It's been a while since I have had the chance to post on our Journal, the Kickstarter campaign has been going so well and it's taken up most of my time to respond to backers and keep our social networks (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) up to date. The brilliant news is that a few days ago we got to our target funding! Then we set up some stretch goals, the first of which has already been unlocked! Its been amazing to see the that the TROVE has been seen by nearly 10,000 people worldwide. We will be continuing our push on the campaign until the very end of the Kickstarter funding period, so please keep sharing TROVE with your friends. Please see our update pages on Kickstarter for more details.

Since we have reached our target goal I wanted to get a bit of a head start on the packaging for the TROVEs. After some careful research and recommendations from very reputable sources I contacted David at Identity Print and went to see his company. He has a full complement of printers from the latest large format industrial lithograph printers like this:

... to beautiful vintage letter press printer like this one:

It was fascinating to see all the gears and cogs move together in perfect precision to create fine foiled prints. Coming from a generation of inkjet and laser desktop printers it was amazing to see how traditional printing was done and how the skills and workmanship is still being kept alive today. Alongside these complex machines with so many moving parts, they also had simple tools just as how things were done in the past. like this paper press used for duplexing sheets of paper.

It was quite enlightening to find that some of the tools and materials used in printing is very similar to what we use in our leatherwork, for example press knives that are used to cut final shapes,

and different foils for making imprints onto paper or leather, although we do not use as much as they do.

My meeting with David has revealed that we share very similar sentiments about how products should be made, he inspires a sense of pride into his staff to produce the best work in the industry. This was just an initial meeting but I think we will be going on to do some great things together, but for now starting with TROVE's packaging, which we talked about in detail as to the best method of printing and materials to use. 

We plan to use FSC certified paper stock for our packaging using a minimalist design that it in keeping with the TROVEs aesthetics. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I will be able to bring you some more images of the packaging design and have pictures of the first batch being produced. Thank you David for sparing the time to show me around and giving me some insights into the different printing processes and techniques.