About Us
We launched our business in 2010 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island when our own wedding invitation went viral and were faced with a wedding industry that wasn't prepared to work with a couple of creative Queers. While we suffered through both the aesthetic and LGBTQ+ injustices at the time, we realized there was a need for affirming stationers who gave a damn.
We quickly became very busy producing one-of-a-kind wedding invitations for the most creative and amazing clients. After the weddings were over, our clients came back and asked if we had any letterpress cards to celebrate holidays, birthdays, etc. As a result, we decided to launch a humble line of greeting cards at the 2013 National Stationery Show and to our surprise, the line took off and we now sell hundreds of products in over 1,000 stores around the world.
After a wildfire claimed the home of Morgan's family in Colorado, we decided to relocate our studio out west. In 2016 we opened our flagship store in Colorado Springs where we also host workshops and classes and offer a wide variety of boutique stationery and locally-made gifts. From this post we operate our letterpress and design headquarters while customers can see the presses running and witness our products being made. With a location in central downtown Colorado Springs, we find ourselves immersed in the arts and community: our two most favorite things!
In recent years, we have used our platform to promote women's, LGBTQ+, BIPOC and immigrant rights, using our "power of the press" to produce work that helps mobilize social movements.
We believe that you don't have to be a large company to make a big impact. We take pride in making things by hand, locally, and sustainably. If it's not made in our shop, you better believe we've done our best to research other environmentally-friendly and civically-minded businesses to collaborate with.
Ladyfingers Letterpress has been featured by The New York Times, Forbes, Grow With Google, Martha Stewart Weddings, Vogue and more, and is also the proud recipient of the 2015 Card of the Year as awarded by the Greeting Card Association.
Interested in learning more about us? Read our Vision Statement!
MORGAN CALDERINI
Letterpress Operator, Studio Manager, Magic Maker
Morgan Calderini surrounds herself with rather odd yet satisfying specialties: hot air balloon building, printmaking, and pie baking are all things she takes very seriously. After having received her BFA in Printmaking from RISD in 2007, Calderini chose to redefine the hierarchical printshop archetype by establishing and managing Rhode Islands only community printshop at AS220 with a grant from AmeriCorps VISTA. She has taught letterpress at the AS220 Printshop and Penland School of Crafts. When she's not baking blueberry pies or hunting for long lost litho stones that people have been using as door stops, she's flying Atlas, her 70 foot, 54,000 cu. ft. hot air balloon that she built in 2007.
ARLEY TORSONE
Designer, Letterer, Illustratorer
Is this the place where I'm supposed to list like, accomplishments and shit? Does it even matter anymore? Just the other day, the bio of an old "acquaintance" popped up on my screen and I was like, "Is this seriously the same guy who crashed our houseparty years ago and graffiti'd our bathroom and stole our booze?" Because on the internet, he made himself sound like he was a friggin genius who pooped gold. All I'm trying to say is, don't trust what people say about themselves. Let the work speak (or yell, or laugh, or cry!) for itself.
BUT IF YOU MUST KNOW, I'm kind of obsessed with hand-lettering and illustration. I graduated with a BFA from Parsons School of Design and also studied at Central St. Martins in London. One time I performed without any pants on at MoMA PS1 with the Dirt Palace, a feminist art collective that I was (am still? will forever be?) a part of. Oh, and one time I saw Cat Power at a party and I was like OMG HAS ANYONE EVER TOLD YOU THAT YOU LOOK LIKE CAT POWER? to which she replied, "I hear she's a lesbian." The end.
(Photo credits: Lauren Memarian)