Red Bat Press began in 2002, a year after I moved to Portland, Oregon. It came from humble beginnings, a desire to make and sell my original wood-cut art prints, but within three years it would grow into a full time job and rewarding artist life. I was the everything—Red Bat, sole proprietor, designer, printer and production artist, marketer, store rep, delivery (by bike). It's pretty awesome to be able to wake up in the morning with an idea, and by evening see it in print.
Between 2002-2016 running the press in Portland I created 200+ woodcut press designs including art postcards, valentines, calendar cards, blank cards, and holiday novelties as well as custom projects.
Below is the list of all the official Red Bat studio designs.
I plan to continue to use wood-cut and letterpress designs for illustration work as there really is no way to fake it. Just got to dig in, carve, get ink all over my fingers, play on the press, and let the magic happen.
The press name Red Bat comes from the first art postcard of a series of 8 animal designs that was inspired by a Red Bat paper kite I found in San Francisco's Chinatown. According to Chinese symbolic tradition, bats are symbols of good fortune. The character for luck in Chinese is Fú and the word for bat is biān fú. Red Bats are especially lucky because the color red is protective against misfortune.
[studio designs]
ART POSTCARDS
[79 designs]BLANK BOOKS
[5 designs]BLANK CARDS
[18 designs]CALENDAR CARDS
[46 designs]HALLOWEEN
[16 designs]HOLIDAY GREETINGS
[6 designs]SETS
[8 designs]T-SHIRTS
[3 designs]VALENTINES [animal]
[25 designs]VALENTINES [pirate set]
[4 designs]