Love Poetry Broadsides for Brain Mill Press

Now that the Etsy shop is closed up, I’m excited to share some of the commissions I’ve been working on! Truth be told, this project has consumed so much brain power over the last few months that I thought I’d already written about the first edition, but it turns out I haven’t, so here goes!

You all remember the limited edition of sweet little blind emboss prints I created for Brain Mill Press earlier this year, right? (If not, guess what? There’s a link right up there ^ ) Brain Mill Press is an independent publishing house in Wisconsin, started just a few years ago by two incredible women. They publish prose and poetry that offers an authentic view on the human experience—especially love. Please don’t let your mind go to tacky romance novels, though, these are incredible works by accomplished and novice writers alike.

Each publication is printed first in a fine art first edition, which comes with a special gift for the first 100 pre-orders. For a series of four poetry chapbooks, that special gift is a broadside designed and printed by yours truly!

Each print features a commissioned illustration by Ann O’Connell and an excerpt from a poem hand-set in lead type. By some luck or fate, I just happened to have a font of lead type that is very similar to a typeface they were already using on their website! The drawer was fairly well stocked—meaning I have a lot of letters—but the poems were longer than I expected, so I ended up having to print each one in several sections as I ran out of certain characters, which was a bit of a challenge.

Tanka, Seaborgium and The Presentation are finished and delivered, and I have one more to print in early January! I just love how they’ve turned out so far, I roughed up a digital design before I began each one, but nothing compares to the letterpress printed project: The paper is so luxe, the type has a great bite… they’re lovely. In fact, I’m considering hanging an extra Artist’s Proof (the not-quite-perfect prints that didn’t make it into the edition) of all four in our guest bedroom!

I will be finished with this project in about a month, so if you’re interested in commissioning something similar, please get in touch!