Zida Borcich runs a letterpress and design shop out of beautiful Mendocino County in California. As designers, we all like to employ the particularly elegant look and feel of this charming 500 year old printing technique once in a while. Whether it is for a client’s identity package, an invite for a chic art opening or book launch party, letterpress can often be the only solution that completes your vision as a designer. With her years of hands on experience, and her understanding of graphic design, Zida, can be a great partner for you to help you get there. Since we are experiencing a letterpress renaissance of sorts at the moment, I thought it’d be interesting for you to have a look inside her shop that celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Enjoy.

1. You have a graphic design background right? And got into specializing in providing letterpress services 25 years ago. What made this shift come about and what informed your decision to focus on letterpress printing?

A: Actually, I “came from the streets” in relation to design. My first experience with any of this design/printing world began not with school, but when I apprenticed under master printer Al Moise in his letterpress/offset shop, in Fort Bragg, California, for eleven years. So the chronology was that I first “specialized in letterpress,” learning typography and design from my mentors during that time. I had the good fortune to work under him and Stephanie Kroninger, who was the most amazing designer I have ever known.

It seems a pattern in my life anyway that I “learn by doing” right in front of the whole world, so the lumps I get are pretty public. It’s probably not the recommended way to learn, but it’s my way and effective.

I began by hand setting lead type under the direction of Al. He would draw what he wanted me to set, with type faces, point sizes, etc., and I would sit down in front of a California Case and put each letter into the composing stick to match his directions. I would proof the result on the Heidelberg Windmill and take it to him for tuning up. He would notate all the changes he wanted with proof marks and I would go back to the type case and the press and fiddle around till I got it right. I learned LETTERSPACING (standardizing the spacing between letters; what you refer to as “kerning” now). I learned KERNING (actually that meant having actually to physically SHAVE OFF bits of lead in order to squeeze the letters together more tightly). I learned LEADING (this was done by putting flat pieces of variously thick lead between lines, ergo: “leading").

I learned immutable Laws of Typography (which are fun to break now and then as long as you know what they are) and some of the history of the Black Art, which is what letterpress is called. And I did a ton of typesetting, paper cutting, just basically was a Devil (printer’s language for an apprentice). You can see that the language of Letterpress is a bit on the morbid side, just one of its many delights. Anyway, my time there was amazing and I was obsessed with it from the first minute Al sat me down in front of a case and told me what to do.

Eventually, he let me go with my own typographic ideas. Stephanie and her mom, Codge Amberger, were incredibly supportive of what they seemed to perceive in me as an innate design sense, guided me gently, and that gave me a certain amount of confidence. I am so grateful for these incredible mentors.

At one point he lost his stripper (not THAT kind of stripper!) from the offset side of the shop and I went upstairs and did typesetting on the Selectric Composer (precursor to computer typesetting) and stripped and shot film and made plates. The advantage of knowing how a job works from the initial idea through to the finished piece has been a huge bonus in being able to run print jobs. I recommend it to every designer.

2. Can you explain the letterpress printing process to those designers who may be unfamiliar with its specifics and peculiarities?

A. Do you have a couple of weeks? Hmmm...OK...I will try…

In the beginning was the Word and it was basically Scribes writing longhand, on vellum or parchment (treated animal skins), and only clergy or royalty could or were allowed to read it. When Gutenberg, a jeweler, got the idea of casting movable, individual letters out of metal in the 1440s, setting words with them, inking them, and pressing them into paper to make multiple copies, I’m sure he had no idea he was absolutely changing the world from that moment. He just wanted to make a Bible, you know? Or who knows what he was thinking, really, but it was probably the most revolutionary act ever done because it had the potential to bring knowledge to regular people for the first time. When the masses have knowledge, that is POWER. The Scribes were furious, I’m so sure. They were getting done out of their jobs. As an aside, this has been a theme throughout the history of printing. People are still carving posters out of wood someplace in the world. When I came into Letterpress, it had almost completely disappeared already in favor of faster, more modern offset printing. Direct to plate caused a lot of offset people to drop out or change over. Now digital printing has taken over the world and it’s hard for offset people to compete. Fortunately, Letterpress is so antediluvian that it is in its own weird little niche that is probably not going to go out of style very soon.

Anyway, back to Gutenberg: Imagine getting that idea, building a printing press, having the concept of type, making the machinery to cast type, casting the type, pulling the staff together that would set the type, the artisans who would do the hand illuminations and initials, the printers, the bindery people. Somebody had to tan the hides for the covers. Somebody had to make the vellum and paper. How could it even happen in such a short period of time...they say it was printed between 1452 and 1455. So there was a lot of project management going on between the inception of the printing press he developed in 1440 and beginning the actual production. I am practically non-plussed by the whole concept. Well, no, I am not non-plussed. But it is stunning, don’t you think?

