About Us
Green Crown Press is a small letterpress and design studio based on Maui, Hawaii. We design stationery for every occasion: from life’s biggest events, to the smallest gesture of just reaching out, and everything in between. We love clean lines and simple designs that pay homage to the uniquely tactile nature of letterpress printing.
Hi! I’m Kylie: designer, printer, wearer of many hats. I was born and raised on Maui, and after living in California for a decade, recently moved back to my home town. My style is heavily inspired by nature and the tropical patterns and colors I grew up around.
After making my own wedding invitations (not letterpress!) to save some money, I fell in love with the process and decided I wanted to make wedding invitations and stationery for a living. Over the next few months, I researched the different avenues I could take to start my business, and came across a video of someone printing with an antique printing press - that was the “aha” moment for me. From there, Green Crown Press was born.
In December 2021, I (somewhat impulsively) bought Greta, a 1913 Golding Pearl press in Los Angeles before ever taking a letterpress class or having the slightest idea how to run a press, but it just felt like the right decision. We transported her up to Central California, and then recently, shipped her across the ocean to her permanent residence on Maui.
Like any old machine, she has her quirks. The beauty of these presses and this process is that each piece printed is one-of-a-kind. Learning this beautiful process, and creating meaningful and keep worthy products continues to be a rewarding experience.
What is Letterpress?
Letterpress printing is a centuries-old form of relief printing in which text or images are pressed into paper, creating a beautiful, tactile effect. Historically, individual metal or wooden type blocks were arranged to form each line of text. However, a modern resurgence has lended to the use of polymer plates, which allow for more creative freedom.
A Quick Guide to Our Process
All our designs are created digitally and sent to a plate maker to be made into polymer plates. These plates function similar to a stamp, in which empty space lays flat and a negative of the design is raised to be inked up and pressed into the paper.
The letterpress plates have an adhesive backing which adheres to a base locked into the press. Each plate is carefully positioned and measured to ensure that the design prints perfectly straight on the paper. When more than one color is used in a design, we take extra care to ensure that each color is perfectly aligned with the corresponding elements - this is called registration.
Each ink color is mixed by hand using the Pantone formula guide and loaded onto the press for printing. The nature of letterpress allows only one color to be printed at a time, so every color/plate requires its own pass through the press.
Once the press is adequately inked up and the plates are registered perfectly, each sheet of paper is hand fed through the press for printing. Throughout the printing process, we constantly make adjustments to ensure that the ink distribution and coverage stay consistent.
Any finishing touches are made once printing is complete. These include edge painting or cutting down to final size to ensure that each piece has crisp, clean edges.
The finished product boasts a distinct charm, with deep impressions, rich colors, and a tangible quality that engages the senses.