For those of you who are familiar with the traditional Rule29 trip to the Utopia paper mill in Appleton, Wisconsin, it should come as no surprise that this year was as informative, educational, and enjoyable as years past. In fact, this trip was particularly inspirational since we spent the day with our amigos, the talented team from Grip Design along with our hosts from Appleton Coated. But this year, instead of touring the mill itself, we visited the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, which was just a short trip from the Appleton farm house.

The Hamilton Wood Type Museum is operated by volunteers from the Two Rivers Historical Society who are dedicated to the preservation, study, production and printing of wood type. Our tour guide, Jim Van Lanen, taught us about the history of wood type, as well as the functional operations of printing with it. We had the opportunity to see the equipment used to print with wood and metal type and even watched as one of the volunteers carved out a letter “C” with centuries-old machinery.

As we walked through the museum, which looked far more like a workshop, it was amazing to consider the evolution and development of both type and typography. Jim had mentioned to us that the catalyst for the creation of the Hamilton Wood type factory in 1880 was that the local newspaper editor wanted to promote a Grand Ball being hosted at Turner Hall. He requested that Edward Hamilton create a block printing surface to be used in the printing of promotional posters for the event. Sitting on his mother’s porch, using a foot-powered scroll saw, Hamilton carved out the type that would be used for the Grand Ball promotion and become the foundation for the J.E. Hamilton Hollywood Type Company.

Running my fingers over the metal and wood type laid out in California Job Cases and little wooden drawers, it was easy to see how this method could produce such beautiful and tactile works of both art and design. From the walls of the museum, examples of this type of work hung as great impressions of a bygone era. And, even a few locally created samples by our favorite pal Jim Sheridan from Hatch Show Print dangled from the ceilings and walls around the museum.

Returning to the farm, we enjoyed a nice evening of playing shuffle board, chess, tossing a football around, and even watching as the international space station passed overhead silently through the night sky. We all really enjoyed spending the day with our hosts from Appleton and our friends from Grip. Special thanks to Ferko and Nicole for all their help and time spent with us over the years.

Take a look at the good times captured on Flickr.

How are you doing on your 2009 resolutions? (Sorry for bringing it up). If you remember, in January we started setting some goals for our environmental standards around the office. We’ve been keeping track of our progress here so you can see how we’re doing. We still have quite a bit of work to do in one month, but I think we will make it.

We’ve been surprised by some of the results of our efforts. For starters, it’s become almost second nature to incorporate new habits such as recycling and tracking the results. It really isn’t as hard as we thought it would be — so give it a try. Also, our clients have embraced our green stance and have been excited to incorporate responsible printing and design practices into their identity. Thirdly, our efforts have been noticed. The good folks over at Appleton featured us in their September Utopia publication. We were surprised and honored.

Don’t forget to check out our Green Thumb section, Designers Accord, and our profiles on Core77 and CSBA for more on our green stance. Look forward to a full report in January with our progress, fun facts, and helpful hints.