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Day Moon Press

Day Moon Press

Prices as low as first-class workmanship will permit

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  • November Open Studio & Art Market!
  • November Art Market, 12-6, Saturday the 20th!
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daymoonpress

Family-owned letterpress print shop est. 1976. Founded by Maura Shapley, continued by Tess. Shop online on Etsy as DayMoonPress.

Day Moon Press
“affection, an attribute which is inseparable fr “affection, an attribute which is inseparable from its object; as, love, fear, and hope are affections of the mind.” Happ Valemtime’s times 🤍🧡💛!! Text adapted from the honking big 1942 edition of Webster’s unabridged dictionary that’s been kicking around the house my whole life. We had, like, normal sized ones too. But if you could use the monstrosity WHY wouldn’t you. I have done my best adapting around less relevant definitions, extraneous examples, and deeply weird (and also faintly printed) punctuation for something generally true to text but better flowing. I quite like the shape that’s come of it. For the stoat skull, I saw a nature thing about them a bit ago and it’s been bouncing around my brain ever since. They’ve got one of the strongest bites of any mammal in proportion to their size. I will keep chipping away at what delights me so much about the grip & not let go of them, and their well-engineered bones. #letterpress #letterpressprinting #handsettype #metaltype #leadtype #linoleumblock #linoleumprint #happyvalentinesday
Doing lots of stuff in the treadle this week since Doing lots of stuff in the treadle this week since the big press’ rollers are still away being redone—which is fine! I’m swapping through enough colors with all the underprinters and things that the quicker wash up is nice. I do gotta stretch out the knees after though so lunges up the hill on Stevens it is. #lettepress #letterpressprinting #linoleumblock #linoleumprint #printmaking
(Catching up on a bunch of recordings from last su (Catching up on a bunch of recordings from last summer that I hadn’t processed yet—cleaning my hard drive of hours of carving footage 😅) I know each of these animals personally and I could never choose favorites of COURSE but……..I will say……..I finished the sketch of Sazi, up there in the top right corner with her head like she would have it off the edge of her cat tower, and I thought alas, I have peaked & will never do better than those big dumb eyes and floppy cat paws. I sent it to the customer and said hey, listen, it’s just a rough sketch, I can totally work on her face to make her look less………dim, and they said NO make her eyes rounder, she looks too intelligent already. So. Vacant as the void it is. #letterpress #letterpressprinting #printmaking #reliefprint #linoleumprint #linoleumblockprint
Reprinted this beautiful block from @klepsydra.art Reprinted this beautiful block from @klepsydra.art this week! We are approaching Court-Mandated Affection Day and I am getting prepared 🖤💛 Up-keeping the favorites, working on a new thing that I’m pretty excited about. As always: most of our Valentines-themed arts have a few thorns in them :] #letterpress #letterpressprinting #linoleumprint #linoleumblockprint #printmaking
Elected for a slower paced feed on these cards for Elected for a slower paced feed on these cards for @fiddlehead.gardener ! Printing to size with bleed, had to check all the backs as I went for set-off. I enjoy planning for efficiency, but that still means to me the best version, done cleanly. Anyway! it feels good to slow down for a bit and just put trust in your hands to do what they know how to do. #letterpress #letterpressprinting
Okay this one’s going up but in fact I am still Okay this one’s going up but in fact I am still slowly chipping away at inking the full edition 😆 I finished, like, 3 copies just in time to put all the footage together in the presentation for the Book Arts Guild, and then I diverted completely to finish that presentation, and then wrap up other work stuff through the end of the year. Anyway! The presentation is up on the Book Arts Guild YouTube page now along with all their other recorded presentations, and that presentation has some more specific technical & design process information. Short version is I’ve named it after Wells & France, costume designers for Purple Rain, for all those completely rad & shiny matching pants & jackets, for the great shoulders & the cool hair, for the black void & dry ice & optical trickery of the stage ✨ it’s up on Etsy along with the other fabric-prints! 🤞 I get all the copies done before I gotta restock pens, the hair really does a number on em 😔 #letterpress #letterpressprinting #handsettype #leadtype #metaltype #metaltypemonday #printmaking
This is not news to anybody but Awagami papers are This is not news to anybody but Awagami papers are a delight to print on?? I’ve never used any before, they’re just not appropriate for most of the work I do, and I didn’t even plan to use it with the customer originally—but this is why I like to get paper in person. Wander around, touch some fibers. Bought some on a whim and put it on the press to see what they thought and it’s so clean & still dense in the darks. Suffice to say we both like it better than the original plan. One-color redraw from a family photo —> plate. Drawing is not like riding a bicycle and the things I do daily are more in type & chase so I love every chance to stay a bit better in practice. :) #letterpress #letterpressprinting #printmaking #reliefprint
We're doing our last outing of the season this wee We're doing our last outing of the season this weekend!! Come join us just down the hill at Stevens & 21st, where @freshmochiart & @thegrocerystudios are hosting a joint holiday pop-up sale from 6-9 on Saturday 10th and 2-5 on Sunday 11th. ✨🍄 Music & refreshments & art!! What else do you even want on a winter weekend 🍄✨
