Portland, Oregon — third generation at the press
Hollis & Crane is a two-press letterpress shop in Old Town. We set your words into cotton paper so heavy it has a handshake — wedding suites, business cards, and broadsides with a bite you can feel.
White gloves at the delivery table, please. Groom cries easily. — E.H.
Chapter one — the case room
Every job runs one colour per pass on machines older than your grandmother, and every plate is filed in the basement — reorders take one phone call and four days.
Invitation, reply card, and envelope in two ink passes on 110# cotton. Vow-grade paper; heirloom-grade impression.
One or two colours, deep bite, on 220# duplexed cotton. The card people keep turning over in meetings.
Gold, copper, or bone-white foil struck from magnesium dies — or no ink at all, just the shape of the words.
Vermilion, ink black, or matched-to-Pantone edges, hand-rolled on the stack. The detail nobody expects and everybody mentions.
Chapter two — the paper wall
Six house stocks live on the wall behind the counter. Everything is available duplexed to double weight, and everything takes a deep impression without cracking.
Chapter three — how a job moves through the shop
The same route every job has taken since 1927, minus the cigarettes.
Thirty minutes at the counter or on a call. Bring a napkin sketch, a mood board, or nothing at all — we’ve set nine thousand jobs from less.
Day 1A dimensioned digital proof inside 48 hours, and a pressed proof on your actual stock for $25 when paper is the deciding vote.
Days 2–3Plates are cast, ink is mixed by eye to Pantone, and every sheet is fed by hand. One colour per pass; deep impression is the house default.
Days 4–8Guillotine-trimmed, edges painted if you asked nicely, wrapped in tissue and brown kraft, and walked to the post office on Fifth.
Days 9–10Chapter four — letters to the shop
The invitations came out so deep you could read them with your eyes closed. Half our guests kept the envelopes. The other half framed them.Priya & Tom Okonkwo-HaleMarried June 2025 · 250 suites
Our cards get more comments in meetings than our pitch deck does. We’ve reordered four times and the plates are always ready.Dana WhitfieldFounder, Fern & Fog Studio
They pressed my grandmother’s handwriting onto recipe cards for the whole family. I cried at the counter. Ellis pretended not to notice.Miriam Aldous60 recipe cards · December 2025
Start here — the swatch book
Twenty-two swatches sewn into a kraft cover, each one printed with a different ink and technique so your fingers can do the choosing. $14, posted anywhere, and credited in full against your first order.
Order the swatch book — $14Ships in a rigid mailer within 2 business days ✶ 1,900 sent since 2019