Day 35

Image from SVC poster

WHAT I DID

• Printed 200+ posters of the last color for SVC Seattle (a job started by Amy, a short-term intern/visiting artist)
• Printed 200+ posters of my Tootsie's poster– so much lavender!
• Listened to Welcome to Little Milton at least 3 times through while printing
• Listened to Essential Jerry Reed at least twice– good working music is essential

WHAT I LEARNED

• If you don't wait long enough for the ink to distribute after inking your rollers, you can end up with a noticeable banding pattern in large areas– no good!
• Printing on coated paper makes a huge difference in ink consumption

Day 34

Many shades of lavender, but which?

WHAT I DID

• Walked down to Tootsie's with a Pantone book to color match the bricks– so nerdy
• Challenge! One more name added to Tootsie's poster, lots of time spent trying to miraculously squeeze it in
• Mixed color for the bricks– printing starts tomorrow

WHAT I LEARNED

• The bricks of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge are approximately Pantone 2645C
• Some VERY helpful information about the internship process. Bethany told us about her process today and I feel like she works so hard and goes about intern selection in completely the right way. I feel like these tips are general enough to be consistent for most internships, and super helpful:
• Stay in touch– if you interview months ahead of intern selection time, send a card or more recent work sometime in between to let the company know you're still interested
• Keep a good attitude, especially during interview– it's the first (and an important) impression that your employer has of you
• Thoughtful and well put-together mini portfolios are not (believe it or not) just a tedious exercise for graphic design class. They're actually very helpful in showing your work (and knowing that you care about it)
• Why should you get the internship position? Make sure your intent is clear, and show how much an internship will benefit you; you should show that you are eager and willing to learn.

Day 33

Loaded this up onto the front press today

WHAT I DID

• Got a new job– Lhoist Christmas party poster at the Country Music Hall of Fame (they are a limestone company)
• Called client for input, started setting Lhoist poster
• Watched Bethany get filmed by American Idol– they are doing auditions in town and wanted to get footage of their Hatch poster being printed
• Tried not the think about the fact that Steven Tyler (an Idol judge this season) was probably just a block away at the Ryman

WHAT I LEARNED

• Even a limestone company's Christmas party poster deserves to be cool– got some experience trying to design something fun and interesting for a different kind of client

Day 32

Lots of A's to choose from

WHAT I DID

• Reset Tootsie's poster to include more artists
• Reset Tootsie's poster again to include more artists
• Pulled a better proof for Bluebird Cafe

WHAT I LEARNED

• More practice at dealing with lots of type in a small space– used more condensed fonts, a smaller line height, and rearranged some names to balance out the justified lines

Found this video I took of the Music City Roots poster being printed

Day 31

The most puzzle-like thing I've set thus far

WHAT I DID

• Worked on Bluebird Cafe poster, pulled a proof
• Worked on Tootsie's poster– set a wall of bricks made out of upside-down type

Nick found this gem today– toe touch!

WHAT I LEARNED

• When selecting type to print upside down, choose type with a shiny or patina'd back– newer or more porous type will soak up the ink and not print well
• If you pull an unsatisfying proof, it's not a bad idea to use some manual cut and paste to rearrange things

Two 45s and a wooden spoon

Day 30

Today's post is dedicated to good lookin g's

WHAT I DID

• Got approval for Tootsie's poster, waiting on content confirmation to print
• Started on design for The Bluebird Cafe 2011 poster– 3 colors!
• Set most of Bluebird Cafe poster
• Spent a lot of time checking out larger wood type in search of the perfect letter/ornament combinations

Super squat g

WHAT I LEARNED

• How to think about designing with 3 colors (which for some reason, is harder than it seems.) Create a solid design first without any color separations, then think about how you can begin to break things up with color

Super skinny g

Oblique g– it's actually slanted!

Day 29

POSTERS!

So the rule is I have to wait until after the day of the event to put any of the Hatch posters I make online. Which means I can finally put some of my posters on here (and there is now a link in the right sidebar to keep track of all the posters)

A small run of posters for Carrie Underwood and crew for her Bridgestone performance.

