Little Book Of Letterpress

At the end of 2008, I collaborated on designing and printing a set of calendars for 2009 with my friend Christine Castro. Christine was someone whom I admired and respected in the blog world but was just getting to know.

We exchanged a few e-mails and finally met over lunch. I found a lot of things in common with her (we lived in the same city, were fellow Filipinas, were both graphic designers and so on) and we hit it off. When it came time to do an end-of-year client promotion, we quickly agreed to join forces. (And toward the end of printing the calendars, we each discovered we were pregnant.)


The result was this calendar, which featured the four seasons of the year. And about eight months later, we each had a baby boy born 10 days apart.

In late-2009, I was contacted by Charlotte Rivers to submit a letterpress sample for consideration in a book she was compiling. I submitted the calendars, thinking nothing of it, but she thought they would be a good addition to the book.

Not wanting to jinx it, I mentioned the possibility to just two people: my husband Mike and Christine. (In my experience, things get pulled from production all the time, so I really didn't want to tell anyone until I saw the printed page.) Even though Charlotte sent an e-mail informing me that the book had been printed and released in the UK, I wanted to see it for myself.


Here it is: Chronicle Books published the US version and released it in August. Check it out, we're on page 172.

Big thanks to Christine Castro for collaborating with me and illustrating each of the four seasons!