Sea Heart City Press Brings Letterpress Greeting Cards Made for Real Mail to the Chesapeake Print & Book Arts Fair

Meredith Akery founded Sea Heart City Press in 2013 with a simple and durable premise: make letterpress cards that make you want to send real mail. Working from a home garage studio in West Belmar, New Jersey, she designs, hand-letters, illustrates, and prints every card herself, using a collection of vintage presses including a Chandler & Price 10x15, two Kelsey Excelsior models, and a Golding Official. The press has operated through studio shares at the Heurich House Museum in Washington, DC and the Crane Arts building in South Kensington, Philadelphia before finding its current home by the New Jersey shore, where the coastal environment threads through much of her design vocabulary.

At the Chesapeake Print & Book Arts Fair, visitors will find a full range of Sea Heart City Press letterpress cards — occasion cards for birthdays, weddings, sympathy, and friendship; sharply-worded anytime cards; and the plant-pun series (Hydrangea, Gladiola, Impatien) that has become a recognizable part of her catalog. Each card is printed with deep letterpress impression on quality stock, carrying the tactile quality that makes the difference between a card that gets kept and one that gets recycled. The cards are direct and warm, often funny without trying too hard, and designed for the kind of handwriting that deserves a real envelope.

Find Sea Heart City Press at the Chesapeake Print & Book Arts Fair on May 9, 11am–4pm, on the 200 block of N. Washington Street in Havre de Grace, MD. Admission is free — learn more at chesapeakeprintersfair.com.