About

Day Moon Press is a valuable collaborator for letterpress printers and designers

Day Moon Press provides letterpress printing and consultation services to people excited about their print and design projects. Using over 40 years of experience and our extensive collection of tools and equipment, we have the ability to produce complex and elegant work while collaborating with the project creators. From business cards to stainless steel coffee filters, our craftsmanship and knowledge about printing and project engineering is respected among letterpress printers and designers.

Visits to the Press

For people ready to discuss their print and design projects, call 206-721-0064 or email us to set up an appointment.

Day Moon Press is not currently seeking employees or accepting apprentices, but shop hours are available to graduates of letterpress programs, after an initial one-day workshop. There is also no fixed schedule of workshops or classes, but we are always open to scheduling one-on-one teaching or small workshops (up to six at a time, depending on the project). If you have a project, skill goal, or one-time workshop event you’d like to discuss, please get in contact by email or phone and we’re happy to work with you on a program at the scale of your interests.

Tours of the press are available by appointment to school groups and organizations interested in letterpress. Contact us to arrange details.

Credit to photographers Galen Maynard, James Zhu, and Brooke Fitts for the location photos currently in our headers!

History

Day Moon Press was founded in 1976 by Maura Shapley, with the purchase of a fifty-dollar Chandler and Price letterpress and several cabinets of foundry type. She met Jack LeNoir in 1978, and they were married in 1980. Two years later, the Press was moved to its current building on Beacon Hill.

Over the years the Press acquired a variety of offset and letterpress equipment and small bindery tools, becoming a resource for artists, designers, and others needing production for small format unique projects. These included invitations, announcements, flipbooks, posters, linoleum and wood-block prints, continuous tone offset, and printing on substrates such as fabric, plastic, wood and previously bound books.

During the 90s, the Press minimized its commitment to commercial work in favor of the demands of preschool and early childhood obligations. After the turn of the century the offset equipment was phased out, and the Press became exclusively letterpress.

As of January 2023, full ownership and operation has officially been passed to their daughter, Tess LeNoir—but 40 years of experience is priceless, and Jack & Maura are still, of course, both consultants and meddlers.

Since its founding, the Press has been involved in the preservation of the letterpress aesthetic, working with clients, designers and agencies in the uses of handset type, rich papers, relief-printed illustrations, and related letterpress operations including die-cutting and embossing.

The Press was a founding member of both the Book Arts Guild and the Book Club of Washington, and continues to support organizations and individuals interested in the Craft.