The presses never rest

Lately Em Space positively hums with preparations for the Postcard Show (opening Friday night, Oct. 5), the Letterpress Printers Fair (Saturday, Oct. 13—you know it), and Design Week in general. I've been spinning out the prints on the Vandercook there, and also getting ready for a gathering of local Scripps alumnae next month.

Because the college founder, Ellen Browning Scripps, traveled avidly starting in the mid-1880s, covering Algeria and Europe, then Cuba and the wilds of coastal California, writing stories along the way for her local paper stateside, it was suggested that we make travel journals for the annual celebration of Ms. Scripps's birthday.

I made a prototype (my current fave nonadhesive) and with a lot of help from two very nice Classics department professors from Reed College, I massaged the college's usual motto, Incipit vita nova (Here begins a new life), to Incipit nova via, or Here begins a new path (or journey). With a little Lydian Bold Condensed and some Scripps green ink, that makes a cover.