The photos here show how we printed the “`Twas The Night Before Christmas” Chapbooks for distribution with our 2010 Christmas cards. The project started in July with a layout and prototype, which was modified several times. When the mockup was ready in October, we began setting type, over 3,000 characters plus about 1,000 pieces of leading and spacing to make the chapbook. Paper was selected, and cut. We used Reich Savoy natural white 100% cotton 80# text for the body pages and Neenah Linen 80# cover in chili red for the wraps. Originally we were going to use a combination of red and green Fabriano Elle Erre wraps, but a mis-print caused us to scrap nearly $100 worth of paper and seek alternative cover stock to complete the project. Such is the life of a printer...
The photos below show various galleys of standing type, printing of the body pages, creasing of papers on the press using matrix and rule, and early efforts at collation and binding. Lest you think we wasted a good copy with our goofing around in the garden, this particular copy was a mock up of the binding and one of the sheets had a significant flaw in the paper which made the copy worthless for our limited, numbered edition. We printed a Christmas card to match.
