Letterpress & bindery — Cedar Falls, Iowa — est. 2011 Trade inquiries welcome
Two presses older than the building's plumbing, a wall of wood type, and no rush jobs — ink needs time to sit. Wedding suites, broadsides, and short-run books, set by hand and printed one sheet at a time.
Ada easing the big Vandercook into register before the shop opens. Coffee first, always.
Everything here was set by hand — type out of the case, locked in the chase, proofed until the impression sits just deep enough to feel.
Two passes and a blind deboss. The couple set their own names in 24-point Caslon — we let people pull a sheet.
A poem in 14-point under a wood-type headline. Edition of forty, numbered in pencil.
“The press doesn’t care about your deadline. It cares whether the ink is ready.”
— Ada Kern, pressman
Every sort back in its box by closing. The apprentice learns the lay before the press.
Sewn signatures, waxed linen thread. A ledger for a hundred years of somebody's numbers.
Pulled dry on newsprint to check the face for wear. It passed.
Three of us, one shop. Bring the job to whoever answers the phone — it lands on the right bench.
Pressman & co-founder — the Vandercooks answer to her
Fifteen years of makereadies. Ada came up in a jobbing shop in Des Moines, kept the habit of saving every furniture scrap, and can hear a mis-locked chase from the office. Wedding suites and anything with a hairline rule are hers.
Compositor — hand-set type, keeper of the specimen books
Tomás sets faster by hand than most people type. He mends broken sorts with a jeweler's patience and will talk you out of a typeface for your own good. Broadsides and poetry editions land on his bench.
Binder — sewn books, boxes, repair
June sews signatures the way other people knit — evenings, absently, perfectly. Case bindings, clamshell boxes, and the repair of books everyone else called done for. Bring the family Bible; she's seen worse.
Set-up is the cost; paper is the variable. Every quote in writing, every edition proofed before we run.
A 1907 storefront on Mill Street — two tons of iron on an oak floor that's held worse.
The Vandercook came out of a newspaper basement in Waterloo; the handpress is older than the state fair. Between them: a wall of wood type from an auction we still brag about, and a bindery bench under the good window.
Everything gets cleaned before it gets put away — solvent, rags, and the radio. The type goes back sort by sort, because next week’s job needs the same G. Come by on a Saturday and we’ll show you why the deep impression everyone loves is actually the press being gentle.
Jobs get set here, one sort at a time — bring your text final, please.
The window display changes when Tomás gets bored.
Mill Street, two doors down from the bakery. Follow the smell of solvent and fresh bread.
112 Mill Street
Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613
Angle parking out front is free for two hours. The press weighs 1,400 pounds — we promise it's worth the walk from the lot.
Tell us what it says, when it's needed, and how many. Quotes are free and honest — sometimes the honest answer is a photocopier.