Starshaped Press

@starshapedpress.bsky.social

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Celebrating 26 years of metal & wood type letterpress work. Love to share the process, forms and printing adventures. Jen & Jo. Starshaped.com

Wood type inked and magnetted to a printing press that says in reverse ‘we rock Chicago!’
Angled close up of a print on Kraft paper made with metal type ornaments to resemble a Polaroid camera. Says SMILE in rainbow colors at the top.
Light blue long skinny print with blue text about hot dogs using Chicago aphorisms. Sitting on a printing press.
Yellow inked wood type ampersand.
Both old and new wood type in a similar style, next to a line gauge.
Type form locked in chase, ready to be moved to press.
Card with the Wendell Berry quote: Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
Wooden box of brass printing rule and lines and shapes for printing.
Two galleys full of metal type ornaments set to be proofed.
Print showing the combo of window and plant cut forms.
Close up of metal type ornaments and Linotype border slides that together make up a print meant to resemble a window with plants.
Small red print resting on proof press that has the Obama quote ‘I’m from Chicago. We don’t break’.
Close up of ornate metal ornaments in a box.
Close up of type form used to create the print.
Full print view of typewriter made from metal type and ornaments with publications and accolades for Patrick Radden Keefe used to make up that different elements.
Close up of metal type alphabetically in a box.
Provisional press set up with metal type to print that says ‘made in Chicago’
Close up of print that says ‘today I shall have the confidence of a cta bus driver’. Meant to resemble cross stitch samplers with a small modular bus image.
Small broadside sitting on top of type form that lists: dovetail brewery, Starshaped press and Midwest nice. Has date of June 5, 6-8 pm with address.
Wood type for the print, inked in color.
Rainbow colored print that says ‘all my agendas are gay’.
First angles type form for Ida posters. On press.
Poster for ‘Ida Duo’ with tour dates. Resembles quilt patterns made from modular metal type ornaments. 4 colors.
Gold inked metal type form in the sun.
Three prints alongside a vintage cut with art for Chicagos works fair in 1933.
Close up of metal type screws and pins ornaments.
Wood and metal type form, reversed to be reading. Lists Dovetail Brewery, Starshaped Press and Midwest Nice.
Large metal type ornament form on a galley with sun reflecting on it.
Freshly printed prints on the receiving board of a platen press, with type form on the press to print.
Galley with metal type forms and carbon paper proofs of those forms.
Reversed image of inked wood type that says We Rock! Chicago in colors of the Chicago flag.
Reversed to be read image of metal type set that reads ‘a comfort to the widow, a light to the child, there is power in a union’.
Metal type form for the eye card.
Red card with text set like an eye chart, featuring an eye image at top that reads ‘(eye) am so glad we are friends’.
Close up of metal type fonted up in a galley.
Cover of 1938 specimen book of printing typed for use in the Chicago public schools. Red cover with ornamental patterns.
Kraft paper print that says You Measure Up in dark brown ink with angled images of rulers forming a pattern underneath.
Print featuring Dickens quote: The Printer. Without him, tyrants and humbugs in all countries would have their own way. He is a friend of intelligence and thought, a friend of liberty, of freedom, of law, indeed, the friend of every man who is a friend of order. Of all inventions, of all discoveries in science and art, of all the great results in the wonderful progress of mechanical energy and skill, the printers is the only product of civilization necessary to the existence of free men.
Tiny metal catchwords locked in a composing stick for letterpress printing.
Close up of two sided print showing letterpress printing on one side and an offset printed back side showing the type form used to print it.
Close up of spacing material for letterpress printing that shows labels of type foundries cast into it.
Close up of the metal animal faces.
A large poster with blocky type that features the Melvin quote ‘our animals make us better people. And if we’re better people, the world’s a better place’.
Type specimen book sitting on top of cases or metal type ornaments.
Palm sized printing press in green.
Small palm sized cast iron printing press.
Small, half height type printing press fitting in a palm.
Small sigwalt printing press fitting in the palm of a hand.
Metal type form for one of the stars.
Close up of print with two of four Chicago stars built from metal type and ornaments. They feature buildings with text ‘community’ and ‘education’.
Type form image of the print.
Close up of print in blue and brown inks on white paper. Says ‘we are all just figuring it out’ in cross stitch-style type with an ornate border.
Metal type form with borders around text in the middle that says ‘doing my best’.
‘A lifetime of living with chronic illness makes patients and caregivers the experts regarding their specific condition. You’re a team member, not the captain. Have the courage to say ‘I don’t know.’
Flat card laying on top of letterpress forms used to print it that has the Diane de Prima quote ‘no one way works, it will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down’.
Close up of quoins and key and line gauge on top of a locked up form of metal and wood type for letterpress printing.
MacBook sitting on top of 1962 vandercook proof press.
Interior of typecase that uses recycled wood with an old ad on it from Chicago.
Closeup of box of metal type ornaments in rows.
Field Notes branded cardboard box with ornamental designs printed in red all over it, sitting on top of cases of metal type ornaments.