Things well done take time
We spend all day running around, checking things off a list, attending meetings, getting angry if someone doesn't arrive on time for a meeting or if someone doesn't rush off when the traffic light goes green...
Once again, the great topics of our time appear: digitalization and globalization, which literally give us access to a world of possibilities and at the same time require very high speeds of action, thought and creativity.
Even weekend leisure schedules create stress: the kids' game, horse riding lessons, dinner with friends, birthdays in the afternoon, the kids' homework, mass on Sunday. We literally spend our lives rushing around, both personally and professionally.
We are forgetting things that were part of our lives not many years ago, such as having patience, what foreign psychologists call “delay gratification”, which is what it means to want something… and it is so important for our emotional balance.
All this comes about because sometimes there are clients who insistently ask, bordering on harassment, when their wedding invitations will be ready (for example), by email, WhatsApp, they call on the mobile phone... I don't blame them because we live in a world that leads us to this. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an idealist or a purist, maybe there's even a bit of arrogance that needs to be looked at, but I see my job as an art. Traditional techniques such as Letterpress or Dry Stamping, which I use especially in wedding invitations, are a craft work in which quality prevails, responsibility for a job well done rather than immediacy. I prefer to take an extra week than deliver something I don't like, even if I know the client won't notice. I think that the job is not only about techniques and tricks, it's also a sense of professionalism, responsibility for your work, caring for and maintaining relationships with clients.
A while ago I saw a video on the internet that captured the concept of “Slow” very well. It was the process of creating some Letterpress coasters. https://youtu.be/WZyZOlH4nLgThe printer arranges different typographic elements, tries various options until I am convinced by one of the designs, carefully cuts the paper, mixes the inks, inks and adjusts the machine to finally print the run. The video ends proudly showing the result of his work. This gentleman made some exquisite coasters because he was enjoying what he was doing and he dedicated time to thinking about the best way to make all his work come out. In traditional printing, especially in Letterpress, things don't usually work out the first time, many times you have to rely on your skills to find the right way, you try one technique, another, you try that trick that worked for you 5 years ago on that invitation that gave you trouble... and that's how the Magic happens and you get what the client wants and that's why I like my job, getting the Wow effect on all those who receive what you have printed.