Meet Sally Thompson of RiNo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sally Thompson.

Hi Sally, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve loved to work with my hands since I was a kid. I was always making something – knitting, drawing, origami, basically anything you can find in the craft aisle at Hobby Lobby I did. As I grew up I decided to go to college for Graphic Design so that I could continue to be creative. I quickly realized while I loved design I continuously craved getting off the computer and somehow making my designs by hand. I took my first letterpress class my sophomore year and was immediately in love. It was the perfect combination of designing on the computer and then actually physically making that design by hand. The letterpress art was so fascinating to me. Finding a job for letterpress is close to impossible, so when I graduated I ended up in a corporate advertising job. I realized very quickly that sitting in a beige cubicle photoshopping Big Macs all day was not going to do it for me. McDonalds was our client – and yes I was always hungry. I decided I would give letterpress a try and see where it took me. I ended up quitting my job with about zero savings and moving to Nashville for a couple months to intern at Hatch Show Print: the oldest and most renowned letterpress shop in the United States. It was an incredible experience, but as you can imagine, very hard to get an actual job from. At the end of the internship I moved back to Kansas City and started Sal Studios.

At first, my business was letterpress greeting cards and art prints, and it was a really big struggle. I was working about four jobs to try to pay bills and keep my dream going. After about a year, I got a freelance design job at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. I owe Hallmark so much for making my business successful. Having this gig allowed me to pay my bills and take the stress away from making money from Sal Studios. I was able to enjoy my business again. Soon after I started at Hallmark I switched gears in my business to focus on designing and printing primarily wedding invitations. I loved designing invitations for couples; creating something that told their unique love story and printing beautiful invitations to start their special day off perfectly. Things started to take off from here. I ended up going full-time at Hallmark, and worked the side hustle for a long time trying to make sure that when I took my business full-time it was bringing in a steady income already.

After working 80+ hours a week for almost two years, I finally left Hallmark in February of 2020 and took my business full time. Little did I know what was coming with COVID about two weeks after leaving. Luckily I worked so hard to have some cushion and have been able to make it work despite the wedding industry taking a really big hit. I grew up in Kansas and had lived there my whole life and I knew I wanted to change things up. And now that I worked for myself, I could! I decided Denver was the place for me and moved here in August. It’s been an incredible experience. Kansas City is known for having an incredible supportive creative community, and I was a little worried to leave that support. But Denver has completely blown me away, everyone has been just as welcoming and supportive – I’ve quickly met many other wonderful people from my industry and other artists through my shared studio space in RiNo. I’m so excited to continue to grow my business in this community. I hope someday to be able to offer letterpress classes to people, as well as grow a team of my own. My goals are endless!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely been a journey for me. I remember at the very beginning when I moved back and started my business getting my house bills in the mail and just crying. I was working about 4 jobs then and doing everything I could to get my business off the ground. Looking back, I know those days were so important to my own growth and my business. I learned a lot about what did not work before I learned what did. I have seen both myself and my business grow so much over the past 4 years. When I left my full time job in February, was when everything had finally clicked into gear. I was getting steady work, and keeping super busy. And just as that happened, March hit and the wedding industry fell pretty much completely silent for almost 6 months. It’s been really scary, especially because I worked so hard to get to this moment. But I’ve been able to hold on, and am feeling really hopeful about the future. I’ve already started to see more couples come in in the last couple months and I know they are all so eager to finally have their wedding celebration. I’m just so grateful and happy that I have made it this far.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a graphic designer and letterpress printer. I design and print luxury handmade wedding stationery. I love every minute of it. I am so passionate about beauty and design, and find the letterpress art form to be one of the most beautiful in the world. If you aren’t familiar, letterpress is the act of printing the design onto paper with ink in-between. The result is an indention in the paper that creates a beautiful texture that you can both see and feel. What sets my business apart is that I am not only the designer, I also print everything in house by myself. Most stationers outsource their printing. But being both the designer and printer means a seamless process from start to finish.

By the time I print my couple’s invitations, I know exactly what they are wanting and can make sure they turn out perfectly. Letterpress is a very handmade art; the color is mixed by hand and every single invitation is printed one at a time by hand. So naturally there can be a lot of imperfections with this printing method. As the printer, I can make sure they turn out nearly perfect! Owning my own little print shop is something I am so proud of. This equipment is not easy to come by, not easy to move, and not easy to maintain. My letterpress is about 70 years old and about 750 pounds. My paper cutter is about 1000 pounds. I have a 250 square foot space in RiNo at Backyard on Blake and it’s the perfect little spot for me right now. I love that space so much and simply going to work there brings me so much joy.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I’m definitely a risk taker, and honestly I think any small business owner has to be! When I quit my advertising job to take the unpaid internship at Hatch Show Print with basically no savings, I definitely learned my lesson. It was a bit of a naive and irresponsible leap and risk to be honest. Not that I regret it, but I definitely didn’t really think things through. That’s why when I left Hallmark to officially go full-time with Sal Studios, I made sure I had the savings and steady business coming in to support myself. And then, moving my 2,000 pounds of equipment to Denver amidst a global pandemic was a bit of a scary risk. But one that I knew I needed to do for myself. I had lived in Kansas my whole life and was going very stir crazy for a new adventure. I knew I could fail, and still could really, but the risk will always be worth the reward.

Contact Info:

• Email: hello@sal-studios.com
• Website: https://www.sal-studios.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salstudios_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salstudios

Image Credits
Lindsey Mehlhorn