Interview with Bespoke Letterpress Boutique

It was a delight to interview Alischa Herrmann about the BEAUTIFUL work she’s producing over at Bespoke Letterpress Boutique. With the help of her three printing beasts – Charlie the 1893 Chandler & Price, Helga and Herbie the 1972 and 1932 Heidelberg T Platens – Bespoke Letterpress designs and prints couture wedding stationery, and a line of stationery. Alischa is quite often found at all hours of the day and weekend in her studio, and sometimes quite literally up to her elbows in ink.Having worked in a range of design studios and with several years now running Bespoke Letterpress, Alischa has a good background from which to share and teach. She also lectures a couple of times a week at Shillington College in Brisbane.

Alischa is also the Brisbane coordinator for the Finders Keepers markets. In fact…Bespoke Letterpress will be at the upcoming markets this weekend! You can see, touch and feel the stationery, gift tags, inspirational prints and many more goodies at the upcoming markets.

And if you can’t wait that long… Bespoke have a great online store! For ongoing updates, visit their website and blog.

Bespoke Letterpress studio in Brisbane. Photo by Feather and Stone Photography.

Here’s a great little snapshot of the studio in action…

See more of Alischa Herrmann’s work and read more artist interviews.

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2915" title="BP_new-swing-tags" src="http://designmontage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/BP_new-swing-tags.jpg" alt="" width="430" height="339" /><br /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2923" title="BP_yoong-Lilia" src="http://designmontage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/BP_yoong-Lilia1.jpg" alt="" width="430" height="283" /><br /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2917" title="BP_Rachel&Stirling" src="http://designmontage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/BP_RachelStirling.jpg" alt="" width="430" height="287" /></p> <h2>How have you got to where you are today?</h2> <p>Ever since I can remember I was always designing something. I can remember back to when I was about 10 and I realised that I could design and make things and others would like them so much they would buy them! I used to make friendship bracelets and decorated hair clips which girls at my school would buy for their friends. When I was about 13 I had a car boot sale to sell Christmas decorations which I had lovingly made, and as I got older the more and more things I would make and create.</p> <p>In my final year of school I was offered a scholarship at a highly regarded design school in Sydney. From there I spent many years working in graphic design studios and later on lecturing on design at <a title="Shillington College" href="http://www.shillingtoncollege.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shillington College</a>.</p> <p><span style="color: #d2232a;">During this time my addiction for letterpress was fast developing and I launched Bespoke Letterpress in 2007. Although I still do lecture two nights a week, the rest of my time is spent designing, mixing ink and letterpress printing with my lovely assistants in the studio.</span></p> <h2>In a few words, describe yourself…</h2> <p>Passionate, Perfectionist, Focused.</p> <h2>What are you spending your time on at the moment?</h2> <p>We are in peak wedding season at the moment designing and printing for Autumn 2012 weddings, also with Christmas just around the corner we are busy working on our 2011 Christmas range.</p> <p>We are constantly working on new letterpress products and pushing ourselves to come up with new and gorgeous stationery ideas. We have just also branched out into our first non letterpress stationery range of gorgeous double sided gift wrap.</p> <h2>Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process?</h2> <p>Not really, I tend just to live and sleep thinking about design.</p> <p><span style="color: #d2232a;">Quite often I tend to mull sit on ideas and let them evolve and form in my head, then I will get a sudden moment of focused determination to sit down and design the idea. Quite often I won’t move off my chair for hours until the design is perfect.</span></p> <h2>What or who inspires you?</h2> <p>I think that life in general, quite often I will see something in nature, walk into a room or see a shape which resonates with me. Currently I am loving Pinterest for its visual eye candy and find it a great way to waste a few hours getting inspired!</p> <h2>What are you most proud of?</h2> <p>Following my dream and never loosing sight. There are many letterpress studios popping up these days, often they have very little experience and do not have the knowledge on how to best care for their presses and how to print true to the craftsmanship. I am proud of the way that I learnt letterpress and began very humbly learning from the very start, slowly building my skills and learning the craft before I could consider and sell myself a “letterpress printer”. It has been a long, hard and painful journey, however I am proud to look back and see that I have followed the path which was true to my heart and true to the craft.</p> <h2>When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?</h2> <p>Back as a kid I didn’t know the term “designer”, I was always creative and people always assumed that I wanted to be an artist. It wasn’t until my later teens when I learnt about all the different forms of design and knew this was for me! Except for the strange spell when I wanted to be a physiotherapist… Don’t ask me why, I think I just liked the long word.</p> <div id="better-author-bio-div"> <div class="better-author-bio-div-info"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.designmontage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/JenicaAvatar_60x60.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="" class="avatar avatar-60 wp-user-avatar wp-user-avatar-60 photo avatar-default" /></p> <h4>Written by Jenica Smith</h4> <p class="better-author-bio-div-meta">Passionate about storytelling, design and creativity, Jenica is a Brisbane-based digital designer and founder of Design Montage. Follow on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/designmontage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">twitter</a>.</p> <ul> <li class="first"><a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au/author/jenica_designwiz/"><br /> View all posts by Jenica Smith <span class="meta-nav">→</span> </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au" title="Read Jenica Smith’s blog">Blog</a></li> <li><a href="designmontage" title="Follow Jenica Smith on Twitter" rel="external">Twitter</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <p></p> <hr /> <footer class="article-footer"> <p class="tags"> <a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au/tag/graphic-design/" rel="tag">,Graphic Design</a> <a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au/tag/interview/" rel="tag">,Interview</a> <a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au/tag/letterpress/" rel="tag">,Letterpress</a> <a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au/tag/shillington-college/" rel="tag">,Shillington College</a> <a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au/tag/wedding-invitations/" rel="tag">,Wedding Invitations</a></p> </footer> <p> </p> <p></p> <h3 id="comments" class="h2"><span>One</span> Response to “Bespoke Letterpress Boutique [letterpress-design]”</h3> <nav id="comment-nav"> <ul class="clearfix"> <li></li> <li></li> </ul> </nav> <ol class="commentlist"> <li class="comment even thread-even depth-1"> <article id="comment-65" class="clearfix"> <header class="comment-author vcard"> <br /> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-gravatar="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/2570c2b8ef95e40d2a06508f09f09cfd?s=32" class="load-gravatar avatar avatar-48 photo" height="32" width="32" src="http://www.designmontage.com.au/wp-content/themes/DesignMontageCustom%28Bones%29/library/images/nothing.gif" /><br /> <br /> <cite class="fn">Dan</cite> <time datetime="2011-11-4"><a href="http://www.designmontage.com.au/2011/11/bespoke-letterpress-boutique-letterpress-design/#comment-65">November 4th, 2011 </a></time><br /> </header> <section class="comment_content clearfix">Awesome work. Gotta love really nicely done print. Wish web design could always be as refined.<br /> </section> </article> <p> </li> <p></ol> <nav id="comment-nav"> <ul class="clearfix"> <li></li> <li></li> </ul> </nav> <p>