Take a Moment to Appreciate the Letterpress

For those of you who wonder why letterpress costs so much, and why it takes time to perfect the files for the wedding invitations I do, wonder no more. If you saw the painstaking care that is taken to produce such tactile, wonderful pieces of art, you'd pay a lot more!

This is an amazing video of the peeps down at Mama's Sauce down in Winter Park, FL who documented the arrival of their bundle of joy, baby Kluge; weighing in at a mere 2,000 pounds. The sound of Thome Yorke's voice makes everything a whole lot better too.

The boys who produced this video say this, "Nick isn't a very smart guy. At a time in history when the print industry is pouncing from one space-age technological advancement to the next, Nick has decided to take a giant leap backwards into the industrial revolution.

Meet the Kluge letterpress. An 2,000 pound, cast iron, electric powered monstrosity of vacillating rods, giant spinning wheels and pneumatic hoses. The Kluge is Nick's weapon of choice in his battle against the future.
So why does Nick use the Kluge? A clearly outdated, cumbersome and obsolete machine? The same reason any craftsman uses any tool: for the quality of the finished product. A letterpress offers a tangible, three-dimensional look and feel to the printed image that no other technology can replicate.

Let Nick take you on a trip back in time as he runs through the process of turning an ordinary piece of paper stock into work of art."

KLUGE from Northern Lights on Vimeo.