Hello!! Somehow, no one has formed a petition to m Hello!! Somehow, no one has formed a petition to make me stop talking about these pattern-printing projects yet—in FACT the Book Arts Guild is letting me talk about the process, its development, and their relationship to Day Moon Press’ history & future for like over half an hour. This Thursday the 8th, starting at 7 PST, I’m doing a presentation about all this! It’s online AND free & public: you don’t have to be a member, just register your attendance at 📖 bookartsguild.org 📖 The guild is also posting presentations on their YouTube channel now which is extremely cool?? This one will be up there eventually, but if you join us there’s q&a and also hanging out with book people 🧡💛 #bookarts #printmaking #letterpress #letterpressprinting
I’m going to need everyone to appreciate how vul I’m going to need everyone to appreciate how vulnerable I’m being right now because there’s like 3 things wrong with this feed and I’m posting it anyway 😆 do as I say not as I do etc. But!! gotta get Santa Caws ready for open house TOMORROW, I had like 5 left #shopsmallsaturday #smallbusinesssaturday
Finished printing these a minute ago, but finally Finished printing these a minute ago, but finally got a handful of liners in the other day! I had some thoughts while I was mocking up the positions about, like, linking point size of star to visible magnitude or something, but the linear vs. logarithmic scales didn’t really work out as clear or good graphic design, especially not at this small scale. So never mind that! Just doing some style and size variations for texture to taste. But I did get to include a couple Bayer designations because 1! Individual designations & names are cool and fun facts. 2, isn’t it wild how continuous a body of investigation our records of science can be, that we have managed to hold onto, and use with some degree of continuity. 3, I have all these beautiful little Greek letters and nobody ever asks me to use them :(( Fine, I will think of a purpose myself! #letterpress #letterpressprinting #handsettype #leadtype #metaltype
It's time for our November sale! This #smallbusine It's time for our November sale! This #smallbusinesssaturday, November 26th, 12-6 pm, we're open to the neighborhood to come on in, shop letterpress-printed goods and handmade book arts, and see what our kind of working printshop looks like. In setting up for this year's market we were, uh, surprised! to remember that 2022 is the 40-year anniversary of the business moving into the 3320 address. 40 years, and we've still been here less than half of the building's lifespan (built in 1930). Lots of things have changed around here but there's a couple bricks that have stayed in place. Leading up to the 26th we've been working on some new things, some reprints, some modified reprints—and there's a sneak preview of a print I might still be working on day-of 😅 We're also partnering again with @beaconartsseattle's South End Public Market, so there will be several other artists & artisans local to south Seattle selling their craft in our weird, hastily-cleaned workspace. Check in with Beacon Arts to see updates about each vendor, as well as SEPM's monthly, year-round pop-up art markets! (Masks required in the shop, please.)
Ooh it's finally time to post a project I was plug Ooh it's finally time to post a project I was plugging away at this summer :)) I did a playing card deck based on Inscryption—a very good & spooky game about haunted cards, animals, inadvisable use of pliers, etc.—for the @desertbusforhope fundraiser for @childsplaycharity! The event starts this Saturday, the 12th, and there is all kinds of cool & nerdy stuff up for auction/giveaway over the week. (This one is scheduled for giveaway on the 17th after 6 pm. Invite a curséd object into your home for charityyy) Royals & aces & jokers are all linoleum block cuts, but I opted to re-interpret the in-game design for the backs of the cards in lead instead. Something about just a straight re-draw of the game design in linoleum was not satisfying to me at all. Split it into 3 colors also, since I wanted to get the red moon in, and I was missing something essential from the game's color palette without some gold in here somewhere. #letterpress #letterpressprinting #handsettype #leadtype #linoleumblock #linoleumcut #bookarts #printmaking
You know I really like how these turn out in the b You know I really like how these turn out in the backside too 🌑⭐️ #letterpress #letterpressprinting #handsettype #leadtype #metaltype #wip
Finally got some footage together of some of the m Finally got some footage together of some of the many steps that went into this great project for @_hyldyr_ ! A very beautiful set of postcards and notecards to print, with a degree of historical & linguistic detail that is extremely familiar & respected in this house—every printer I know is also this particular about their Zone of work. Art by @jacquialberts : printed on @gmundpaper & @of_the_earth seed paper 💛🧡
Hello hello!! Guess what. I’m doing a short talk Hello hello!! Guess what. I’m doing a short talk with @pipletterpress at their Fall Print Futures program! Sunday, October 2nd, I’ll be talking about how my experience with the family business in letterpress has led me to my series of combination letterpress & ink illustration prints. There’s also going to be talks from @cmon_home and @ruth_designs_x about their experiences, projects, and process! The whole thing is online and FREE, all you have to do is register your attendance with @pipletterpress on their page. #letterpress #letterpressprinting #pipletterpress
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Contact us

Phone
206-721-0064

Location
3320 Beacon Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98144

Hours
12-5 Mon-Sat, or by appointment

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