Based in Kansas City, Missouri, Skylab Letterpress is a full-service print shop focused on the craft of letterpress printing in the modern landscape. Since 2006, we have been building relationships with our clients by offering Skylab as an incubator for their dreams, ideas, and printing needs. We have also developed close working relationships with a network of great digital and offset printing vendors in the Kansas City area that gives our clients an unbeatable range of printing solutions.

We love pushing the envelope of printed design possibilities. We are able to keep an antiquated printing process fresh by employing modern materials and digital solutions. Working with digital files, we create our own printing plates in-house which allows us a rapid turnaround time for projects. Need that extra special touch? We also offer edge-painting, duplexed and triplexed stock, gold foiling, die-cutting, numbering, drilling, and many other finishing techniques.

(Sweet virtual tour photography provided by DJaren Photography)

Visit Skylab

Located in a light industrial zone just north of the Missouri River, Skylab embraces the creative power of Kansas City, the friendly nature of small-town Main Street atmosphere, and the freedom of a true commercial space. Our proximity to Downtown, as well as a major vein of the highway system, allows a quick and easy drive for a majority of our local clients in the Greater Kansas City area.

Want to swing by?

Please give us a call or shoot us an email before you drop by. Larger groups or class tours, by appointment only please.

1968 Linn St. North Kansas City, Missouri 64116

Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
Office (816) 472-0002  
info@skylabletterpress.com

FLIGHT CAPTAIN

Bob Atkins, SKYLAB FOUNDER

After graduating from Auburn University in 1991 with a BFA in Printmaking, Bob Atkins worked in graphic design and production in Albuquerque and Chicago for 6 years before finding his calling in letterpress. In 1997, Bob was brought on as the first employee at Rohner Letterpress, a modern commercial letterpress shop in Chicago. There he spent 4 years learning the ins and outs of a startup commercial letterpress business as well as the intricacies of the craft. In 2001, Hallmark Cards recruited his wife, Ana Reinert, and they relocated to Kansas City. The move allowed Bob to earn his Master’s Degree in Education which lead to a brief stint as a high school art educator, but he soon missed letterpress and working with design professionals. In the fall of 2006, Skylab Letterpress was launched.

GROUND CONTROL

MeShelle Scott, PRODUCTION MANAGER

MeShelle Scott graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2013 with a BFA in Illustration specializing in hand lettering and typography. During college, she was trained in archival book restoration at the Kansas City Art Institute’s Jannes Library. In the spring of 2013, MeShelle interned for Two Tone Letterpress, where she was able to put her art school skills to practical use as she learned how to operate Vandercook printing presses and collaborated designs for print. After a brief stint in the commercial paint industry, MeShelle joined the team at Skylab Letterpress in 2015 as the production manager and designer on deck.