What's the big deal about letterpress?

A Very Brief History of Letterpress...

Before there was letterpress, there were scribes who literally wrote each book by hand. In about 1440, Johannes Gutenberg is credited with the invention of modern movable type printing from individually cast, reusable letters set together in a form (letterpress). Letterpress was the dominant print method until the mid-20th century. At that point, Xerox came onto the scene and offset printing took over.

Modern convenience prevailed and people kinda forgot about letterpress until Martha Stewart wrote a column about the beauty of letterpress bridal invitations.

Letterpress printing produces a 3 dimensional product. Modern print methods, such as digital and offset, are often referred to as "flat prints." You can see and feel the difference.

Go to our links page for great resources about Letterpress and some of the masters of the trade.

We print on a vintage Vandercook press that was born in 1935 and restored to its original glory in 2008. Each print is hand fed through our press, one at a time, one color at a time. Every print is cut by hand from a sheet of luxurious 100% cotton paper that is made just for letterpress, and we score, fold, and stuff each of our cards by hand. To read more about Concrete Lace's history, please click here.

Concrete Lace cards are:

• Uniquely designed by us for you.
• Created in small batches
• Printed on readily-renewable 100% cotton paper
• Packaged with green-power produced envelopes
• Enclosed in biodegradable packaging (Gift Enclosure sleeves are not yet available as biodegradable)
• Made with 100% U.S. Made materials
• Printed on a 1934 Vandercook Letterpress
• Printed, scored, folded, and packaged with our care—one at a time.