The end of the year is always a busy time for everyone, and that's no different for a letterpress printer. We spend all our time cramming in last minute projects for clients, all the while thinking in the back of our heads about how we'll find the time to create our OWN holiday card for friends of the studio. I've never been organized enough to get out a card before the end of the year, so usually I do a New Year's card instead. But this year, where a truly horrible 2016 was followed by the impending inauguration of the Trump administration, and all the ugly fear-mongering and division that it promised, I just wasn't in the mood to wish people a happy new year.

So I started thinking about how I could send out well wishes to my clients and friends while still making a print that would serve as a rallying cry of sorts. I am always inspired by ephemera and how printers and typesetters created so much of the landscape of the past because they were using creativity and innovation to create designs from the print shop in the days before graphic designers.

Thinking of the actual inauguration event as the beginning of a long resistance, I researched political tickets across the decades to see if inspiration struck.

Examples spanned from the early days of our Republic, to the white Suffrage movement and the Civil Rights movement.

But ultimately, it was this blog post about Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial that felt like the right fit to use to as my design inspiration.

It describes the spectacle that the trial became around Washington (certainly can't imagine politics as theater in this day and age), and the clamor for tickets to sit in the gallery. Each day of the two and a half month long trial required a ticket for admittance, and the different days were printed on different color paper.

Here's a closer look at the ticket:

I knew that I could use pieces from my collection of late 19th century type, borders and ornaments to re-imagine the design for a "ticket to the resistance" - something which I hope would inspire and empower my clients and friends and also serve to showcase our capabilities as a print shop.

Here is the final lockup, including a numbering machine, circular quads to set type on a curve, and type ranging from 6pt to 24pt. Click the image to view it in greater detail.

And here is the card, printed, of course, on multiple colors of stock.

The ticket is still available (and still valid!) in my shop.

Ticket to the Resistance