Letterpressed Beer Coasters

This year, for my birthday, I received a brand new Boxcar Base! Which, to anyone familiar with letterpress printing, is a very exciting piece of equipment to own. I’ve wanted one for a long time, but hadn’t found the money to make the investment. It’s the perfect match for my Kelsey Excelsior 5 x 8 Letterpress.

What is a Boxcar Base, you ask? Using a Boxcar Base, allows me to work directly from my design files, order polymer plates, mount them to my shiny, new, type-high base and voila! Ready to print!

(To learn more, check out www.boxcarpress.com. Their website is a great resource.)

I wanted to repay my wonderful boyfriend for his gift, so naturally, I decided to make him beer coasters. I used the typeface Core Circus, designed by the foundry S-Core. I wanted to start with a relatively simple design, because I had never worked with a Boxcar Base before. I ordered by polymer plates and found the whole process incredibly easy. 

Check out the final product! My next challenge is to use color to add a second layer to the coasters. Core Circus is a typeface specifically designed to be layered over itself. More to come!