a great weekend at Unique!

Views of the city from the windows behind our Unique LA table.

We had a great time at The Unique USA Summer Market last weekend, thank you to everyone who came to see us, it was so great to see you! And it was so great to meet all sorts of new people and fans. We even had a few Kickstarter supporters who came by to say hi!

L-R: A close up of our silver balloon signage,  our table all set up and ready to go, a corner of our table with our new CB2 business card holder. CB2 West Hollywood moved heaven and earth to get it to us in time for the show, we really appreciate their help!

We had so much fun coming up with our new table display! Everyone responded so well to the silver balloons! It sort of feels like this was our most put together setup so far! Honestly, it wouldn't have been possible without the move to the new press. Now that we're starting to get the hang of printing on the Heidelberg, it's allowed us to print more stock at once and not spend quite so much time trying to play catch-up with demand!

L-R: We tried really hard to attend some of the Unique Classroom talks held as part of the show. We really enjoyed listening to photographer/blogger Bonnie Tsang, Rosemary models her new ceramic necklace from  local artist and maker Nicola Vruwink, we also enjoyed listening to Andrew Gibbs from The Dieline talk about current packaging design trends.

That's not to say that we haven't been super busy! It was a lot of work reprinting our entire line of paper goods for both Renegade and Unique! Everything might look exactly the same, but it isn't! It took us a long time to figure out the best way to print from our hand-carved linoleum blocks. They were purpose-carved for our old printing press and it took a lot of finessing to get them to work on the new press.

L-R: packaging Eastside Neighborhood Postcards, all neighborhood postcards back in stock and on display at Unique, stacks of Westside Neighborhood postcards ready to package. They look so good printed on the new press, it made us positively giddy as they came off the press! Finally, everything is looking the way we always knew it could!

The neighborhood postcards took the longest and we were unable to get them done in time for Renegade. We are happy to say that they are all completely back in stock now, in fact, everything is! And, we were able (by the skin of our teeth!) to add two new cards in time for the show (just barely!).

L-R: Working on our new freeway card of the 10 West as it winds its way through DTLA, proofing for the first time, the finished card now listed in the shop!

Our neon pink letterpress cards were ready for Renegade. Originally an exercise in registration, these bright neon cards have quickly become a favorite. They are available as a single card or a set of four and are now listed in the shop. Also make sure to take a look at our newest freeway card, depicting a portion of the 10 West traveling through downtown. They are also available as a single card or as a set of four. We're already preparing to send a few of these off to some of our favorite stockists. Keep an eye out for them at The Library Store at the Central Library in DTLA!

L-R: Our new prints, Helms Bakery is Culver City, Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and Highland Theatre in Highland Park. They look so good, why didn't we choose these for prints earlier??? :)

We've also made some changes to our prints. We currently offer Helms Bakery (Culver City), The Cinerama Dome (Hollywood) and The Highland Theatre (Highland Park). They are available framed or unframed. Each print is printed in black ink on white Mohawk Superfine paper. The thick black frame measures 9.5" x 12" and features a white mat. The print is registered to fit comfortably within the mat. We'll be adding more prints soon, so stay tuned!

The view from the parking garage at Home Depot in Hollywood, a place we've been spending a lot of time at lately!

We have a few things in the works for the next few weeks, but for the most part we'll be getting to work on our Kickstarter rewards (finally!), printing more stock and meeting wholesale orders.

Have a great end of summer, hopefully we'll see you soon!

Best,
Rosemary+Robin

first big steps

Robin setting up the rollers.

We took some first big steps this weekend. After taking some time to learn how our new press works, we took the plunge on Sunday and pulled our first prints!

L-R: our workspace, locking up the letterpress heart in order to print.

It might not look like much, but it's taken us a little over two years to get to this heart, our first print on the Heidelberg Windmill Letterpress.

L-R: Our bottleneck press in our living room in Koreatown, in our booth at Artisanal LA in November of 2013.

We started working together on a line of paper goods, just over two years ago. In that time, we started by printing with our fingers, moved on to printing with a spoon and a baren, then built our bottle jack press. We relaunched as Ink+Smog Editions a year ago in March. We only dreamed at that point, of having a dedicated print shop and mechanized press. 

L-R: our very first print on the Heidelberg Windmill, Rosemary holding our first print and bursting into happy tears.

A lot of work and time and effort has gone into that little heart. So much so, that moments after we first realized that we'd successfully made our first print, Rosemary was so happy, she burst into tears. The future seems so bright right now, and we couldn't have gotten here, without all of the love and support we've gotten from our friends, our family and our followers. We are so appreciative. And we can't wait to work our fingers to the bone. Thank you.

Best,

Rosemary+Robin

and they're in!!!

The printing end of our studio space with the press and paper cutter installed.

After many weeks months of preparation and a lot of planning, we finally moved our new machinery into our new studio space this week! As many of you may know, the new machines arrived before our new studio was ready to receive them. So they've been in storage in our building since their arrival. It's been such a tease to have the press and paper cutter almost within our reach but unable to use them!

L-R: Our press guy getting the Windmill ready to move into our space, our press guy and the machinery movers getting ready to move the paper cutter into it's new home in our studio space.

It took our press guy and two machinery movers almost all day to unpack, partially disassemble and then reassemble our Heidelberg Windmill Letterpress and Chandler&Price Craftsman paper cutter. We were happy to provide donuts and coffee but other than that, we pretty much stood back and watched with bated breath as they worked away.

L-R: Moving the paper cutter along the hallway into our space, the press crosses the threshold into our studio.

Luckily both machines were in really good shape and everything went really smoothly. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but so so so excited and relieved to finally have everything in place and ready to go. We still have a little work to do, mainly we need to get an electrician in to do a little work, but we're nearly there! 

L-R: The paper cutter in its corner next to the composing table, the press on the other side of the composing table next to the window.

We're so ready to jump in now and get to work! Take a look at the video we took of the press when we first plugged it in this week, the rollers went in a few seconds later. It finally feels like things are moving along now, we should be up and running in no time now!

We hope that everyone is having a happy start to March,  for us it's brought our machines and some much-needed rain in the southland. Here's to more progress and hopefully more rain! 

Best,

Rosemary+Robin