HISTORICAL POSTERS
You'd think a place like Hatch that started in 1879 would have hundreds of thousands of posters lying around. But we don't. One reason is because the shop has moved six times since the 1870s, and posters are heavy. No one kept an archive, or "copies," of the jobs because for decades a letterpress poster was perceived as just a poster—nothing special, not a prize. Not until the mid-1970s did we begin preserving poster copies in envelopes, and even since then a few holes remain in the history.
We feel our responsibility is to create posters for tomorrow's history. And when we're not up to our necks printing and designing our contemporary work, we pause to tip our hat to our heritage and restrike a select number of historic posters based on those few remaining in our archive, like the Johnny Cash poster for Minneapolis, Minnesota. We wish we could print them all, and we regret disappointing people who ask if we have a specific poster that represents something very special to them personally.
