Lady of the letterpress: Thomas-Printers founder Kseniya Thomas preserves art of ink on paper
Kseniya Thomas and partner Erik Kraft of Thomas-Printers.
Thomas-Printers makes art out of printing the old-fashioned way.
Thomas-Printers' most often used letterpress printing press is the Original Heidelberg.
Kseniya Thomas, who studied her craft at the Gutenberg Museum in Germany, works in her letterpress studio at The Monarch.
Thomas-Printers' public-facing retail view from their studio at The Monarch.
“There is still nothing like seeing the printed page come off such beautiful old machines.”
Kseniya Thomas, who opened Thomas-Printers in 2005, said she loves the process as much as the finished product — “We’re a woman-owned, community-minded business that’s obsessed with ink on paper.”
The full-service commercial letterpress print shop housed inside The Monarch — its first time in a public space — is making more use of the public-facing part of their shop for retail in 2021. Thomas said being at The Monarch pushed them to create a greeting card line.
“Even though more and more of our lives happen online, people have held on to a need for handmade, well-made goods, especially for important life events like weddings,” Thomas said. Whether it be wedding invitations, business cards, greeting cards or “anything else that needs the touch of letterpress,” people love the tactile nature of the letterpress, according to Thomas. “Clients can also call us or come to the shop and see their invitations or cards being made, which is a rare and delightful thing.”
Thomas-Printers explains on their website: “Letterpress and love are often said in the same breath. It’s easy to understand why: there are few things in life where we can be involved, from start to finish, in making a beautiful, useful product; meet committed, interesting people with each new project; and use triumphantly antique tools every day as well.”
Choosing print, they say, not only supports Thomas-Printers, “but also a whole ecosystem of other humans, from papermakers to plate makers to the postal worker who delivers the finished invitation.”
Thomas started learning her craft during a six-month internship at the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany. One of the oldest printing museums in the world and named after the inventor of the letterpress, Gutenberg Museum has a working letterpress-print shop, which Thomas chanced upon while on a fellowship to work and study in Germany post-college.
A few weeks later, she wrote to ask if they accepted interns (they did) and soon she was learning how to set type and print from retirees who’d spent entire careers in print shops. “The shop has hundreds of cases of type, and I could print whatever I wanted,” said Thomas. “It was enough to get my feet wet in the big lake of the letterpress, and after that, I was hooked.”
Thomas said her love for letterpress grew slowly but surely from 2002 onward. “I liked it right away because I liked typography and had fun putting that together in setting type by hand.”
She is the co-founder of Ladies of Letterpress, a worldwide organization with more than 3,000 members. “A friend and I started it in 2008 and wanted a place where all the new printers starting out could get information and ask questions, all the while meeting other printers and feeling a part of a community,” she said. “We also wanted them to really feel invested in the history and importance of what they were doing.”
After the internship in Germany was over and Thomas returned to the states, finding letterpress training was difficult, especially without a printmaking background. Filling this training gap is one of the reasons they started Ladies of Letterpress, which provides “a community where both brand-new and experienced printers can learn from one another, share resources and ideas, and help keep letterpress a thriving, exciting and multifaceted art and craft.”
Now headquartered in Ogden’s Nine Rails Creative District, Thomas-Printers is run by Thomas and her partner, who joined in 2015. “I started Thomas-Printers in about 2007 and was the solo-pilot until I met my now partner, Erik Kraft, who I’d hired in 2015 to redesign my website,” Thomas said. Now they work (and live) together full time with Kseniya on press and admin, and Kraft on custom and product design.
The two offer personalized letterpress printing to Utahans and people nationwide. From wedding invitations and save-the-dates to art prints and greeting cards, they “love creating beautiful and unforgettable letterpress pieces” with clients. “We pride ourselves on attention to detail, fast, friendly service and an impeccable product made the old-fashioned way.”
“We work with designers, individuals, collaborators and fellow printers on projects that demand a quick turnaround and close attention to detail,” they said — and promise to print as quickly and economically as possible. They’re also as green as can be. As stated on their site: “All of our house papers contain some amount of recycled content — most are tree-free — and all scraps, rags, and printing plates are recycled.”
Thomas-Printers aims to make the ordering experience memorable and fun for their clients: “Ordering custom invitations or printing might be the only time they’ve had something made just for them, and that process should be special and something to savor.”
They believe in quality craftspersonship, in pretty paper and fonts, and they believe in print — “in ink on paper, in good mail and keepsakes that were made by humans.”
Learn more at thomas-printers.com.
