Bowne & Co.

Bowne & Co. is a letterpress printing studio in the Seaport. Operating from a historic print shop at 211 Water Street since 1975, resident printers design and produce stationery and invitations using a working collection of 34 vintage printing presses and moveable type.

Bowne & Co. keeps letterpress printing alive as a craft, continuing the 19th-century tradition of job printing or small-batch printing. Using an extensive working collection of historic printing presses, moveable type, illustrations, and other equipment, the resident letterpress printers design and print stationery, invitations, and other projects to order. The shop sits at 211 Water Street where Bowne & Co., Inc. partnered with the Seaport Museum in 1975 to open a 19th century-style print shop in the South Street Seaport Historic District. The collection includes 34 printing presses and more than 2,400 cases of movable type. Bowne & Co. also hosts printing workshops, lectures, and other special events on-site. The work centers on retrieval: bringing the slowness and physical precision of letterpress—setting type by hand, locking it into the press, running ink and paper by hand—into a contemporary world that has largely left it behind.