Poster for the Music City Roots radio show, fall 2010 season.

A poster for the opening of Mzungu, a social documentary about Africa.

WHAT I DID

• Called Tootsie's client, waited for proof approval
• Put away type, learned some new typefaces

WHAT I LEARNED

• New font – Rock

Day 28

Up the ladder

Fresh crop of fives– which to use? There is a clear winner.

WHAT I DID

• Typeset first color of Tootsie's poster for proofing
• Pulled a proof of Tootsie's poster
• Climbed the ladder a lot in search of the perfect oversized '5'

Incurred minor injury while digging through box of sharp things– luckily,  Hatch has this handy

WHAT I LEARNED

• Often, we flip pieces of type over to print solid rectangles. Tips for this:
• Try to pick characters in which all corners make contact (for example, an 'E' would make contact, but an 'F' wouldn't, so it would print unevenly
• Select pieces of type that have a surface that will print well (blocks with a shinier surface, or ones that have been printed on the back before)

Proofing the 45 block

Day 27

WHAT I DID

• Finished Mzungu project
• Stacked, trimmed, and bagged Music City Roots job
• Got a new job– 50th anniversary poster for Toosie's Orchid Lounge
• Visited Tootsie's on the way home for some inspiration
• Was hauling in boxes of mailing tubes in when a familiar-looking visitor offered to help out– turns out it was Frank from American Pickers!

WHAT I LEARNED

• Place finished jobs on drying racks if you need them done in a hurry

Tootsie's Orchid Lounge

Day 26

A really good lookin 'L'

WHAT I DID

• Finished printing the rest of Music City Roots posters
• Called Mzungu client/figured out shipping information
• Printed 1st color for Mzungu, started on second color

WHAT I LEARNED

• The steps of pressure printing; this process is a quick way to add interesting shapes without creating a new linocut– pictures below
• When pressure printing, don't cut out shapes with too much detail– it tends to get lost
• The thicker the paper you use for a pressure print, the more defined the result will be
• How the shipping/billing process works at Hatch
• How to adjust ribbons on back press

Print your background block, then trace the image to be pressure printed where you want it to be.

Cut out the image, then load the pressure printing sheet in the press behind your printing paper.

Result of pressure print.

Day 25

No last names necessary– this hangs over the back press.

WHAT I DID

• Finished first color of Music City Roots poster
• Started second color of Music City Roots poster
• Met a couple honeymooning in Nashville, showed them the back press
• Met Nick Spitzer from American Routes! A very nice guy– it was really interesting to see the overlap in mentality of his radio show and Hatch.

WHAT I LEARNED

• Getting better at complicated lockups/registration
• Getting everything to line up/print correctly sometimes takes just as long as the actual printing part– today, it seemed to be FAR easier to print than set up

Day 24

Outside the shop around closing time

WHAT I DID

• Finished folding all 500 560 of my Christmas cards
• Cut out the shape of Africa for a pressure print
• Helped Laura finish up some Christmas posters
• Got a surprise visit from Kyle and Brett
• Got halfway through the first color of my Music City Roots poster 

Orange rake, check

WHAT I LEARNED

• How to be more efficient on the back press
• Keep the press moving
• Utilize both hands to the fullest!
• Don't let the rollers sit still at the end of the press
• As your poster comes back, be loading the next piece of paper to print underneath
• 25 Line Gothic No. 4 has great texture on the back when printed upside down
• Teeny imperfections or hard spots from foreign matter left in chipboard can damage type– don't risk it

Day 23

Golden inking station.

WHAT I DID

• Printed some of Laura's Christmas posters on the back press.
• Checked some of my color separations, getting ready to print tomorrow
• Started getting a cutout ready for a pressure print (more on this later)

The back press– Vandercook Universal III

WHAT I LEARNED

• Golden ink smells different from the others. I think I like it?
• Confidence building on the back press– so unruly!
• Don't wait until too late to realize you have a large hole in your glove.

Learn from experience.

Day 22

Beautiful labeling for the king of trucker tunes.

WHAT I DID

• Corrected some things to get my approved posters ready for print.
• Color separations for both print-ready posters.
• More Christmas card-folding.

