Alyssa and I just spent our Night Shift at the Museum much more pragmatically than usual. Alyssa ran out of business cards recently, and we decided to use the excuse to create some new cards using only the materials available to us at the International Printing Museum. To challenge ourselves further, we were only “allowed” to use hand-set foundry type—not even the high-tech convenience of Ludlow or Linotype would save us from a night of painstaking typographic craftsmanship.

After Alyssa found the amorphous-yet-cuddly callout cut, we decided to print the card as a two-color piece on chipboard with white and black ink. We quickly settled on 18 pt. Egyptian Wide for “Alyssa” and 24 pt. Hellenic Wide for “Zukas.” The “.com” is certainly not the star of the show, but it’s set in a lovely Bernhard Gothic.

We inked up two foot-pedal-operated platen presses for the task: the hardy Chandler & Price (C&P) and the diminutive (but far more comfortable to use) Golding Co. Pearl press. The fun part was getting the rotated text calibrated—believe it or not, we had it registered pretty quickly, wasting only one make-ready in the process.

I’m pretty far from being a Luddite. But I will say that it is the most rewarding and humbling experience to create graphic designs without the need for electricity.

Want to join us for a Night Shift? Get in touch.