Some smells don't just trigger memories. They pull you through time.

Walking up the driveway to Highway Press in Avondale, I had no idea what was about to hit me. I pushed open the door to Stephanie's studio and there it was. Ink, paper, metal, something warm and mechanical underneath it all. Just like that, I wasn't in Jacksonville anymore.

I was eight years old, hanging my head through the door of the local print shop. Me and my mates, waiting for the printer to hand us off-cuts of paper and old business cards like they were treasure.

That same smell followed me to college, where I had unlimited access to all sorts of analogue presses and machinery. Screen printing, lino, bookbinding, letterpress. I couldn't get enough of it and spent every minute I could in that basement. Not just printing, though. Talking. The print technicians shaped the way I think about making things more than any brief or crit ever did.

But over the years, my relationship with print slowly faded. Life got digital. Deadlines got tight. The smell, the sounds, the beautiful imperfection of a hand-pulled print all got filed away somewhere. My love for it never went anywhere. It just went quiet, unfortunately.

Until that smell found me again at Highway Press.

‍Highway Press is a female-owned bespoke print shop run by Stephanie Shieldhouse. Listening to Stephanie talk about her practice, and watching her use her 1958 Vandercook Universal I press, I felt something come back. The same conversations I used to have in that basement. The same unhurried dedication to process. The same belief that what happens in this room matters, not because of what it produces, but because of what it means to keep this knowledge and craft going. Hearing her speak felt like tapping into an ancestral timeline. Decades of accumulated knowledge passed down through generations of printers now long gone, their voices somehow still present in the room. When I was in her shop, it was like time stood still, and visiting there meant everything to me. 

In an industry moving faster than ever, it's easy to forget that the best creative work has always come from people who cared deeply about how something was made, not just what it looked like. Stephanie is one of those people. And spending time in her studio was a reminder that craftsmanship isn't a slow alternative to modern practice. It's the foundation of it.

Written by Elliot Asprey, Senior Art Director

‍ruckus is a full-service, top-rated marketing and advertising agency in Jacksonville, Florida. Come visit us at our new address is 1505 Dennis Street, Suite 500, Jacksonville, FL 32204

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