What was your inspiration for the name Skylab?
I was inspired by the ideals behind the Skylab space project, not the vehicle itself. I love the idea that Skylab was to be America’s first spacelab. It was way ahead of its time, literally, as it would have served as our hookup for the Space Shuttle before the ISS [International Space Station] was even born. But the Shuttle wasn’t delivered on time, budgets were slashed, and NASA was forced to ditch this beautiful laboratory into the ocean. And Australia. Oops!

Anyway, I love the idea of “the lab,” where designers, artists and anyone interested in letterpress can find a home for their letterpress experiments. Skylab was born to serve this need, to reach out to these people. While we can do a bit of design and are artists by trade, we kind of see ourselves as engineers of our clients’ letterpress dreams. That’s why Skylab exists — not primarily as a design shop, but as a fully functioning letterpress workshop.

And what’s the origin of your love of “space stuff”?
My parents were Air Force. Growing up on an airbase kind of indoctrinated the democratic ideal that we humans can accomplish anything with enough cooperation. I grew up with multi-ethinc friends surrounded by jets and other things that go fast. I don’t recall the Apollo missions but certainly recall a few of the Skylab splashdowns. And then I moved to North Alabama, where the U.S. Space and Rocket Center certainly cemented my love of rockets and all things that break the bounds of Earth.

What did you do before starting Skylab?
First I designed ads for an alternative weekly newspaper in Albuquerque. Then I became the production manager for a lifestyle marketing firm in Chicago, creating national marketing materials for RJ Reynolds, our main client. While very briefly working at Segura Design/[T-26] Type Foundry, I met Bruno Rohner, who was just starting up his print shop, Rohner Letterpress. I went on to work with Bruno from 1997 to 2001.

Next, Ana [Reinert, Atkins’ wife] was offered a job at Hallmark, so we moved to Kansas City. I went back to school, earned a Masters in Education, and taught art in an urban charter school where 90% of the kids qualified for the public lunch program. I did that for two years, and it was physically and emotionally grueling. Then I subbed for a year in a more posh district. It was a cakewalk by comparison, but at the end of the day, teaching in the ’burbs wasn’t as emotionally rewarding.

Then I decided to open my own letterpress shop. In 2006 the pieces started coming together. I took a Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneur class, followed by a few months of R&D.

So,you have Skylab’s fifth anniversary coming up?
That’s right. It’s all been good. Google is a good thing, as we do little to no advertising. It’s all word of mouth and repeat business. Our client mix is about 60/40, designers and businesses to walk-in clients.

It’s fortunate that Ana is willing to design my marketing materials. Definitely not a paid gig for her, but I trade her stuff for her Well Appointed Desk site. And the Lululemon project was another good thing! And, of course, working with fellow printer Ben Jones every day is a good thing.

What did Ben do before joining Skylab?
Ben’s a Kansas City Art Institute Printmaking graduate. He cut his letterpress chops at a small local print shop that did a lot of die-cutting, numbering, etc. Nothing glamorous, but steady trade work.

Bob Atkins loves to share samples, stories and tips with his clients. Later this month, Felt & Wire will publish Bob’s guest post about maximizing your budget, minimizing your disappointments … and other tall tales.

[Chandra] If you weren’t designing greeting cards how would you be occupying yourselves?
[Katie] John would probably make a full time career out of scouring antique stores for cool stuff. I would indulge my inner nerd and go back to school for a degree in Library Science.

Geek chic: not your typical wedding congratulations.

A lot of smaller greeting card designers have gigs on the side. Is Dude and Chick your full-time job?
After a couple of years of all-nighters and lots of elbow grease, we triumphantly punched the clock for the last time in June of this year. Now we bask in the glory of full-time bliss at Dude and Chick.

Hearts and flowers? Forget it: Bearded lumberjacks convey thoughts of love and admiration.

