That belief sits at the heart of Saturn Press, a nearly 40-year-old greeting card company now stewarded by James Anderson, whose unlikely journey into the world of letterpress printing has transformed both his life and the business itself.

James grew up in Britain and moved to the U.S. in 1991. He spent most of his career in payments, a world he describes as “fantastic, but there wasn’t a lot of emotional payload in getting a credit card transaction to work.” Eighteen months ago, he decided it was time to stop having bosses—and become his own. That decision led him to Saturn Press.

Founded in 1986 by Jim and Jane on Swan’s Island, Maine, Saturn Press was built in a remote corner of the country with remarkable care and intention. Jane was the artist, Jim the printer, and together they ran the company for nearly 40 years—designing, printing, and quietly building a loyal following from an unlikely place.

Although James didn’t grow up dreaming of running a greeting card company, what drew him in was the letterpress process at the center of it all. “At the heart of everything we do is this really analog technology called letterpress. It’s out of date for almost everything. The only two things people really do on letterpress anymore are wedding invitations and greeting cards,” James explains.

“My theory is that because everybody is surrounded all the time by these little screens with a gazillion perfect colors, when they see something that’s printed in three colors on a wall of cards, they’re drawn to it because it’s so different from their daily experience. I love that. I love the fact that our stuff is simple, but it has an element of charm.”

There’s something quietly rebellious about that simplicity. Greeting cards, he adds, are “sort of a crazy anachronism. You could text somebody—it’s much quicker, it’s much cheaper. But there are certain occasions that you just can’t text. It’s just not the right thing. You can’t email. It’s just not enough. The habit or the tradition of greeting cards really is still valued by consumers because the recipients value it. And so what we are doing is kind of using an out-of-date technology to deliver an out-of-date product, which people really still like.”

Saturn Press sources its paper from a domestic mill, choosing stock with a deckle edge—the softly wavy edge that hints at the earliest methods of papermaking. Historically, deckle edges were the result of handmade paper draining from wooden frames. Today, they’re a deliberate tactile signal that something different is happening.

“People love the quality of the paper we print on, but of course, 90-plus percent of it is the image,” James explains. Much of that imagery is inspired by oft overlooked artists. “A lot of our pieces are inspired by artists who are obscure. There’s a lot of female artists who in previous times just got ignored. A lot of the inspiration is commercial art, and therefore the artist wasn’t necessarily credited, or they just got their initials on it.”

The creative process balances preservation and modernity. “If you take old source material as-is, it looks fuddy-duddy and old-fashioned,” James says. “It has to feel fresh, but also classic. Reconciling tension is part of creating something novel in our opinion,” he says. Drawing from the 40 banker boxes of images and ephemera left behind by the founders—as well as contemporary research—designs are thoughtfully refined. The result is a collection that feels timeless, but never dated.

Despite skeptics who told him “nobody sends cards anymore,” James has found the opposite to be true. “Every trend has an anti-trend,” he says. “As everything goes digital, people really appreciate something that’s not.”

“I say cards are like these little emotion delivery capsules. So that’s a really nice part of the business, which is that we’re in the business of helping people express their emotions for other humans,” James explains. Sending a card takes effort—and that effort carries meaning. “When somebody receives a card, they think, ‘This person took the time.’”

That emotional dimension is what makes this work so different from his former life. “There are no nasty customers in the card business,” he laughs. “It’s a happy purchase.”

Finally, James is deliberate about tone. “The other thing we are trying to do is bring some positive, uplifting energy to the world. There’s a lot of cards that kind of veer down the snarky route. And that’s fine, we just don’t feel like the world needs more snark right now. So we’ve tried to introduce cards that have a more positive spin and that’s been well received. We’re trying to inject some kind of positive positivity into the world, in our own small, tiny, little way. You can only influence the world so much, but we try to do what we can.”

Every Saturn Press card carries extra care—design considered, paper chosen, color evaluated in natural light—making it more than just paper. It’s a pause. A gesture. A small but meaningful act.

Sometimes the most important things arrive quietly: a handwritten envelope in the mailbox, thick paper between your fingers, a message chosen with care. In a world that moves quickly, a card asks us to slow down—and reminds someone, and maybe even ourselves, that intention still matters.