Silkscreening

The slippers are mine. I know this because my name is on them. They put the wrong company name, but I can’t blame them because I had just changed it the day before. Naturally, the slippers are too small and I spend the morning in the warehouse performing that tip-toe dance foreigners in Japan are so familiar with.

The first thing you notice about Mr. Nakamura is his kind eyes. The second is his calm — he's the buddha of silk screening. He and his assistants are endlessly amused that I wanted to come and investigate their facilities, and flattered enough that they give us an hour and half tour. They happily answer all questions as they proudly show off the silk-screening processes in which they specialize.

It’s an impressive facility — they’re able to handle jobs as small as Art Space Tokyo up to highway billboards. They have aircraft hangar sized darkrooms with exposure bulbs looming like miniature suns. And their output is prolific.

Unfortunately, they are adamant that I don't photograph the facilities. Still, I manage to covertly eke out a single photograph — that of Art Space Tokyo covers drying. Covers are hand-printed with care to ensure identical results. Watching this fragile process makes me appreciate even more the miracle that is each of these books.

Mid-tour I wonder aloud if they’ve felt a pinch from ravaged publishing industry. They haven’t, reports Mr. Nakamura. Why? Because even though the publishing world is in turmoil, designers are more than ever turning to special printing processes for covers and posters. Printing processes in which his operation specializes. In fact, he says, we've seen our output increase in recent years.

Whether this is really true or not doesn't matter much to me. The answer still makes me happy that we were able to use Mr. Nakamura’s facilities. All mass market publishing rationale lead away from producing a book with a silk-screened, cloth cover. But Kickstarter allowed us to buck that trend, to ignore the demands of mass market pricing for our niche product, and produce the book that we felt should exist. So I find myself in the bowels of a giant, award-winning, local printer, who in return for our supporting of their efforts showed a warm hospitality, and a deep appreciation for our project.