Our Story

It’s Amore Design & Letterpress is a custom design studio that specializes in letterpress printing located in Pasadena and San Francisco. We believe that everything you do should stem from love — amore — which is how it all started in 2007.

After extended travels in Italy, and in the pursuit of following our long-time love for paper, typography, fine printing and design, we discovered that letterpress printing was the perfect combination of it all. We opened up our shop with the goal to do something we love. We hope to design products whether it’s custom invitations, stationery, or branding that you’ll love too!

Meet Serendipity

It was love at first sight when we met! Serendipity is everything that one could wish for in a printing press. She is a vintage Vandercook Universal I cylinder press and can print beautifully. Each print is hand-cranked and fed in one by one to create a clean, crisp and deep impression to show off both type and design.

Meet Karen

It’s Amore Design + Letterpress is a dream that’s come to reality for Karen Leung. Growing up with an obsession for type, paper and stationery, she followed her dreams to study graphic design, which led her to spend some time studying printmaking and fine art in Tuscany, Italy.

Besides falling in love with Italy, she knew she had to find a way to combine her love of type and printmaking, and letterpress was the perfect blend. After a couple years of learning the art of letterpress printing and working at the Otis Lab Press, she started It’s Amore Design + Letterpress. She oversees the design, printing and details to make sure you’ll fall in love with the projects we create. Karen also continues to share her love of letterpress with students by assistant teaching at the Art Center College of Art & Design in Pasadena.