The first time I saw the Gutenberg Bible, at the Huntington Library, I wept. I realized this craft was born full grown. It is PERFECT PRINTING. You can’t believe it. Perfect inking, perfect impression. Perfectly ravishing. So much respect and love went into making that book. Those purported 180 books. I cannot imagine in the first place hand setting over 1200 pages of blackletter type and then squeezing each and every page, in an edition of 180, in a big wooden press, a contraption so gorgeous and archaic and crazy it makes you fall into a trance to look at one. It’s called “printing by the screw” and it means you put ONE sheet in the machine and pull on this huge handle to press the dampened paper, or the vellum in those years, down onto the inked type. To ink the type you had to use these leather ink balls with handles on them, to work the ink, in just the right quantities, onto the top of the type formed. The amount of pressure applied to print the page was a matter of how hard you pulled on the screw. Incredibly physical work, incredibly painstaking...and it only took three years to do the edition. I wonder how many men Gutenberg had working on this project? I wonder how big the rooms were in the shop to accommodate all the stacks of paper, and how freezing cold it was in there half the time. How many people were casting type? How many setting away all day, and at night by candlelight? I wish I could time travel back and watch, or better yet, actually work on it. I am sure it wasn’t as fun as it is in my shop but boy, history in the making.

So, the process is pretty different now than it was when I first started printing, so I will tell you how that was, which actually was pretty far along to the time when Letterpress was considered dead (which it was not exactly, after all).

Of course, everything starts with an idea. Say a client comes in with an idea for a business card. We would get her information, what the business was, her phone number and address. Nobody had ever heard of a web site then, of course, not even faxes, not to even mention blogs or Blackberries, except on the bush, nor Twitter nor any of that. Phone number, that was pretty much it. The client might say her business was very feminine or that she wanted it to have some red in it or something like that. There was not a lot of thought about “branding” nor too much worry about charging for a new logo. That was included in the price, which was probably, like, a dollar. Not really, but you know, it was just printing at that time. We didn’t really get paid for design.

That is so funny because I still have people coming up to me and saying they are still using the logo I made them in 1976 or something. Really.

So, OK. Now we have the job and the client goes off shopping or whatever and we sit down and draw out our idea about how the card will look. How about the business name is in 18 point Gallia, letterspaced to fill the measure (18 picas), and the rest of the information is centered, in 10 point Caslon, and the owner’s name is in Caslon Italic right under the business name. Perfect! Honestly, it might be that easy. We sit down in front of a type case with a Composing Stick set to 18 picas, and we put each letter into its rightful place, one by one, watching your ps and qs, ds and bs, upside down, left to right, filling in the space that’s left with ens, ems, three to ems, brasses (2 points) and coppers (1 point) (various sizes of spacing material, which are made of different types of metal) and making sure the line is just tight enough in the stick, but not too tight and definitely not loose or you will die.

When the typesetting is complete and ready to proof on the press, you push the whole block of type CAREFULLY out of the stick (so you don’t “pie” the type—let it fall apart) and onto the Stone, a flat piece of marble or stone that sits in a Coffin (a bed for the Stone), where the Forme (the block of type) is locked into a Chase (frame) with Quoins (special locks that press the forme against the sides of the chase so everything is locked in place and can’t fall out on the floor on the way to the press). Then you ink up the press and run a proof. Then you proof for typos, spacing, beauty, etc., and then you proof it again and check it again. Then the client comes in and looks at it, maybe, and then you print 500 up on the Heidelberg Windmill. No crop marks. We would just cut the paper up into two-up sizes, like 3.5” x 4” and work and turn it so that all we had to do was cut them apart at the center and box them up.

Nowadays, I make almost 100% of our designs on the computer. I like InDesign best of all. And we have a polymer plate maker here that makes my designs into raised images on a steel backing. (For magnesium and copper foil dies we send out to Michgan.) We attach the polymer plate to a powerful magnet that is locked (by Quoins) into the Chase, position it, and run it. Always with crop marks. Tight registration is the watchword of course. Most often there will be a couple or three runs...ink and two foils, say, so that requires two different presses. I happen to have two. “Al,” the 1953 Heidelberg I learned to print on at Al Moise’s shop, and “NellieBelle,” named after my dad and mom, my “newest” press, a 1969 model that I had adapted for foiling. I also have a 1924 C&P hand fed press that we very occasionally still use. It is by far the most charming of my machines.

