About SweetWater Letterpress

    SweetWater Letterpress is an artisan printing press specializing in hand crafted invitations, business cards, social stationery, greeting cards and limited edition prints. We blend our modern design with the meticulous craftsmanship of letterpress printing to create bold, one-of-a-kind pieces.


    With a passion for typography, papers, inks and all things old, our work is a labor of love. We design, print, cut, and package all of our own custom work on our collection of antique letterpresses. Carefully crafting each sheet by hand, one at a time, we take great pride in our work and treat every project as our definitive effort.  

    Our presses are set up in front of the windows so you can see each piece as it's being printed. Customers often come by to see their project on press or what card we're printing as it is sure to be on the shelf later that week. Each of our presses, as well as our paper cutters, typefaces and tools are antiques. They are quirky, heavy and each noticeably different than the others. We've taken great care of them to ensure they are always in wonderful working condition, creating the best possible results.

    If you're in the Los Angeles area, please visit us in Culver City. We're located at 10054 Culver Boulevard on the corner of Madison Avenue, directly across the street from SONY Studios. Our store hours are Monday through Friday 12:00pm - 8pm and Saturday by appointment.

    Our Presses

    1966 Kelsey Model U Platen Press

    Manufactured: Merridan, Connecticut

    Found: City of Lakes, Minnesota

    Our little Kelsey sits on the retail side of the shop which makes it easy for customers to see. But it is more than just a display item as we use this press regularly for small projects and since it has no width restrictions, jobs that require wide sheets of paper with small print areas.

     

    1962 Chandler & Price Model N

    Manufactured: Cleveland, Ohio

    Found: Glendale, California

    The C&P is our workhorse and we use it for most large custom orders as well as many of our notecards and greeting cards. It is our favorite press to work on as it has easy accessibility for makeready, long impression dwell, pause for feeding and its precision construction.

     

    1951 Vandercook No. 1

    Manufactured: Chicago, Illinois

    Found: Carson, California

    The No. 1 Proof Press is a hand-ink manual press. We use this press for very limited edition prints and it is ideal for type galley proofs as well as testing ink mixes. While we don't use this press as much as the others, it is an integral piece of equipment in our shop.

     

    1951 Vandercook No. 4

    Manufactured: Chicago, Illinois

    Found: Los Angeles, California

    The No. 4 probably comes closer to perfection than any other press printing from a raised surface. It is a hand operated cylinder press with power driven ink distribution and designed in every detail as a precision tool. We use this press for the majority of our short run work such as invitations, announcements and limited edition prints.

     

    1921 Golding Pearl Paper Cutter

    Manufactured: Franklin, Massachusetts

    Found: Palos Verdes, California

    Our Pearl Paper Cutter is nearly 100 years old, completely manual and cuts through a 3" stack of paper like butter. With a 21" razor sharp blade and no saftey guards we are extremely careful when were using it. It is the basis for all modern paper cutters.

     

    2011 Challange Spartan Paper Cutter

    Manufactured: Norton Shores, Michigan

    Found: Norton Shores, Michigan

    For precision paper cutting we have a modern Challange with a digital display that allows us to cut exact, every time. Safety shields cover the front and rear tables. The front-side cut buttons require two hands to simultaneously activate the cut cycle.

     

    Lassco 50B Cornerounder

    Manufactured: Rochester, New York

    Found: Rochester, New York

    With a number of blades for different corners it is a completly manual machine accepting just 10 sheets of paper at a time. This corner rounder allows us to easily and cleanly round small runs. For anything under 250 sheets it is a must have in our shop.