Gettin' our typeset down since 1879!

This is a view of the shop at Hatch from the back, and the wall on the right side is filled with over-sized wood type (anything bigger than 25 line, which won't fit in a case). The front of the shop is a store, where people can come in and buy posters and ephemera printed at the shop. It seems like tour groups come by the shop at least twice a day, since Hatch is considered a museum of sorts for Nashville Music. One of the tour guides (who coincidentally came in today), will point towards this giant wall of type and say "See? That's where they've been gettin' their typeset down since 1879!" (for those of you who aren't familiar with letterpress, 'typesetting' is the act of putting letters together to form words, and 'type' is the stuff we actually get down off those walls. Hilarious.)

So as a reference to this awesome tour guide, Brad printed these banners to wrap around posters people buy at the shop. Love it!

In other news, we seem to be winding down on the type striking, which is a tiny-relief for my eyes. These boards all had full set posters on them when we arrived on Monday, and Jim said he's never seen this many boards down at one time! (I think the five of us struck 35 posters in two days, kind of amazing for people who didn't know the shop at all when we started!)

I keep noticing things as I walk around the shop. This is towards the back, a kind of 'no mans land' of dead C&P's that don't work or aren't in use. If only I could take one home with me!

This is Huey, one of the Hatch Cats. This angle flatters him, but don't be fooled. He weighs about 18 pounds. He's also quite aloof. The other cat is all orange, and his name is Maow. He's super shy, I've only really seen him twice.

Every year Hatch makes a limited-edition t-shirt, and I bought this one for myself today (the 2010 version). So stoked on it!

In other news, I got an email today from Kristine at Cognition Studio in Seattle, one of the places I met with when I went up there over Spring Break looking for a job. She wants to offer me a three month paid internship! They were my number-one choice in Seattle, and though I thought I was going to stay in the Bay Area (mostly because I don't have the money to move up there yet), it would be amazing to be able to go! I'm still waiting to hear about the Chronicle Books Design Fellowship, but if I don't make it through to the finals I'm glad I have another job opportunity awaiting. Horay!