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The Pleasure of Paper
By Laine Bergeson
Photo by Daniel Peet, For Lunalux
That’s a shame, Undis believes. With computers so ubiquitous today, we have all but forgotten the tactile pleasures of letter writing and receiving. “A letter is like a present to someone. When you open the mailbox, and you see something handwritten, it’s such a treat,” says Undis, who started as an intern at Lunalux in 1996, the summer after she graduated from college. “I try to make things that inspire others to write letters.”
As the daughter of commercial printing shop owners, Undis found comfort and a calling in Lunalux’s familiar surroundings. She took over Lunalux in 2003 after founder Tim Gartman, who had opened the shop 10 years prior, passed away from Hodgkin’s disease.
Undis, who studied communications and studio arts at Macalester in St. Paul, was drawn to this small, old-fashioned letterpress shop because it gave her the opportunity to be creative and artistic while making something handcrafted. Plus, she explains, “I’d always been interested in paper. I love the accessibility of the press and the plates and the type.”
More than half of Lunalux’s business is custom work—wedding announcements, party invitations, and calling and business cards. An assistant helps run the three vintage letterpresses, but Undis does all the design work herself.
Her most recent, and much cherished, greeting card designs blend old-fashioned images with stylized borders, pithy prose, and a sense of humor. “I like an old style that’s a little bit cheeky,” says Undis. “I’m also interested in writing and words,” she adds. “I like how little lines of text can capture an emotion without hitting you over the head with it.” (Or deliver the unexpected. To wit: a card from her new series features a long-buried clip-art image of a half chicken, half boy asking, “What’s up, Chicken Butt?”)
As she looks to the future, she’s excited to continue “indulging paper habits” and crafting new designs. But her goal isn’t just to make beautiful cards and stationery. “If what I make is not something someone wants to use,” she says, “I’m not interested in making it.”
Laine Bergeson is a Minneapolis writer and editor.
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11 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
