Pianissimo Press is May (May Waikittipong) and Ake (Vardhana Vunchuplou). We are a small design/ letterpress printing studio founded in 2011.

It all started when Ake found a tiny printing press - ‘Adana 8x5’, the most famous British hobby printer on the most famous online second-hand market place and decided to make a purchase not knowing whether he could use or even assemble it or not.

Becoming a letterpress printer, exploring every single part of the press all by ourselves never took us anywhere but fiasco – terrible mess and waste of time and money. We wandered about Bangkok and some other places to ask from old printing factories and print supplies of what and how to use with letterpress machines. Most people were older than 70, had their own press printing nothing else but receipts, yet they were willing to give us some tips to apply with our own press, some lent us equipment that we couldn’t afford or even find. So, instead of referring ourselves a self-taught printer, we’re more likely an older-printers-taught printer.

It had been almost a year to indicate the print standard we’re contented with, even though it never resulted as smooth as the giant ones like Heidelberg press. Uneven ink density from different levels of pressure goes better together with our illustrations and the messages we want to address to the audience.

Now we’re selling prints and paper goods using soy-based ink and fine-art quality paper by feeding and pressing a piece of paper at a time for each color which consequently led us to produce in small amounts.

What is it about the soft sound?

'Pianissimo' means ‘very soft’ in Italian and also refers to the soft note in a piece of music. We named the studio ‘Pianissimo Press’ considering soft sound or voice is always lovely to listen to, delivering gentle and humble gestures, and is used to let the addressee know that not anyone, but he or she is chosen to hear the message. The soft sound may be drown out in the atmosphere or may it speak most clearly when someone is really listening.

In communication through paper, we thus set ourselves a goal to be the medium to ‘carry your words with the voice so soft and gentle’.