Our friend Kyle Durrie of Power & Light Press in Portland, OR set out this past June on an epic adventure called Type Truck. Backed by a successful Kickstarter fund drive, she retrofitted a 1982 Chevy Step Van to hold a full letterpress shop in the back, stocked up in paper and ink, and hit the road. 12000 + miles later, she has arrived on the East Coast, and will be here on Sunday, Nov. 6th from 1-5 PM. This Sunday's event will let you create a letterpress and screenprinted print - a collaboration between Type Truck, BPS, and you. Come pull screenprints with us and then letterpress print with Type Truck> This event is hands-on, completely free, and open to everyone. If you have never printed before and want to get your hands a little dirty, this is for you. See you Sunday! 18 W. North Ave, Baltimore. (Just look for the truck!)

This feels like the week of a lot of press, no pun intended. While we're plugging away on the behind the scenes things, you know website and business nonsense, we've been getting a lot of publicity. Mid-October brought a lovely write-up from Urbanite. This week we are the feature article at Bmore Media, which is awesome. And tomorrow we'll be featured on Baltimore's Public Radio station, WYPR, on their arts program The Signal, interviewed in our studio by Lisa Morgan. It airs at both noon and 7 PM, and you can listen to it anywhere in the world. AND if you miss it live, it can be downloaded or subscribed to on iTunes.

Holy cats! Last night was amazing! We really have no idea how many people came through last night, but I can tell you that the space was full from 3:15 to 6:45, like at-capacity full. WOW! Thanks for coming out! The big question of the night was "When are you really open?" and the answer is NOVEMBER. We've got a few (dozen) little things left to figure out still, but your encouragement was just what we needed last night. And did you see the cake? Check out the photos: And, the cake: Special thanks to everyone who lent a hand yesterday (in no particular order): Phil Kerrigan, Rachel Bone, Sarah Templin, Julia Petrino, & Carolyn Williams. Thanks also to the above flickr users whose photos we pulled: jamieshelman, stevenloveskatie, rachelbone, and kibrly. All above photos are linked to the originals, and there are lots more here. If you have more photos from last night, please upload them to flickr with the tag "bps_opening". We're hoping you took more than we did. Thanks all! BPS (K+K)

Baltimore Print Studios is thrilled to announce our Grand Opening on Sunday October 17th, from 3-7 PM. We are located at 18 W. North Ave., between Maryland Ave. and Charles St. in the Station North Arts District. Opening our doors to the public for the first time, we will be offering hands-on printmaking demos in both letterpress and screenprinting, and handing out information on workshops and studio access. Light refreshments will be provided. The event is free and open to the public. Come one, come all! The formal press release is available here: pr-baltimoreprintstudios.pdf Photos above by MLY Photo.

Save the date: October 17th, 2010. Details to follow. Photo by Matthew Yake.

And we'll be there! We have been asked to run a printing workshop (demo) this Saturday at the Charm City Craft Mafia's Pile of Craft. We'll be laying down the second color on posters on an adorable table-top poster press. Please come meet us in person. We will be holding a raffle for some of our Strategic Plan posters (don't worry, if you have one already I'm sure you can find someone to give another one to), handing out some shiny new stickers, informational fliers and who knows what all else. You'll just have to come find out in person. The craft fair is from 10 AM until 5 PM this Saturday, June 26 at St. Johns Church, 2640 St. Paul St, in Baltimore. Read more about the event and the other 45 vendors here. See you Saturday!

EDIT: They're back in stock again. *Check out our store.* They're BACK IN STOCK! Yaay! Click Here! - - - - - - - - - - - - - HOLY CATS! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - WE ARE SOLD OUT! - - - - - - - - - - By the power of Swiss Miss and Twitter combined, we've sold out. If  you missed out on this run, e-mail us! We're already printing more (hint - new colors!!!), and we'll tell you when they're available! Here at Baltimore Print Studios, we are working on our strategic plan. What better strategic plan than THIS Strategic Plan: Measuring 11x15, these are on heavy-weight chipboard. Screenprint and letterpress printed with metallic silver-grey ink. Please support us by purchasing our poster. They're $20 including shipping (That's $15 + $5). If you're buying more than one, please e-mail us first (no need to pay shipping twice.) Printed in an edition of 50, and they'll be signed by yours truly, Kyle Van Horn. Thanks in advance -

In lieu of the news I'd hoped to be posting today (next week maybe?) I offer you this: A very curious machine, indeed.

As our studio hunt continues, I can't help but link a bunch of sites I keep stumbling across. We love wood type. Wood type is awesome, and I'm very pleased to note that we have a fair amount headed for the BPS studios (probably about 1 cabinet's-worth, though it's hard to guage when they're all in paper-boxes, stored in an apartment). A LOT of it is a generic Futura knockoff, in a number of sizes (6, 8, 12, 18, and 25 line) and weights (standard and condensed widths) and some miscellaneous other fonts (Brush Script, Cooper Black, and Murray Hill, in various sizes), some unknown serifed font in 12 line (maybe?), and some mixed gothics of in various sizes and incomplete-ness. We also have some gorgeous border material, and a wicked collection of numbers in 30, 60, and 120 line size (that's 5 - 20 inches tall), and a nice set of calendar blocks. But, as much as we love wood type, there are some people out there who might just love it more. (more...)

Happy Labor Day weekend everybody. For those of you not in the know, Vandercook, the company that produced the flatbed cylinder presses we know and love today, turns 100 this month.  The very first model was premiered in September 1909. They were founded in 1909 - (why was I thinking September?) Regardless: in honor of that, we thought we'd offer up a little self-promotional bit we've had under our belt for a little while. Weighing in at 1/2 oz, and with a footprint of 1 7/8" x 5" (not counting the feedboard) this SP20 boasts a maximum print area of 1 3/8" x 2". [caption id="attachment_66" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="for added miniature-ness, we're showcasing it on our 120 line wood type"][/caption] Ideal for any studio, office, or car dashboard, this press is as portable as any you could hope for. Feeling crazy? Print this file at 1370% and build yourself a full size Vandercook SP20. Vandercooks for EVERYBODY! We've even included a tiny printed sheet of the form on the bed. The legalese: The Vandercook Logo is a registered trademark of NA Graphics and is used here strictly for authenticity. This papercraft was designed by Kyle Van Horn for Baltimore Print Studios. It is not for sale, ever, anywhere. The internet is a big place. Play nice. Here you go: papercraft_SP20 EPS (right-click or control-click to download) papercraft_SP20 PDF Enjoy the rest of your weekend! EDIT: I edited the files slightly to fix an issue I was having.  (More glue-tabs on the top, curved part.)