Established in 2018 in Sacramento, CA, we provide custom letterpress printing as well as a range of handmade letterpress products including notebooks, gift tags, stationery, & overly honest greeting cards.
Despite the Royal We, Spacepig Press is a one-woman labor of love (and snark).
So hey, I’m Christine Byrne (she/her), the owner, printer, designer, packager, shipper, customer service rep, repair expert, and Ruler of All Things Spacepig. I’ve got a BFA in Graphic Design from SCAD, 10+ years of experience in branding/graphic design/web design/creative directing, another business doing said design shenanigans, and a stubborn streak that makes being my own boss both deeply rewarding and incredibly annoying.
After dabbling in letterpress for many years, a cross country Brooklyn to Sacramento move freed up both the physical and the creative space to acquire another, bigger printing press and finally start Spacepig Press in late 2018. Despite being personally terrible about sending cards to anyone, ever, I decided to start a greeting card line.
The primary press here is Petunia: a hand-fed, treadle-run Chandler & Price platen press manufactured in 1923. I got her in a shady Craigslist deal—dirty, dusty, full of broken parts and debris, and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. It took several months of cleaning, oiling, tinkering, swearing, acquiring parts, oiling more, sacrificing bourbon to the print gods, a little brute force, and oiling even more to get her in working order. She is my delicate 1500lb flower.
A few smaller table-top platens round out the family and help with small jobs and short runs. Thing 1, a 5x8 Kelsey (the very first press I bought), and Thing 2, a 6x10 Kelsey, made the cross country drive and are much happier on their dedicated work bench than they were stuffed under a table in Brooklyn.
These are the Spacepigs: the guinea pigs Jane (RIP you salty queen), Henrietta, and Goldie. My partner and I adopted Henrietta and Jane in 2017, not knowing Henrietta was pregnant, and Goldie showed up as a bonus pig a few months later. They like to pose dramatically like they just landed on the moon or some undiscovered planet. When I was brainstorming names, I sketched a little portrait of Jane in dramatic mode, threw a space helmet on her, and it made me laugh so fucking hard. Thus Spacepig was born.
