Zeichen Press – Page 19 – Design & Letterpress for the people.

Where’s my unpaid intern?

WHERE??? If I have to work on this�catalog layout for�10 more seconds I’m going to quit my job. I will instantly rehire myself just so I can quit again. This could go on for days. Of COURSE I couldn’t just work with the catalog copy �in Adobe InDesign – I HAD to use a WWII era typewriter. A Smith-Corona Skyriter to type in each individual bit of information about all 100 products.�What is wrong with me?

�

I actually�cheated�in “keyboarding I AND II” in high school. Don’t ask me how. DON’T ASK ME.�

Jen is just dying to say, “I told you so.” Just shut up, Jen. Why must �you take the place of my underdeveloped sensibilities?

January 8, 2009
Waist-deep snow

Day Two. ��Snow fell through the night and drifted into the passage. The women and children are weaker today. Kenneth is ailing and must be dragged on a make-shift sledge. Robert appears to be delusional and only can speak of thick-cut bacon and death metal. The dogs are starting to look delicious, especially the fluffy one. We are, most certainly, in a predicament.

��

Um, here’s a new card – inspired by the men, women, and children that ventured West .

The Donner (Birthday) Party

January 4, 2009
I’ll tell you what

Uh. December is, like, over. I don’t even care. Good riddance you ungrateful pig. You think you’re so great with your Christmas and your Hanukkah and your Britney Spears’ birthday. I’ve had it. I think we all have. Even with all of these Feast Days I managed to squeeze in our long-awaited catalog creation. And don’t think I forgot about my�25-birthday-cards. Self-imposed deadlines are the only way to get anything done. You know what else works? Pretending someone is going to kill you if you don’t get something done. SO, I scrounged up some images and wrote some lines. Yeah, yeah – I’ve not set the type or done layouts or pulled any proofs – mere formalities. And anyway, my shop elves will do it while I’m ringing in the New Year in lovely Brainerd, Minnesota. Here are a few images/lines – they’ll be 15% funnier after I’ve had my way with them. And another thing: they’re not all birthday cards. I’m not some sort of one-trick pony.

You make this, you live.

Good luck.

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Shhhh. Nobody’ll even notice us.

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Eh? What’s that? Whose birthday? Who are you? Get out of my room.

�

��Happy Birthday, you tool.

…and in conclusion – quit calling me a pussy.

Sincerely,

Pevenshire Wiffynuts

x=get me the f*ck out of here.

Congratulations.

I said, CONGRATULATIONS!

If you’re old enough to remember this game
you are probably sitting in your own urine.

Thanks for coming to my birthday party, my tiny friends.

��

Alright, that’ll do. I’ll post more after the elves work it out. Oh, and if you see a woman running around Brainerd in giant underpants and Sorel Boots it’s not me. Happy New Year!!!

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December 31, 2008
No-Coast and a stock pot

Good Lord, what a day! I got up at the crack o’ eight – Jen picked me up and brought me to the MidTown Market to hawk our goods. It was the No-Coast Craft-o-Rama! We were pretty much SiameseTwins – due to my crippling Math Anxiety, I can’t be left alone to make change for a twenty. I welcome your prayers. I smiled lots and said, “four�dollars” or “five�dollars” whenever I felt like it. Sometimes it was in response to a customer’s question. Here are some customers: notice their intense cheerfulness:

I did manage to step away from our table to find a crinkly cat bag for My Mother-in-Law. She’s gonna frickin’ love it. Those cats are gonna thank me by walking by me and not noticing I exist. It’ll be one awesome Christmas.

