Books and Paper · Chico, California
Wild Ink Press
Hand-drawn letterpress cards printed on century-old presses in Chico.
- Founded
- 2009
- Founded by
- Rebekah Tennis
- Based in
- Chico, California
Making it since
2009
Their story
Wild Ink Press is the studio of designer Rebekah Tennis, who works alongside her husband Matt in downtown Chico, in Northern California. Their shop sits in a roomy old building that once housed a soda bottling plant.
Tennis trained in graphic design and spent time doing corporate branding work, where projects were revised over and over and never felt done. She wanted to make things that were finished and that she loved. In 2009 she and Matt took letterpress classes, bought a 1908 Chandler & Price press online, and started printing cards.
Today the studio turns out greeting cards, boxed holiday sets, gift tags, custom wedding invitations and personal stationery, all built around her own hand-drawn designs.
How it's made
Every design starts as a pencil sketch, then gets inked, traced, scanned and cleaned up digitally before being turned into printing plates. Most cards are printed in-house by letterpress or foil on a collection of vintage machines, including Heidelberg Windmills, a Golding Jobber and a Chandler & Price. Some pieces take several passes through the press, one color at a time.
perfect is impossible, but finished is not
Why we carry them
We like having a card on hand that feels as thoughtful as the gift it goes with. You can feel the press in the paper on these, and the drawings are charming without being fussy.
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