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Portraits By William Dietrich
Day Moon / Pressing On, The Old-Fashioned Way
Newer, bigger, faster is the American corporate mantra. Then there's Seattle's Day Moon Press, which uses centuries-old technology, has no listed phone number, no Web site, no business card, no identifying sign on its storefront — and is quietly thriving. Sometimes quality counts, too. Day Moon is a letterpress shop, meaning it uses raised metal letters and wood or linoleum block prints for one-sheet-at-a-time printing not much different than what Ben Franklin used to do. Such presses have been largely replaced with offset, which uses a photographic process, or even laser and inkjet printers. The Seattle Times, for example, uses offset presses. So why do artists, musicians, poets, designers or those wanting particularly distinctive wedding announcements, seek word-of-mouth Day Moon? The press's combination of handcrafted papers, hand-pressed printing and careful design consultation produces a tactile look, a depth, unavailable by more modern methods. Maura Shapley, 51, and husband Jack LeNoir, 59, are not Luddites disdainful of new technology. LeNoir helps support the business (where profit runs a modest $3,000 to $11,000 per year) by working in an offset business. He also uses computer software to help generate the design of some of the illustration ink blocks. But the smell of ink, the thump and roll of heavy steel, and the wet sheets drying on a long table are evocative. "The people who come to us want something out of the ordinary," LeNoir says. "Besides," he jokes, "Martha Stewart said letterpress is the way to go." "Letterpress is in vogue right now," agrees Shapley, who has been keeping the process alive in the present location for a quarter century, with a collection of nine antique presses together weighing in the neighborhood of 12 tons. The couple and their two daughters, ages 13 and 15, occupy a 1929-era Beacon Hill storefront with aged beams and worn tile. Their cozy home, filled with books, musical instruments and a 1920s stove, is in the story above. "I really wanted a family, really wanted a business, and really wasn't going to commute," Maura says. So the in-house print shop was a perfect solution. The work is hard but tangibly satisfying, using inks so rare that they are sometimes decades old. The pair has taught a number of apprentices to carry on the letterpress tradition. You can see examples of Day Moon's 25 years of work on exhibit through Oct. 28 at Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers, 208 First Ave. S., open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. And the secret shop? If you want to find them, try 206-721-0064. Just don't tell them where you got the number.
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