…Fast forward, like, eight hours and I found myself at a delightful Holiday Party. I think it was in Plymouth. Anyway, the halls were decked, the booze was flowing. The booze was flowing. In retrospect, I don’t think it all wanted to be in�my�body. I’m not sure why, at the time, I thought it did want to be in there. And honestly, there wasn’t a lot of �room, what with all the�spanakopita�. I was planning on giving it all up in a stock pot that Katie generously donated to the car. I felt the love. I did make it home, with a clean stock pot, and Kenny dumped me into bed. He was like a hunter and I was like a deer carcass. The bed was the pick-up truck. It was so much fun. I dragged my sorry arse out of bed this morning to for churching. The stock pot is a symbol of one woman’s redemption. So much can happen in a day.

PS: Did you know that 80’s glasses are back in style?? You crazy kids!

December 7, 2008
SO. MANY. WORDS.

Three 10″x15″ iron chases locked up with�Touchpoint�Buzzwords. Buzzwords and some other random cuts from the ZP collection – including a chunk from a newspaper insert advertising handy items for the ladies: A rubber-lined shopping bag available in gay plaids, a multi-tiered clothes hanger, a cap to protect the hairdo. What I wouldn’t give to have those items. My drab, rain-soaked groceries… My closet, crammed full! How could I be hanging my clothes on ONE plane? My hair, My God, my hair… I don’t even know where to start. I get a “do” and leave it�completely�unprotected. It’s like I don’t even care! Oh. Back to the Touchpoint Holiday Card/Disc Sleeve. It’s super sweet:

December 3, 2008
SO. MANY. WORDS.

�Three 10″x15″ iron chases locked up with Touchpoint Buzzwords. Buzzwords and some other random cuts from the ZP collection – including a chunk from a newspaper insert advertising handy items for the ladies: A rubber-lined shopping bag available in gay plaids, a multi-tiered clothes hanger, a cap to protect the hairdo.

What I wouldn’t give to have those items. My drab, rain-soaked groceries… My closet, crammed full! How could I be hanging my clothes on ONE plane? My hair, My God, my hair… I don’t even know where to start. I get a “do” and leave it completely unprotected. It’s like I don’t even care!

Oh. Back to the Touchpoint Holiday Card/Disc Sleeve. It’ super sweet:

Touchpoint Cd Sleeve

Touchpoint Cd Sleeve

Touchpoint Cd Sleeve

Touchpoint Cd Sleeve

December 3, 2008

Gratitude For Summer Intern Expressed Through Semaphore (Etc.)

I wrapped myself in bacon yesterday for a phone interview with�Mpls. St. Paul magazine.

I was, I’m sure,�delicious.

She wanted to talk about�the new book�but I wanted to talk about the last episode of Long Island Medium.

She said she was too “busy” to talk about what I wanted to talk about.�What? Too busy to care??

Moving on:

Zeichen Press found a new intern and she already promised to fold my laundry. I’ll give her this new card as soon as she puts my clothes away:

June 4, 2013
This Blog Post Would Be Better If It Was Wrapped In Bacon

I live on a farm so I can swim through my gold coin-filled silos like Uncle Scrooge McDuck. My latest money-making scheme is sure to fill its very own silo: A downloadable collection of our cards turned cartoons!�

I’ve requested that royalties be paid in gold doubloons.

Download yours today!

May 26, 2013
Hey, You Got Your Nature In My Peanut Butter

Clip-clop-clip-clop… I watched her gracefully stroll down 28th Street. She, a 125 pound White Tailed Deer, came towards me on the sidewalk. Her head turned left and right, taking in the scenery like a tourist. I sat as still as a frightened rabbit, hoping she would mistake me for something non-threatening. The air was perfectly calm and the smoke from my cigarette rose straight into the sky. Oh, but she noticed me! We were locked in a staring contest for what felt like forever, and then she bounced away. Faster than I knew a deer could run, she bounded across Hennepin Avenue.And a bear wandered up to a strip mall last week in Cottage Grove. I felt it should be commemorated.

May 20, 2013
Please Like This

It�s time to free ourselves from the shackles of this social networking monster.

We are ignorant prisoners, dragging our metal cups across the bars while our warden�stuffs his fat face with naturally-cased wieners.