3. Do you enjoy collaborating with other designers and work with them to realize or improve upon their vision?

A: Yes, I love that process. We do a lot of printing using other designers? work. I can often guide designers in the right direction for better letterpress results, since not all designs are letterpress friendly. You won’t get as great a result on big solids with tiny knocked-out type for instance. Gradients really don’t look good as a rule. Screens can be dicey. We break these rules sometimes and have been getting better at doing the “impossible” but basically, a design will be most successful with black and white line art. But I digress...yes I really do enjoy working with other people, both designers and clients. It is a big conversation and a big collaboration, always.

4. What are some complex letterpress printing techniques that you have either discovered, developed or mastered because of some very specific client requests?

A: Working with my daughter Zoé Bachelor has always been a stretch because she isn’t so much a letterpress printer as an amazing creative force and is not constrained by what I know to be “impossible.” So she comes up with these things that completely kill us and then they are so gorgeous that it is worth the agony. Yes, we are always inventing things in here, working inside a modern aesthetic with tools that are a billion years old. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t learn something new. It’s intensified by the differences in papers, in foils, in how paper takes the ink, in how some papers don’t want to go through the press, it’s pretty much an endless education. My printer Rhea Rynearson is the most awesome printer ever, as is working with my brother, Joe Neves, who has to do a tremendous amount of figuring out in here all the time for estimates and paper cutting and just making things go out the door...We do a tremendous amount of hand finishing as well. We call it “Loving Hands At Home Press” on the days we are lining envelopes, or tying big satin bows on wedding invitations, or lining boxes. It’s like Lucy and Ethel at the candy factory.

5. What were some of the most challenging, difficult and satisfying projects you’ve worked on in your career?

I don’t even know how to answer that. For my twentieth anniversary of being in business, The San Francisco Public Library had a three month long exhibition of my work in the Rare Book Room. It was fantastic to go through all these old samples and see how so many of them have stood up over time. Not to sound arrogant or anything, you know, but really, there is this timelessness that letterpress brings into the thing and people keep loving it over decades. It’s a certain spare aesthetic that seems to mark the work.

I can almost say that at least 80% of the work that goes out of here is in some way challenging, difficult and satisfying, from a mere business card to a big ad campaign. I kind of love everything and hate everything in about the same proportions. No, I love it way more but let me tell you, it’s an intense and interesting process, practically a miracle every time.

6. You’ve worked with a lot of photographers on their business cards, how did you become so enmeshed in the photography community and is there a particular reason why photographers might be interested in letterpress and in your work in particular?

A: I really don’t know. Word of mouth mostly I think. I’m so happy about it though. Photographers and I seem to be in some way on the same wavelength, something about the craft/art intersection, I am not sure. A lot of them bring their already designed logos in and a lot of them want me to design for them. I have a huge regard for photography as an art form and it is thrilling to see these artists and the work they do. I love going into their web sites and “getting” them and their vibes and bringing that into the cards and stationery I do for them, talking to them...it’s a very personal interaction. They realize that it’s such a competitive business that having a card that really distinguishes them from others is a huge boon to bringing in the right clients and type of work. You want to be remembered and the texture/third dimension of letterpress, the super thick, luxurious papers...famously memorable.

7. You’re a big proponent of the continued use of printed stationery in today’s digital society. Of course a well designed and elegantly printed letterhead, thank you card etc. makes a much more sophisticated and often more professional impression. Do you think it gets harder to convince younger generation of the value
of this, or have you been seeing a resurgence in interest for well designed and printed stationary?

A: I think it’s both/and… Email, Facebook, all the developments in social networking have their undisputed places in the world, without a doubt. Blogs are de rigeur. I love my blog like mad! But there are times when a hand written note is an absolute must, and having your own name on some fabulous paper makes a difference somehow in the quality or seeming importance of the sentiments expressed. Sending a note to a client you just had a meeting with, a condolence to a friend who is having a hard time, or even, once in a while, an invitation to a dinner for friends, hand written on a beautiful correspondence card seems in these days a much more personal system of communication. How exciting is it to get a letter in the mail? When was the last time? I am probably the WORST correspondent by this means, so I don’t want to give the impression that I set aside Sundays to write my correspondences. But I definitely believe in sending certain missives through the mail. It is civilized. I don’t try to convince people usually, they just seem to know this and try to get at least Script Cards and Envelopes with their business cards. May I just say too that really beautifully designed and printed invitations to big events in one’s life set a tone of so much more importance. People get very excited about getting something really gorgeous in the mail. Makes them want to go because it seems so special.

