Trula Hickman of Sentinel Printers on running a green, custom print shop in an evolving industry
A petite blonde with astonishing eyes, Trula Hickman presides over a domain that has one foot in historic craft and the other in digital detail. The domain is the 150-year-old Sentinel Printers, where Hickman and her husband Neil Hickman keep watch over presses, printers and a steady stream of eclectic jobs.
“Once upon a time this sort of work required typographers, graphic designers, paste-up artists, people who burned film to metal plates,” says Hickman, holding a handsomely embossed silver-foil printed placard. “But the industry evolved and now it can all be done by essentially one designer and a press.”
Attention to detail rules at Sentinel Printers, owned for the past eight years by the Hickmans. Micro-managing artisanal work, the business has flourished in the midst of an online world. At her consultation desk, Hickman displays a glossy photographic history book—a showpiece project—as well as an array of colorful note cards made from woodcut and silk-screen originals. Catalogs, postcards, wedding invitations, marketing brochures—jobs range from tiny to very large.
The Sentinel Printers’ 75-year-old Heidelberg windmill letterpress grabs lots of attention from sidewalk passersby. It can do everything from foiling to basic binding techniques. “It’s very reliable,” Hickman says with a smile. And it does all of the shop’s richly embossed, elegant letterpress work. “We do a lot of custom work because we are very hands on, and we each have extensive print backgrounds,” she says.
Hickman admits that people are often surprised that the small shop can handle large orders, such as a recent 50,000-postcard run. “But no job is too small,” she says.
Hickman is proactive about running as green a shop as possible. Environmental consciousness is everywhere. “We use recycled paper, we even recycle the end scraps of our printing runs, and the metal plates we use. Santa Cruz is a very supportive community,” Hickman notes, as we tour the shop. “People here value shopping locally, and we work with a lot of local artists who appreciate the craftsmanship we offer and the personalized attention.”
Hickman has helped to develop Retro Novo, an artists’ collaborative specializing in small works of art using letterpress and lithography. The samples she displays are familiar to me from such local retail outlets as Stripe, New Leaf and the Museum of Art & History. The boldly colored results resemble miniature woodcuts and watercolor artworks. “This way people can have a limited-edition piece of art,” says Hickman.
Faced with online competition for printing services, Hickman stresses the hands-on service and custom finishing for each project. “My clientele wants high-quality, fast turnaround, and the opportunity to see a proof before the final run,” she says, raising an eyebrow for punctuation. “Here they can choose papers, ink colors, styles—we can run samples and color correct.”
I check out the impressive Heidelberg Speedmaster printing press, busy with a complicated four-color label job for Nordic Naturals. At another station, a brochure for UCSC is being finished. “This is the booklet maker, it folds, stitches and trims,” says Hickman. In addition to the two Heidelbergs, a computer console makes adjustments to color and shade, and a “guillotine cutter” breaks down paper with scalpel precision. In the far back, a darkroom develops and makes the press plates. Running a tight ship is obviously part of the fun. “There’s no downtime,” Hickman says.
Hickman’s favorite part of the work is interacting with customers. “I work to make sure they have what they want, and I can usually help suggest ways for them to think about possibilities to maximize their order,” she says. “And I’m still excited about the variety of printing projects we handle, especially working with artists and graphic designers. Every day is different.”
PHOTO: ORDER UP Trula Hickman of Sentinel Printers with a batch of pamphlets freshly printed for UCSC. CHIP SCHEUER