Bone folder– no longer necessary!

Day 21

I won't give it away, but I  saw this door covered in handprints this morning and wondered how all these people were being tricked...

WHAT I DID

• Started folding all 2340987 of my Christmas cards
• Called/faxed my Colorado client about Mzungu poster– approved!
• Finally got approval for Music City Roots poster– the race is on to finish printing all 300
• I got got! See above. 

WHAT I LEARNED

• A piece of lead is 2 points thick (at least most of them here are). That means there are 3 in a 1/2 pica.
• In lieu of a bone folder, a plastic screw-on bottle cap works just fine to fold things.

Day 20

Mr. Marty Robbins

WHAT I DID

• Helped set type for a Marty Robbins restrike
• Locked in my Christmas card design into the front press
• Printed 500 of my Christmas cards
• Posed for pictures while printing on the front press (there was a journalist conference in town)

This part is so satisfying to me– ink spreading over the roller

WHAT I LEARNED

• Fridays on Broadway are busy! I never realized it as much until working on the front press– you interact with a lot of the customers up there.
• How to cycle through colors on the press– because I was printing so many cards, each time I inked the press, I jumped to the next color in the rainbow so that they would gradually transition

Some of my Christmas cards

Day 19

Cool ligature from a font called Sumo

WHAT I DID

• Proofed the new and corrected version of the Music City Roots poster
• Finished typesetting my Christmas card
• Mixed gobs and gobs of ink
• Ate at Jacks Barbecue (conveniently just a block away)

WHAT I LEARNED

• When you're checking a proof, be sure not to miss little things like parts of characters printing incorrectly– it can really affect the legibility of your poster

Hatch is old timey right down to the refrigerator

Day 18

Carving a block

Rubbing the ink onto tracing paper with a wooden spoon

Part of my proofed block

WHAT I DID

• Made some sponsor corrections to Music City Roots poster, had to reset a few lines
• Fleshed out my Christmas card– mine's called "Tennessee Tinsel Time"
• Carved a block for my Christmas card out of linoleum
• Glued my linoleum cut to a wooden block so that it will be type high
• Met Barry McGee! Brad magic brought Barry to the shop (he is in town for his Vanderbilt lecture tonight) He used to be a letterpress printer himself, and showed a lot of genuine interest in the shop.

WHAT I LEARNED

• How to deal with changing out information in posters
• A change in length of words can be tricky to deal with– you really have to pay attention to how the letters take up space and how to manipulate the new information to fit
• Barry McGee Rules!

Barry McGee doing what he loves most

Day 17

Inside the Christmas drawer

WHAT I DID

• Finished setting Mzungu poster, pulled a proof for the client
• Started working on a Christmas card design
• Found some very cool blocks while searching mystery drawers for Christmas images

Can't stop thinking about how cool this will look printed

WHAT I LEARNED

• Be thorough in proofing– not only do you have to check that the information is correct and spelled correctly, but you have to make sure each character is correct (not italic, the wrong size, swapped with another character, etc.)
• "1"s and lowercase "l"s are easily confused

Day 16

Found some rose petals in a type case today

WHAT I DID

• Put trim marks on the Carrie Underwood poster and bagged them for pickup
• Received a new job for Mzungu, a social justice documentary set in Africa
• Called Mzungu client to discuss design ideas
• Set about 80% of the Mzungu design
• Met with the Music City Roots client to show proof of poster design

WHAT I LEARNED

• How to handle a finished job
• Working on communicating with clients
• Incorporating existing identities into poster designs
• Upside-down 'U's making fun-looking 'N's

WHAT I DIDN'T LEARN

• How to pronounce Mzungu

A really good lookin 'g'

Day 15

The Meile– this is a monster-sized press used for large runs of posters

WHAT I DID

• Printed my Carrie Underwood posters
• Put up type

WHAT I LEARNED

• Learning how to gauge how much ink it takes to print certain things
• Neat typesetting is important– the tiniest misalignment of reglet/lead can cause type to print incorrectly
• Always check your lockup before shoving more lead in
• Too tight of a lockup can cause type to buckle/work up