We’re excited to team up with the Crane & Co.’s virtuoso, media-relations consultant and historian Peter Hopkins of ‘The Crane Insider’, to announce a GIVEAWAY today of 4 letterpress box sets. Our letterpress collaboration with New York Times Op-Ed artist Igor Kopelnitsky is featured by Peter on ‘The Crane Insider’ blog. Receiving the news, we felt like our designs were accepted to the pantheon of social stationery. Crane & Co. is the seventh generation premier maker of fine papers for social and business correspondence rooted in our American and world culture.

Beginning our project last November, selecting the printing process and paper quality was the critical step. Igor’s style is very graphic and the added texture of letterpress gave the cards a personal artisan print quality. Researching Crane & Co. and Peter’s blog, we chose Crane’s Lettra Letterpress soft cotton paper made from repurposed cotton fibers from the garment industry. The final result is the beautifully crafted box set printed by Peter Fraterdeus of EXQUISITE LETTERPRESS – SLOWPRINT.COM.

Read ‘The Crane Insider’ blog, for Peter’s expertise and wonderful sense of humour. Beautiful ideas about design, culture and even recipes delivered with his wit. I found this NPR ‘Getting Out Those Last-Minute Holiday Cards’ interview with Peter helping to cure those holiday procrastinators with unusual solutions.

To enter the contest just send an email to contest[at]sparked.biz for the random drawing. The 4 winners will be announced April 13. Good Luck!

Our letterpress cards got noticed by the Gowanus Lounge blog posted by Vaduz Uvunt. We love the witticism!

The following illustration by Igor Kopelnitsky was recently published along with this Letter to Editor in the New York Times in response to “The One-State Solution,” by Muammar Qaddafi (Op-Ed, Jan. 22).

Colonel Qaddafi’s one-state solution is not merely absurd. It includes a clear hidden agenda, which shows once again how the self-proclaimed leader of Libya really views Israel.

There are reasons a one-state solution will never and should never happen. With an immediate Arab majority over the Jews, it would be instant politicide for the Israeli government. Israel will never allow this, nor should it. As even Colonel Qaddafi notes, the Jewish people deserve their homeland.

And if the area became united under one combined country — even if there were some constitutional guarantee of balanced power between Arabs and Jews, it would be an utter disaster. If you disagree, ask the residents of the former Yugoslavia for their opinion. Or take a look at Lebanon. No such country would be a homeland for the Jews.

The two-state solution has strong prospects for success. Let’s give it a try rather than clandestinely ramble on about what people like Colonel Qaddafi have wanted to do since 1948 — eliminate the Jewish state of Israel.

Hillel Buechler
Waltham, Mass., Jan. 22, 2009

Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.

Darwin Day Celebration Website

Show your support for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” and “Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man” with our “So Evolved” Letterpress Card. There’s a lot to celebrate. Check out the Darwin Day Celebration Website for events. Join the Darwin Facebook group.

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. ~Walt Whitman

Our Artist Series letterpress cards have just shipped featuring the satirical work of Igor Kopelnitsky. Crafted from Crane’s Lettra repurposed paper, the debut box set is now available and you can follow this link to learn more about the designs and process. Find the letterpress cards by visiting the Sparked Card Shop using Paypal or if you prefer, browse our Etsy shop by clicking here. And, if you are a Brooklyn, New York local, the premiere paperie, Lion in the Sun Park Slope is one of our debut retailers!

Thank you for subscribing to Sparked and excited to hear comments and feedback!

Illustration: Igor Kopelnitsky

In case you missed The New York Times’ editorial from December 17, 2008 entitled “The Torture Report” here’s an excerpt:

The bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his legal counsel, William J. Haynes; and potentially other top officials, including the former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff. Read the complete article here.

Posted above is the editorial cartoon by Igor Kopelnitsky published in the New York Times’ Letters section with response from reader Vincent J. Canzoneri of Newton, Mass.

“Trying to understand the psychology of a people at war is a lot like trying to find the bodies buried under a bombed out building.”

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin.

Illustration: Igor Kopelnitsky

You can read the complete article from AlterNet discussing the recent Gaza invasion. Ira Chernus brings an alternative viewpoint for 2009 urging to tear down the imaginary walls and re-build them into bridges toward peace. I thought that Chernus’ quote at the beginning of the article is very apropos to Igor’s graphic commentary.