Getting a lot of great feedback about staring a shop here! I appreciate it. For all the folks that do custom design work what tools and programs do you use? Most people suggest adobe for initial design. What other ways do people get good quality custom plates?
For all my vintage pressmen and small time shop keeps. What were your first jobs? I don’t plan to do this full time but a cash to get hobby’s moving faster is nice. My local contact said he has work from ages ago and all he does is die cut door hangers and sequences on sheets. I doubt that market is competitive. What are some small jobs you used to get the press paid off?
Hey everyone, I am just about prepared to start a solarpunk box project, I plan to have a database of solarpunk projects available for about $6 USD a month with physical media in tiers above ranging from a small notebook up to full posters. I plan to include community art and share income with creators chosen for each months issue. I plan to use my skill with vintage printing equipment to hand draw and manually print each copy so there won’t be any fear of funding some drop shipping shill. Unfortunately this requires me to create a hard copy plate of each months art pieces in advance and therefore has a hard base of subscribers to break even if I don’t charge for my time. Is there a way to poll the community at large without starting a kickstarter? I really don’t want to send community funds away from community projects.
I have a man locally that has a small letterpress shop who has been good enough to show me the ropes. I would love to start my own shop but don’t have the money to buy in to his existing business. I have come across the chance to buy a closing shop for pennies but would have to transport everything 1000 miles back home. The other shop has 3 presses a paper cutter and a decent start on furniture and type. Is it better to wait to purchase equipment and keep practicing or should I go out and start showing an investment? I don’t want to jump the gun and set myself back as I plan to try to break even on the hobby in the long run.
Hello everyone! I posted about the idea of starting a business selling Solarpunk art/ advanced recycling manuals. I am looking for 1 person in the next few weeks with experience in vector and raster line art to help me clean up an image I am trying to use for a logo. Eventually I will post the site here and original Solarpunk art can be submitted to be printed in short runs. Please send me a DM if you have experience with vector graphics and line art, a sample image if possible and any compensation rates. PS sorry if this is not cool mods I can go somewhere else.
Considering starting a small business in my local community to sell DIY kits and Solarpunk friendly products. This would include gardening kits for food, instructions and kits for small homestead or self sustainable projects, Solarpunk action literature and art prints. Would the community here appreciate a Solarpunk online store as well or is the consensus that this would not be appropriate? The local business is for a poverty stricken community and these services would help a community without consistent drinking water.
Was talking to a letterpress business owner and he talked about the software he was using. I believe he said it was Printavo? I was baffled that he was using software for this stuff but the minute after he explained I couldn’t imagine running a shop without a software system for RIP and order management. What other software does Letterpress employ? Anything particularly whacky or interesting? Just laughing about a fully integrated workflow software for a 120 year old press.