress rehearsal dinner invitations

Letterpress wedding programs

Letterpress cupcake favors

Letterpress sparkler favors

Letterpress matchbox favors

Letterpress matchbook favors containing sunflower seeds

Silkscreened posters

And I thought I’d throw in a picture of Smithers and Lilly, who were the real managers of this project. They both hovered while we printed late into the night, and they made sure we stuck to our deadlines.

They deserve the much-needed rest.

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Veronica, August 16th 2010 | Posted in heidelberg, letterpress, printing, tHE ART dept. happenings, wedding invitations

Kandace and Dan wedding invitations

We here at tHE ART dept. really love dogs. Veronica and her husband Al have Lilly and Andrew has Smithers. Lilly and Smithers were pretty much the ‘project directors’ for Kandace and Dan’s wedding invitation. Smithers was especially good at waking up early and hounding Andrew to get up and start drawing. Lilly would give Veronica nudges while she assembled invitations when she felt like falling asleep.

So it should be no surprise that Houston, Kandace’s Corgi, made a staring appearance in their wedding invitation. Smithers and Lilly made sure of it.

You should also check out the website Andrew did, www.kandaceanddan.com

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Veronica, July 2nd 2010 | Posted in heidelberg, letterpress, tHE ART dept. happenings, wedding invitations

It’s ALIVE!

It took a few months, and a few thousand dollars and maybe even a sacrifice (my work fish Simon died today), but Pacman LIVES!

Check out the video. The quality isn’t the greatest because I took it with my cell phone, and we had a little snafu, but he works. Now we just have to print something on it.

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Veronica, April 7th 2010 | Tags: heidelberg, Pacman, printing
Posted in heidelberg, letterpress, tHE ART dept. happenings

Inky’s debut/Holiday card

We finally got the base and rollers for our C&P, but it was a full day of frustration before Inky was actually printing. The bolts were stuck in place, probably from decades of inactivity. I’m not much of a mechanic, but I felt like one a few Saturdays back as we made countless small adjustments with the wrench and repeatedly oiled all the moving parts in order to get a decent image. Veronica was doubly frustrated by Tebow’s tears in the SEC championship game as well as our inability to get a deep impression even with loads of packing. Thankfully, hours of experimentation later we started to actually print the first color of our inaugural run. The learning experience eventually resulted in our Holiday card for the year, which is actually based on an illustration I did for the Seattle P-I a few years back.

holidaycard2009

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andrew, December 21st 2009 | Posted in C&P_Pilot, letterpress

Joy of Vandercooks

VV and I decided that our skills as former newspaper print artists were not quite antiquated enough so we took Chandler O’Leary’s polymer plate class at SVC. As far as letterpress goes, we’re at least in the computer age. No hand setting type for us. I think we’re now officially obsessed with the medium. Veronica perhaps more so, has spent countless hours browsing letterpress forums and searching for equipment. We’re now the proud owners of a polymer plate maker from Andersen Vreeland that should arrive before the end of the year. We’re also in the market for a Vandercook like the ones we used in class, but we might need to get a studio or some other space to put it first.

Our first prints on the vandercook came out pretty well despite some challenges aligning and mixing colors.