Busy, busy!

Well, it's finally back to business after several weeks of vacation and general discombobulation. Currently I've got four custom print jobs I'm working on: 2 stationery, 1 calling card, 1 menu (more on that later), and I'm almost at the stage where I can scrunch all the images together to make film then plates. Once the plates are made, I'll be sure to provide updates on the print progress of each. I'm hoping to have all 4 done in a few weeks, in addition to a stock item I'll be re-running.

These "Yay" cards are from my "Peggins" series, which was one of the first sets of designs I came up with for my store. Since it's graduation season, I'll be printing up a whole bunch of them for sale:

If anybody wants to buy any - please let me know! I've actually printed these before, but it was my first ever try on a platen press and so they didn't come out quite the way I intended. Hopefully, now that I've got my own presses, I'll be able to spend an assinine amount of time perfecting the registration and colors.

Speaking of colors, I've have finally ordered some of Van Son's new VS Zero ink through Fuji. It sounds fantastically "green," and is vegetable based. According to the techs, here's an approximate breakdown:

Rapeseed Oil - Approx. 46%
Linseed Oil - Approx. 18%
Oticica Oil - Approx. 6%
Pigment (Dry) - Approx. 20%
Additives - Approx. 7%

The hope is that I'll be able to clean this ink off the presses using only vegetable oil or other non-toxic cleansers. Unfortunately, the inks aren't going to be made in the regular lineup of Pantone colors, so I'll have to see what I can do with mixing CMYK myself. I guess I'm sort of confused as to how I might go about this, seeing as how CMYK inks are intended for 4 color process prints (i.e. 4 different plates, registered perfectly). I've asked the folks on Briar Press if they have any suggestions for how I might do this, or if I'm insane for even contemplating it.

In other news...after my most recent meeting with a business counselor, I penned "The Retroactive Roadmap To Tweedle Press." My counselor suggested that I write out exactly where I'd like to be with my business a year from now, and then works backwards from that to create some goals and milestones for myself. It was extremely eye opening, and let me know that I'll really have to get moving sooner than I thought with starting to take more days per week to work on the business. Scary, but exciting! As soon as I've got a rough draft of the business plan, I'll talk more about it here. For now though, I've got a date with the Chicago Public Library to do some research on my target market, and these are some rough upcoming dates for the rest of this year:

June: ink research/testing, finish business plan, print custom projects
July: new website launch, print stock items
August: begin marketing, start to take web orders!
September: go down to 3 days a week at current job (yikes!)
October: start marketing and taking holiday orders
November: print and ship holiday orders
December: end of year money stuff, print stock items

Pulp & Press Soundtrack 5/29/09: Bon Jovi (Livin' On A Prayer). Don't laugh - I played Rock Band last weekend and it's been stuck in my head ever since. HELP ME!!!