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Papillon Press is a letterpress and illustration studio located in Westport, Ontario, Canada that specializes in illustrated greeting cards and paper goods. Our greeting cards, note cards, gift tags, thank you cards, stickers, etc. all feature our hand-drawn illustrations and are printed by hand on our 60 year-old letterpress.
Music is crucial to us when letterpress printing, since it can become a bit repetitive sometimes (especially when printing 1000 business cards) and listening to music helps pass the time. We really have to crank the volume to cover the sound of the press and other machinery, so we’re basically deaf to the outside world and have to communicate with each other through walkie talkies! It’s worth it, though, to be enveloped in our own little letterpress bubble 😉
Here are Chantal’s current favourite songs to print to:
1. Say you’re out for the evening, and you start a conversation with a charming lad or a lovely lady. The conversation is spectacular and you want to really want to get their number! You could both whip out your cell phones and enter each other numbers, but that’s just boring. Hand them your calling card. Your vital info is all there, so no messing around with annoying technology. Simple. Convenient.
2. Letterpress=Quality. Let people know that you care about quality right off the bat.
3. Calling cards make you look professional without being formal. It’s not quite a business card, but it’s not scrawling your email on a napkin either.
4. It’s a conversation piece! The person on the receiving end of your calling card will be impressed and spend time running their hands over your card.
5. Express your personality! Since it’s not as formal as a business card, you don’t have to go all corporate with your calling card.  Use funky colours or intricate illustrations. Go for a custom design. Let people know who you are.
An example of a Papillon Press custom calling card
A few years ago I  (Chantal) discovered a website showing the photographs of a certain Russian photographer, Prokudin-Gorskii, that were all developed in colour! It was the most amazing thing ever, to see authentic scenes from over 100 years ago in full colour. Apparently he had developed a special process for developing in colour, but the photos were subsequently lost during the Russian Revolution and only resurfaced later. I often use theses images for reference because they are so vivid.
There is also a very interesting section on the website about re-creating his colour process but using digital methods.
We tend to think of the past in black and white or in sepia tones, so to see it in colour reminds us that those people in the photos really did exist. Here is a selection of favourites:
***Edit: Congratulations to Vanessa Dewson, an Ottawa area photographer, who won our Twitter giveaway!
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Yes! We are giving away a beautiful set of letterpress calling cards.
We recently added to our website the option of ordering 300Â pre-designed calling cards for only $150. Â Printed on soft white, 265 gsm Bamboo paper, all you have to do is choose the design you like and enter your information on the order form.
To kick off our new line of calling cards, we are offering a free set (300 cards).
What do you have to do? It’s easy, provided you have a Twitter account.
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