If you want your printing job done perfectly, don't bother calling John Upchurch and Matt McClintock. The two art school grads own and operate Fireproof Press, a letterpress and graphics company that specializes in small print runs, hand-set type, and customized packaging that recalls an earlier era.
In their third-floor shop in Chicago, Upchurch and McClintock maintain five electric and treadle-driven presses - cast-iron monsters whose blueprints reflect late-19th-century designs. The bulk of Fireproof's business comes from independent record labels looking for a distinctive CD or LP jacket. More than 40 artists - including Steve Albini, Rachel's, Tortoise, and Stereolab - have contracted Fireproof to crank out their covers.
"Each piece is its own thing, rather than some reproduction of an ideal on a computer," Upchurch says. "We're not reproducing things, we're producing them."
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Shake, Wobble, and Roll
