Welcome to the world of Nightfire Press!
It's a fun little world, where a century-old machine (plus several hundred pounds of metal type, ink, and magnesium engravings) helps a modern girl come alive.

All cards and coasters are hand-printed using an antique letterpress like the one pictured to the left.

That's right, no motorized machines for us! It provides the closest thing to exercise that we ever manage to get, so your interest in and purchase of our cards actually contributes to our health and well-being. Doesn't that make you feel good about yourself?

Letterpress is a relief printing process in which raised reverse-reading type or images are inked to produce a right-reading print on paper; the pressure of the press can result in an impression in the paper, depending on the softness of the paper and the pressure of the press.

Although the current style is to have a deep impression on the paper, so that the impression can be easily felt and the visual effect is 3-dimensional, this is not what was considered good printing practice in the past, when letterpress was in its heyday. Why not? It puts a lot of wear on or even break metal type, which is expensive and sometimes hard to find. A press can be damaged by using too much pressure (and since new presses are no longer being made, we don't want to damage ours!).

And think about it -- can you imagine trying to read a book when one side of the page shows the impression from the other?

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