8. Besides projects like wedding invitations and business cards, what other interesting outlets might there be for your specialization?  (Wine labels? other things?)

A: We do a certain number of wine labels in my shop, particularly for Chance Creek Winery. Most wineries are going to rolls but we still do individual ones for Lou Bock. We do other packaging materials here too. We just finished Mondavi Winery’s 2009 Christmas cards, which Margrit Mondavi designs. We do some broadsides. And because I’m a poet too, I will put out a broadside occasionally of my own work. One of the many benefits of having your own print shop. We make incredible invitations for events and weddings, fundraisers. Although I have seen the scope of work in Letterpress morph over the years, I know there is still a mighty place for this beautiful, magical process. People invariably talk about that, about the power it has to attract attention, curiosity and wonder.

9. What does your studio and your work space look like (pictures?) and does your locale of Mendocino County influence your state of mind in any way that influences your work?

Oh, I do think so, I think Mendocino County attracts a certain type of person and I am that type. I have lived here since 1972. Perched right on the edge of the continent, walking distance to the Pacific Ocean, more beauty per square inch than you can imagine ... it all accounts for a certain riskiness in thinking and acting, don’t you think? So there are a zillion fantastic artists, writers, poets, dancers, painters, musicians, progressives, activists, free thinkers, mavericks, outlaws and renegades around here. How could a little letterpress apprentice start a business and keep it going for 25 years without the support of a community of like minded wild haired ex hippies? The fact that the shop has a roster of national and even international clients has something to do with the magnetism of that mindset, perhaps. I don’t know for sure. I like to think so.

My shop is in an old Victorian house on Main Street, in Fort Bragg. I understand it used to be a brothel a long time ago, but then a lot of houses in Fort Bragg have that distinction. I bought it around 1989 or ‘90. In 1995, we lifted up the whole building doubled the space with a second floor downstairs. It is very cute, my little shop… 2200 square feet, full of light from the old, old windows that bow and wobble the view. When we remodeled it for the print shop, we had to beef up the floors tremendously to hold all the machinery and lead type. It is a super strong building, even though it’s probably almost 100 years old. Full of type cases and my presses, the paper cutter, paper all over the place, desks, computers. It seems very lively in here most of the time somehow. There is so much creativity floating around. I love it.

10. Now that you are celebrating your twenty-fifth anniversary, how do you see the future for your business, what are some things you might want to keep doing, do differently or start completely anew in this next phase?

A: Well...we are having a big party on November 6th to celebrate this kind of breathtaking event—twenty-five years is a pretty stunning deal. The party is called a Wayzgoose. You can go look it up in the OED or you can go to my blog and there is some description of the history of Wayzgooses of days gone by and of our particular form of Wayzgoose. We are inviting all our clients and people from the community to come and celebrate with us. We serve Champagne and Beans. We will have hurdy gurdy music and display our decades of work all over the place and it’s going to be a big mob scene. I can’t wait. I have to go bake some cookies for it right now. I wish you could come to it, too!

I think there is going to be a lot more design work in the future. The ad campaigns I have been doing for Mendocino County, the Mendocino Music Festival, and many others are getting rave reviews, and I do love that work. It engages my creative brain tremendously, which is the thing I live for. I think the letterpress part is going to continue to grow, actually. I am pretty dedicated to that. I feel that so many young people are appreciating the way letterpress looks and acts that it is only just starting to thrive as it should again. What a crazy thing, though, no? A five-hundred-year-old craft that is so very trendy.

I might want to sell my shop at some point in the next five years too, perhaps staying on as a consultant, perhaps letting it evolve into the next phase without me. I need to polish up my crystal ball. There are many recent book arts graduates who have such amazing ideas and love for the art form. Lots of new letterpress card lines and whatnot that just knock you out.

In any event, it’s been my lifelong passion, obsession… something like breathing or a heartbeat, and I don’t see that going away entirely. It’s part of who I am. I think you will find this to be true of almost everyone who has done this work. It gets in the muscles of the fingers and behind the eyelids, it’s like blood and water and air, a necessity of life.

Zida’s website can be found at http://www.studio-z.com/
You can see more images of her shop here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/meloukhia/sets/72157605577207188/

Additional design credits:
All design by Studio Z except for:
Table4Weddings by Jason Huang and Andre Chan.
Warren MacCormack by Bomi Kim.
Troy Covey by Troy Covey.
Gavin Wade by Ross Tanner.