Project Description

Self-promotion is never an easy task, especially if you're Australian. Though we live in an age of rampant online narcissism, we also lived in a country with a national pastime of pathological self-deprecation. So creating a printed self-promotional piece for our own studio presented its fair share of creative challenges.

"Letterpress Queen" is the affectionate nickname clients and friends have given to Amy Constable; Saint Gertrude founder and chief printmaker. Even now that the studio has grown, she still lays her eyes over ever printed piece that leaves the building. This project was a chance to really flex the print muscles, showcasing both the fine-tuned skills she uses every day, while exploring new and experimental uses for letterpress.

Produced in collaboration with lettering girl group The Letterettes, the piece was conceptualized and art directed by Amy Constable with lettering by Kate Pullen, Carla Hackett, Eliza Svikulis and Wanissa Somsuphangsri. The design brief was to create four Queens as oversize A5 playing cards and a fifth Ace to tell the story of Saint Gertrud and round out the 'hand'. Each Queen represents and showcases a different skill or speciality and highlights the many strengths letterpress offers to print as a medium. They are also produced using an array of different paper stocks and in this way it acts both as self-promotion, swatch book and inspiration guide for recipients. Letterpress Queen was a slow burn, taking most of 2016 to produce. Nearly 6 months in the concept and design phase, a solid 8 weeks in production and after a brief break, a further 4 weeks in finishing.