Ink Meets Paper: Letterpress Studio Wants You to Put Your Phone Down
Most of us haven’t licked a postage stamp in the last six months, much less mailed a handwritten letter. If you ask Allison and Daniel Nadeau, that’s pretty tragic. The founders of Charleston, S.C.-based Ink Meets Paper letterpress studio have made it their mission to keep the art of letter-writing alive, creating hand-lettered cards on an antique printing press. Their mantra: “Text less, write more.” That’s something we can definitely get behind.
Tell us about how you guys started out. What inspired you to leave the 9-5 world behind and start a letterpress studio?
Allison Nadeau: In 2008, a neighborhood friend and I signed up for a printmaking class at a local art gallery/studio. We did monoprints, etchings, screen printing, and so forth, but I really connected with letterpress printing. It was refreshing to be so hands-on and part of the process. At first, Daniel and I focused solely on learning the craft of traditional printing, rather than immediately trying to turn it into a business. We were both working other full-time jobs (I was an editor, and Daniel was an interaction designer) at the time, so we were able to take things slowly.
As we became comfortable printing, we started to explore more of the industry — stationery/greeting cards, wedding invitations, custom printing for others. The idea of connecting people with handwritten correspondence really resonated with us, and we saw greeting cards as an accessible way of encouraging people to write more. We launched the Ink Meets Paper wholesale line in 2010, and by 2012, we were both full time with the company.
Tell us about your setup. Where do you work? What kind of equipment do you use?
Our studio is located in the Park Circle neighborhood of North Charleston, S.C. We’ve had a home studio since we acquired the press in 2008 and are currently in the process of moving to a much larger studio located just a mile away from our house. We print on an 8×12 Chandler & Price platen press — it’s motorized, but each piece of paper is hand fed into the press. It’s our first, and currently only, press. We primarily print greeting cards, a perfect fit for this press size. It’s a great workhorse machine. We also use a 30-inch manual guillotine paper cutter, which allows us to cut down big (22×30 inch) sheets of paper into the sizes we need.
What’s a typical day like in the studio?
Since we’re also small business owners, we wear many hats and handle a variety of roles. It seems no two days are alike. From managing sales and wholesale accounts to designing and printing all of our cards to shipping and fulfilling orders to marketing and social media, we handle everything in house.