Hitchcock Press:
A printer returns to his artistic roots Owner J. Guy Gaulin, who has been a printer for more than 50 years and broke into the business as a letterpress apprentice, sees a renaissance underway where more and more consumers are interested in fine art that only can be produced by letterpress printing. This renaissance couldn’t have come at a better time for Gaulin. After guiding his company and serving clients through traditional single and multi-color printing for 35 years, Gaulin has turned his efforts to developing a line of letterpress note cards created from his own original artwork.
“This is the first year we entered the Premier Print Awards,” he said. “To come away with an Award of Recognition is a thrill. It’s an honor to be recognized by the industry as a company that produces top quality, award winning materials.”
Gaulin has created 24 distinctive note cards by mixing a love of photography, sailing, an appreciation of the beauty of rural western Massachusetts and letterpress printing. The note cards are produced in black and white with three values of gray ink on Montval mould made paper. The complete line of cards was launched last year and is for sale in specialty shops in the region. Gaulin hopes to spark the interest of other retailers in the region to sell his cards. They are also available for sale through the company’s Web site at www.hitchcockpress.com. While the company owner commits most of his time to his love of letterpress reproduction, that alone doesn’t pay the bills. About the company The company also develops innovative packaging projects, has the ability to shrink wrap finished work and mail some products. The management team of Michelle Robert, Claudine Edwards and Deanna Gaulin keep the company focused on serving clients and growing sales. Deanna, a registered nurse for 25 years, is the company’s finance and human resources director. Robert is general manager and provides oversight of most facets of the company. Edwards is customer service manager. All three are longtime Hitchcock employees. The company’s other employees all work in production-related capacities.
25 years at AmPad
His education also included attendance at the University of Massachusetts and Western New England College. Guy returned to Holyoke in 1944 and joined the U.S. Navy in 1945. After his honorable discharge he began his long graphic arts career at American Pad and Paper Co. in Holyoke, which later changed its name to Ampad. After completing his letterpress apprenticeship, he became a pressman and remained in that job several years until he was promoted to head AmPad’s printing operation. During his time at AmPad, he introduced offset printing and later flexographic printing to augment AmPad’s letterpress department. At one point, he supervised 20 production employees. While at Ampad, he invented and was granted a U.S. Patent for a flexo/gravure inking system.
“I was attracted to the company for a lot of reasons,” he explained. “The company had a good reputation and a nice collection of clients. The previous owner was not a printer, and he did not use the most efficient production methods. I thought I could make the business more efficient, improve on the print quality, and give customers good service, without having to increase prices. That is what I built the business on.” With the help of his wife, Jeri, Gaulin slowly grew Hitchcock Press by taking on clients and concentrating on customer service and fair prices. By 1980, the company had outgrown its location at 78 Hitchcock St. Gaulin purchased a vacant 11,000 square foot building at 8 Hanover St., where the company remains. Throughout that period, Hitchcock grew from two employees to a high of 20. Today, the company has 15 fulltime employees.
“Printing was not my first choice,” Gaulin explained recently. “I would have loved to have been an artist; not necessarily a commercial artist, but a fine arts artist,” he said. “Somewhere down the line it occurred to me that I was doing pretty well as a printer and I decided to bear down and work to achieve my goals.” One of those goals was to someday pursue his love of art and photography. In the last few years, Gaulin has gradually shifted some time previously spent at the company to working at L’atelier Gaulin, his art studio at his home in South Hadley. He also owned Gaulin Software and Gaulin Design. One of his designs earned Hitchcock Press a Bronze Award from the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen. Art and photography have been his major professional interests. Knowing and excelling at your niche
For many years, Hitchcock provided paper swatch books for the mills among other printed products. Some of its biggest clients today are well-known names in the paper and paper converting industries. A combination of a mid-size 40-inch offset press and a small format press has helped Gaulin keep busy over the years with numerous long-time clients. Throughout his first 10 years of ownership, offset printing grew regularly while the demand for letterpress printing leveled off.
