About 01 · One room on Post Avenue, Lyndhurst, NJ
Letterpress & Lantern is a one-room product studio in Lyndhurst built for the stuff makers actually make — speckled mugs that eat light, cold-process bars that crumble if you breathe on them, amber droppers that mirror every lamp in the room.
You ship the box. We light it, shoot it, and color-check every frame against the real piece on the table. Back come 20–60 images, cropped for Etsy, Shopify and the feed, named by SKU. No apparel racks, no 400-item catalog days — the whole room is tuned for small-batch.
Your shot list gets written around your SKUs before you’ve even taped the box shut.
About 02 · The name, decoded
It isn’t a vibe name. Each half is a rule the studio actually runs on — one for how your piece gets lit, one for how every frame gets checked before it reaches you.
Lantern · how it’s lit
Nearly every set starts with a single key light, placed like a lantern on a table — then gets only what your product asks for. A bounce card for a soap bar’s shadow side. A black flag to kill the hotspot on a glossy glaze. Less light, placed better, is why your shop grid reads as one shoot instead of twelve.
Letterpress · how it’s checked
Printers used to pull a proof and hold it next to the original before running a single sheet. Same energy, just with pixels: every frame sits beside your actual mug, bar or bottle, and the color gets nudged until screen and table agree. Your celadon stays celadon.
About 03 · What’s actually in the room
No secret kit, no mood-board mystery. This is what your products meet the minute the box gets opened on Post Avenue — and why each piece is there.
See what each package uses| Item | Spec | Why your product cares |
|---|---|---|
| Key light | One hard strobe in a lantern-style globe | Crisp, believable shadows that still read as daylight at thumbnail size. |
| Glass | 100mm macro | Glaze drips, soap swirls and dropper texture without bendy edges. |
| Sweeps | White, bone, violet, matte black | White for marketplace rules; the rest for lifestyle sets matched to your palette. |
| Prop shelf | Linen offcuts, travertine, dried botanicals, wood risers | Context that frames the piece without stealing the scroll. |
| Color check | Reference card, top of every set | So what buyers see on screen is what lands on their doorstep. |
| Exports | 2000 px squares + 4:5 crops, SKU-named | Drag straight into Etsy and Shopify. Zero renaming marathons. |
About 04 · House rules
Six rules, written in marker, stuck above the sweep. They’re the reason your box comes back the way it does.
Filters are for selfies. Your glaze gets matched to the real piece, frame by frame, until the screen stops arguing with the table.
The day your box lands, you get a contents photo by email — so you know everything made it, or exactly what didn’t.
Every export is named by your SKU. IMG_4471 never makes it anywhere near your inbox.
Color, crop, cleanup — flag it on the proof gallery and it gets fixed before anything goes final. Flat-Lay Run included.
Light positions, props and crops get logged in your shot list, so your spring drop lines up with this fall’s grid.
Your pieces go back in the padding they arrived in — on your prepaid label, or insured return quoted at cost.
About 05 · A week on Post Avenue
Here’s what your box is up to while you’re back at the wheel, the pour room or the packing table. Day one is the day it lands; day seven, your proofs go live.
Opened, contents photographed, a note in your inbox before dinner.
Reference card, test frames, a gut-check against your inspo images.
E-comm frames: every SKU, every colorway, every angle on the list.
Lifestyle sets built to your palette, plus glaze and swirl close-ups.
Hundreds of frames in, only the keepers move on to retouch.
Dust and seams out; color nudged until it matches the piece.
Your private gallery opens. Comment frame by frame.
Full Launch runs on a 5-day window. Need it faster? Rush gets your proofs in 4 days for +$140.
Put your box on the calendarAbout 06 · Your move
Fifteen minutes, your SKU count, a rough launch date. That’s the whole call — your written shot list and packing slip follow within 48 hours. Packages run $350 to $1,400, on one invoice.