We are school children, wandering like�Wii avatars, waiting for the bell to ring only to be called in to diagram sentences.

We are the Israelites�crushed by our taskmasters, waiting for the supernatural smiting of the Egyptians.

Rise up, people. Stop rowing the slave ship.�The candy tasted�so good�before we got in the van, but�now we must be deprogrammed. Make no mistake about it � this is some sort of Stockholm Syndrome.�Oh, the candy� so sweet, so forbidden, so Turkish-Delighty.

Damn you, Facebook!

I�ve�flushed my precious time down the toilet. Time I�ll never get back. Just like the year I got hooked on Party�of Five � those orphaned Salingers led by their gorgeous brother/carpenter, Matthew Fox�

Oh, but it�s done�now. No point in looking back. Friend requests, status updates, profile pictures � word combinations unwittingly�added to the English lexicon!

I�ve got a word for you:�insidious.

Never has there been such a tool, such a divisive tool.�It wears a party hat and mixes the strongest drinks, watching the party-goers behave like jackasses.�Why?

Ask son-of-a-dentist/billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. Mr. Zuckerberg was unavailable for comment during�the writing of this, and it�s no wonder. He�s in Palo Alto, counting his drug money. I�m booking a flight to Palo Alto�and am either going to personally punch him in the face or flatter him until he hires me as his �personal secretary.��The second scenario is obviously more lucrative. The point is, I will no longer be in this creepy symbiotic�relationship.

I will be free. (cue the MLK footage)

May 11, 2013
Living Near the Edge-ish

Print shops are full of danger.

Hands mangled, digits lost, clothes torn right off of bodies… (I better fact-check that last one).

Zeichen Press is no exception.

Behold:Look if you must.�Sometimes it is better to face the painful, it desensitizes the mind.

That’s good, right?

Because I am so committed to my craft, I (by “I”, I mean “my son”) squished the spider, and finished laying out this card:Mother’s Day is coming up but you don’t have to get your mom a card.

May 3, 2013
Ever-Expanding Empire

Three new rep groups this Spring.

THREE.

These new (lucky) states are: Virginia, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and New Mexico. Each rep gets a box of goodies, packed by Jen:

I bet that’s a lot of work.

I wish I could help but I’m too busy watching Pam watch kittens on televison while I lay in bed.

I DID write/design some new cards � I’ve heard that laughing is as good for your body as eating so I plan to airdrop some new cards to the starving people in the world.

I’m sure they’ll be grateful.�

April 26, 2013
Safe To Molt Now

Has Science gone too far?

Days and nights blurred as the scientist toiled alone � well, not exactly alone � his companions (experiments) lived in a collection of cages. His laboratory (pronounced:�lah-boooar-atory) was nestled between the Russkoe Slovo Bookshop and the hydro-electric plant in Krasnoyarsk.�

His mission?

To create super-species. Behold his first success… and his new friend:Well, congratulations Doctor Hvorostovsky!

And now on to my creations:

(not nearly as controversial)

April 25, 2013
Such Strong Language

But how can I be tame when I am thrust into such an atmosphere?�I have only one thing to say:

April 23, 2013
Purgatorio di Pesce

That sounds delicious!

If Spring would come I wouldn’t be forced to sit here and email sell sheets to hundreds of newspapers around the country.�I won’t complain about the weather because that’s about as interesting as listening to someone list their health problems. But I WILL say this:

If I lived in Hawaii, there’d be no Zeichen Press.

See, I can always find the blessing in disguise.Oh fine, here’s a new card � inspired by the endless Winter:

April 21, 2013
Always Winter but never Christmas (or Spring)

The woman gazes through her window. A window covered in dog-drool, a window with a view of only one season: Winter. She stares, slack-jawed, at the slow parade of life.

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the Twilight Zone.

SERIOUSLY?!?

April 17, 2013