Hitchcock provides four-color process printing, and some business form work. The Hamada small format press is constantly churning out work and the 40-inch Mielhe Roland has been a workhorse over the years. Most of Hitchcock’s clients provide repeat work, so the management team has a good handle on the work schedule. Press runs can range from a low of 500 pieces to more than 10,000 pieces. A small amount of work is sent out to other printers. “We have a few customers who give us a lot of work,” Gaulin said. Most of the work is produced from film. Service bureaus handle most of the prepress duties. Gaulin has considered upgrading his workflow, but he’s not interested in converting his workflow to computer to plate at this time. The way he sees it, his presses and current workflow suit his needs and his clients needs just fine. “I’ve always believed that the way to stay in business is to find an area that you’re comfortable with, something that you’re good at, and focus on that,” he said. Excited to launch note cards His convictions are paying off. In recent years, Gaulin has seen an increase in interest in letterpress. From requests for fancy wedding invitations, to custom cards printed on premium papers, a trend has emerged. Among his clients are companies whose names are well known to consumers. These companies may not be ordering huge amounts of work, but they are placing steady orders for work with Hitchcock, and a fair amount of it is letterpress work. “Businesses and individuals are rediscovering letterpress, and the quality of the work,” he said. “And they are willing to pay a premium for the uniqueness. If someone wants unique wedding invitations, for example, they’re willing to pay for it.
In the coming months, Gaulin plans to hit the road and meet with store owners throughout the region to get his note cards placed on more store shelves. “This is taking me back to my roots and I’m excited about it. To me, letterpress printing is exquisite, exclusive and elegant.” About the author: John Scibelli
is editor of New England Printer & Publisher magazine and director
of communications at Printing Industries of New England. He can be reached
at 508-804-4113 or by e-mail at |
Technological
innovations continue to transform all facets of print manufacturing,
but at Hitchcock Press, a small shop in the western Massachusetts city
of Holyoke, craftsmanship will always have its rightful place. 
Gaulin’s
note cards captured the attention of judges at the 2005 Premier Print
Awards and earned an Award of Recognition from the world’s largest
competition of manufactured printed products. More than 5,200 printing
entries were submitted, and only 313 Awards of Recognition were distributed.
An artist
at heart and a printer by trade, the 78-year-old Gaulin has reached
a point in his personal and professional life where he can pursue his
own interests while his daughter and two other managers handle the day
to day affairs at the 15-employee shop.
Guy Gaulin
has handled most sales over the years and grew sales through his contacts
throughout Holyoke and Hamden County. He was heavily involved in civic
organizations. He is a past president of the Springfield Club of Printing
Craftsmen and the Holyoke Lions Club. He has served on the Holyoke Chamber
of Commerce, Taxpayer’s Association, and the Mayor’s Industrial
Advisory Committee. He has been active for many years with the National
Federation of Independent Businesses. 
Guy’s
first years of schooling took place in a one-room schoolhouse. He later
attended school at the “Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes”
in the city of Québec where he excelled in art.
At age 44
and after 25 years of working at AmPad, Gaulin bought Hitchcock Press
in 1971. 
In July 2004,
Gaulin bought the customer list of Elite Printing in South Hadley and
melded the operations into his firm. Press Operator Dave Burden moved
from Elite to Hitchcock with the acquisition. Burden and lead pressman
Mike Williams coordinate print work on the production floor.
The needs
of the mills included letterpress printing, publishing and paper converting.
Hitchcock Press, then known as Wisly Printing Co., provided many printed
items for the mills. Some of the items were finely designed package
labels. When he bought Hitchcock Press, Gaulin was able to maintain
many of those clients until some of them became victims of a changing
economy or were acquired by other businesses.
“It
was obvious to me that businesses couldn’t exist solely on letterpress
work,” he said. “Unless letterpress shops invested in some
offset equipment, they were destined to go out of business. We had a
Multilith press that performed a lot of single-color and two-color work
for us and kept us going over the years.”
Despite the
modest growth Hitchcock enjoyed, Gaulin never gave up on letterpress
printing. It didn’t matter to him that letterpress printing, which
was the main printing technology for 500 years, lost its place as a
preferred printing methods when offset printing emerged in the 1950s
to ignite the industry’s first technological transformation.
“And
it’s not just wedding invitations. There is interest in stationery,
envelopes, name cards, and more,” he said.
.
