Bringing back tradition: The Hong Kong letterpress shop inspiring old-school quality prints

Nicole Chan puts quality before quantity in producing wedding invitation cards, postcards and other items for customers who don’t mind paying a little extra for something out of the ordinary

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Nicole Chan learned how the use the press in the US and is now helped at ditto ditto by her two sisters and a print apprentice. Photos: Dickson Lee

Published: 10:00am, 26 Dec 2015Updated: 11:26pm, 26 Dec 2015

What makes Gutenberg-era printing methods still relevant today is because people still value the tactile quality of letterpress printing which lends substance to the message conveyed, says the founder of possibly the city’s only commercial letterpress printing house.

Since its inception in 2012, ditto ditto has printed wedding invitation cards, calendars, postcards and a lot more from a factory building in Wong Chuk Hang for customers who don’t mind waiting up to three weeks for delivery.

The unique texture of unevenness left on paper by letterpress printing – a technique in which inked moveable type is pressed against sheets of paper – fascinated the design studio and printing house’s founder, Nicole Chan, when she first came into contact with it as an art student in the United States.

Printing on an old Heidelberg press leaves a unique texture of unevenness on the paper.

After returning to the US to spend several weeks learning how to operate a classic Heidelberg printing machine, Chan bought two smaller hand-operated machines and later an automatic Heidelberg and set up her printing business in a storage space behind the office of her family’s business.

With the help of her two sisters and an apprentice, Chan focuses on design while the others carry out the daily operations of the business.

“We spent quite a lot of effort finding the right price range,” she says.