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Bay View Printing Co.: The 108-year-old business still doing things the old-fashioned way

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Bay View Printing Co.: The 108-year-old business still doing things the old-fashioned way

MILWAUKEE — Betty, Gladys, and Harriet. Those are probably the names of your or your friend’s grandmothers. Well, underneath one Milwaukee business, those are the workhorses that have powered a local shop for more than 100 years.

“Eighty percent of the production work comes off Jean. She is named after my grandma because my grandma is the workhorse.”

Those are the names of 3 of the many letterpresses inside Bay View Printing Co. The business makes high-end stationary, wedding invitations, business cards, gifts, and more paper-related products. Ashley Town has owned the company for 10 years.

James Groh

Letterpress printers inside Bay View Printing Co’s basement.

“The bulk of our work is wedding-related. So we’re in the wedding industry. We do custom design for all of our couples and then beautiful letterpress wedding invites,” Town said.

Bay View Printing Co. operates the old-fashioned way. Town and her staff have mastered a craft first created in the 15th century by a guy you read about in your high school history textbook, Johannes Gutenberg. He created the printing press. These letter presses that Town uses are specifically for the type of products they make. Everything is done by hand.

“What you get when you hold, I guess, any of our work is a tiny piece of artwork, right? It’s not something anyone can make.”

While computers have ushered in a digital age that has made letter pressing less common, Town sees this as a unique art form with its own style you can’t replicate on a computer.

“The reason that you would choose (letterpress) over a super quick easy digital print is that you’re looking for something that is unique, that is different and is artwork that you can hold with your hands,” she said.

See what it looks like to use an old school letter press…

The 108-year-old Milwaukee business still doing things the old-fashioned way

Town didn’t always have an affinity for typography. In fact, she fell into this world by coincidence. In 2013, she was working on a grad school project and needed to use a letterpress. That’s why she first walked into Bay View Printing Co. Then just one year later, she bought the business. Yes, she loved the type of art. But something spoke to her that she couldn’t ignore.

“Okay, if you want the truth, I’m a person who makes decisions from my gut, and I just felt it. My whole body felt like this is where I’m supposed to be, and this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” Town said.

Working with her girls just felt right.

Now, she is bringing the art form to the rest of the community. Every Thursday Bay View Printing Co. hosts an Ink and Drink event. It’s an opportunity for people to learn about the historical art of the letter press and to create art to take home.

“So if we cultivate some education about letterpress, people get excited about it, (and) people want to do it.”

Town will continue to leave her imprint on the community.

“As long as I’m here, it’ll always be a letterpress print shop.”

It’s her new love. She is the steward of the artform and this 108-year-old shop.


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