You may recognize this if you follow me on Twitter – it is a larger than life original X piece of wood type. Antique, patina and all around gorgeous, I acquired this baby on eBay back in 2001 along with it’s soulmate O. They are so large in fact, that they extend beyond the press bed (and print area).

So to work this baby out – we had to shorten our dead area (usually there is a dead bar at the front of the press which keeps the grippers from hitting the printed form and damaging not only the grippers but the type as well). To shorten our dead area we had to be extra cautious, and a small piece of furniture was inserted in replacement of the dead bar (see that wood block on the press? that’s called furniture in printer’s speak).

Next we had to FLOOD the press with ink. Printing large image area is a totally different ball game than business cards. Business cards require the most minute amount of ink – too much and the ink will muck things up and make your type horribly ugly. However with large areas, a lot more is required – and when doing multiple prints (without an ink fountain that automatically feed the ink on the press) I had to ink up quite a few times.

In the end, there is an amazing variety that happened with these prints. Both the X and O had unique wear to them so when over-printed (the process of laying one image area over the other) those details came out in this fabulous western wood type way. Distressed and tasteful and beautiful! On some of the prints we added a third color (pink) which was under the gold and offset by about a 1/4″ to give a drop shadow effect – those we kept for valentine’s gifts but were equally cool.

I can’t believe that after all these years of my X and O sitting on the shelf that I never made time to get them on press! Finally they are ready and I’m giving one away to a lucky reader/tweeter/FBer!

The Specs: 1 (one) letterpress extra-large poster of the XO. sized 13×19″, 2 inks (red/matte antique gold). Signed and numbered of an edition of 50. unframed – and shipped in a tube for safe mailing.

TO ENTER:
You can comment for 1 entry,
tweet for another entry with hashtag #XOposter and make sure you metnion @DingbatPress and comment back here with your tweet,
and for a third entry post it in your feed on Facebook (and again come back and provide a link :)

You have until Jan. 14 midnight MST to enter. A winner will be selected at random and announced by the end of the week!

Or if you want one RIGHT NOW, just hop on over to the Etsy shop and get one. These babies are ready to ship!