Back at the turn of this century, houses of letterpress completely dominated the entire market. Inspired by Martha Stewart, would-be stationers rescued and resurrected behemoth presses that had been gathering dust for decades. As a result, the nearly forgotten printing method — which had its first 15 minutes of fame in 1450 when it was founded by by Johannes Gutenberg to lift us out of The Dark Ages — was obsessively embraced by the 21st-century stationery community.
There were houses focusing solely on wedding invitations, or cards, or miscellaneous ephemera, every last one of them elevating the craft to its own discerning specifications. Work was carefully die-cut, scalloped and glittered with exquisite results. It became hard for me to even focus on a non-letterpress range for long, letterpress was simply the end-all-be-all. Frankly, it was a great time to be alive and covering the industry.
But everything must evolve, and many of those presses closed or changed MOs as digital printing slowly became more and more common. However, there are still letterpressers plugging away, and fortunately, many of them are still creating work that is a fitting tribute to the mighty method.
One distinctive house that consistently turns out truly thoughtful product across the board is Quick Brown Fox Letterpress. The company’s founder, Kate Murray, just bought her first house — mazel tov! — and moved out of New York City, so she’s not exhibiting at any in-person shows this summer, just Faire and the GCA Marketplace.
But, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t released a lot of great card designs lately, all of which we all know are even more charming in letterpressed real life. The first design that you see below was one of my top picks for the “best color combo” category in the Noted @ *Noted Product Winners this past May — but as you’ll see, that’s just a tiny taste of gems from this range. I love how every detail, like say typeface, is carefully considered and customized to the vibe of each release.
Kate’s simple, clean and clever design is masterful— dare I say I’m her #1 fan? I love how her layouts have an easy geometric balance to them.
Kate just introduced five styles of giftwrap, and I love seeing her work off the press and presented in patterns.
Kate also offers stickers and totes, plus absolutely fabulous invitation suites, that you must check out as well. As I mentioned, you can shop Kate wholesale on Faire or GCA Markeplace, or just hit her site to see it for yourself!
