A lifestyle _ cards
A card to
remember
By Raed Rafei and Jackie Snow
A 180
Some mornings, Robert Warner
takes an Ibuprofen before going
to work. The craftsman does take
pleasure in printing cards every
day, but he sometimes needs
painkillers for his right knee. “At
55, it’s not bending as easily as it
once did,” he says.
Warner uses his knee for
pumping treadles of manually
operated, 19th-century
letterpress machines. He
hand prints everything from
stationery to notebooks at
Bowne & Co. Stationers, a
shop in downtown Manhattan
owned by the South Street
Seaport Museum. Christmas
and Valentine’s Day are Warner’s
busiest periods. Around those
times, he prints thousands of
holiday, greeting and love cards.
Letterpress is a printing method
that dates back to Gutenberg in
the 15th century. The printing
uses reusable blocks with
engraved images and texts.
The blocks are set in a machine
with ink and paper and pressed
together, leaving an imprint of
the block on the paper. Each
print is unique, with ink settling
differently on every card.
“People appreciate the hand
quality of the printing. It leaves a
slight kiss to the page,” he says.
Warner uses designs from the
museum’s collection that date
back to the 1800s. Once the
press is set up, he can print 400
cards an hour at top speed. After
the ink dries, Warner carefully
sprinkles a pinch of glitter on
some of the cards as a final
touch. He then leaves them to
dry on racks behind the counter.
For Valentine’s Day, he prints
hundreds of cards depicting
things like cupids, hearts and
flowers. One of the most popular
motives is that of the word
“love,” featuring the letters LO
– with the O tilted sideways –
stacked over the letters VE, as it
is depicted in Robert Indiana’s
famous Manhattan sculpture.
Warner says his clients like
celebrating special occasions
©Raed Rafei, Jackie Snow
One store in
New York
still creates
greeting
cards
the oldfashioned
way
traditionally – including writing
and receiving letters. After the
shop closed for seven months in
2011 because of a budget crisis
at the Seaport Museum, his loyal
patrons came in with cookies
and sent wine at the reopening
last October.
For Valentine’s Day, Warner plans
to hold a workshop where people
will make unique gifts for their
loved ones. They will design their
own cards by assembling several
print pieces into a collage of motifs.
Bowne & Co. cards cost $3 each,
comparable to the price of massproduced cards. The store has no
website, and cards are not sold
anywhere online.
181 A