I’m assuming Dude is your husband. What’s it like to work day to day with your man?
We get this question quite a bit! Actually, though John and I are besties forever, we’re just friends. John lives with his wife Molly, their son Jack (he was born in June and is just amazing) and dog MacGuire. I live with my boyfriend Scott. It is interesting to spend so much one-on-one time with someone who isn’t a significant other — I think we’ve both learned a lot about communication and the value of unplugging from the DNC matrix once in a while. Fortunately, our friendship is made of the stuff that can survive the cutthroat world of greeting cards.

“Amelia Earhart,” sweet but decidedly not sappy

What led you to start Dude and Chick?
We met at a local printshop in Minneapolis, where John printed and I worked as an intern. We bonded over a love of greeting cards and Project Runway. Scribbles and goofing off became actual card ideas, and Dude and Chick was born.

Turning history on its head. Or not.

Your sensibility is original and quirky. Where do you get your ideas?
Lots and lots of napkins and notebooks. Whenever we think something is funny we write it down and revisit it later. This leads to some good concepts and a lot of confusion. Many times we’re left the morning after a long night of work wondering why we thought “fart cloud cheetos” was super hilarious. We still have a scribbled drawing of that one floating around somewhere.

Magic, baby!

Do you ever worry an idea is too out there, or are you impervious to potential doom?
Honestly, one of the best things about working for ourselves is that we are the only people we have to answer to. I can’t tell you how freeing it is to make a card with a greaser centaur on it just because it cracks us up every time we look at it. Trust me — there are many ideas that we nix because they’re way over the line, but we also decided a long time ago that if we both really wanted to make a card, we’d put it out there. It’s worth it to us if even one person gets the joke.

“Female Dogs” birthday card

Do you design to specific occasions or do you come up with ideas and then figure out where they fit?
It’s always been pretty apparent that we come up with much better ideas when we follow the fun. For the most part we just design cards that we like and hope they fit somewhere useful. This leads to a lot of “all-occasion” designs but we think multitasking cards are the future.

As a small company, how do you get a retailer’s attention? How do you decide what stores or websites you want to target?
Fortunately, we’ve had a lot of shops find us through Etsy or word of mouth. Dude and Chick sells to a lot of fantastic small stores, and it seems like they all go to the same bar every night to swap tips on the coolest lines. I also keep an ongoing list of awesome-looking shops I come across via city guides, blogs, the Yellow Pages and my own exploration. And I e-mail buyers regularly [which is how Greer discovered Dude and Chick].

“Mallbangs and Mullet,” illustrated by Katie, who explains “Anything that involves a lot of hair is probably my doing.”

Do you divide and conquer, e.g. one writes the copy, the other illustrates or prints, etc., or is it a free for all?
In the beginning, we stuck to our obvious strengths — John is a designer and printer by trade, I’m an illustrator. As we worked together, though, we both began to pitch in on various parts of every card and now each design is a full collaboration from start to finish.

John and I are very, very different in many ways, and I think that’s the secret to our aesthetic, which we like to think is different from what’s out there. John’s into minimalist perfectionism, and I tend towards excess and whimsy, but we have the same taste level — we just get to it in different ways. He reigns me in, and I loosen him up. That balance is crucial and especially helps us make awesome cards that appeal to dudes and ladies alike.

You’re a pretty buttoned-up little outfit.  How do you achieve that left-brain/right-brain balance?
Ha, do we seem buttoned up? If Dude and Chick were a shirt, we’d be the top half of a leisure suit with lots of chest hair showing.

Even the names of Dude and Chick’s cards make us laugh. Here, “Way Many Santas.”

Where would you like to be in five years?
In five years, we would be thrilled to still be working together, creating cards that make us laugh. Preferably, we would also have a soda fountain installed at DNC headquarters. Fingers crossed.

As Dude and Chick say, “You can’t go wrong with shades and a bad-a** ’fro.” We concur.

Katie and John, we look forward to hoisting a big frosty glass with you someday soon. Find the complete Dude and Chick line on their Etsy site.

Chandra, we welcome you as a regular contributor to Felt & Wire. We appreciate your unique perspective on the stationery world, applaud the way you nurture new talent, and, we can’t wait for a personal tour of your shop in Chicago (located at 1657 North Wells St. in Chicago, as well as online.)