a mirror is a design and publishing project that merges fine press bookmaking and printing with contemporary experimental design and fabrication. Collaborating with artists, writers, designers, and photographers, a mirror aims to be a reflection of life through niche poetic interpretations.

#31, Main Gallery

Students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Printmedia's 'Advanced Deep Risography' class present boundary-pushing artwork running the gamut from prints, artist books, zines, comics, and ephemera, and employing the full expressive possibilities of Risograph printing.

#45, Main Gallery

Arianna Unabia Aquino is a Filipina-American printmaker and illustrator from Chicago. They mainly utilize risograph printing in their work and derive inspiration from the thoughts that are stuck in their head, allowing intuition and exploration at the forefront of how they create.

#24, Main Gallery

Arts of Life is a 501(c)3 non-profit founded in January 2000, with a shared vision: to create a person-centric, working artistic community and provide a work environment of equality and inclusion in Chicago.

#25, Main Gallery

bench press is a risograph press based on friendship, play & collaboration. books are remnants of generative conversations & mutual exchange between artist + publisher.

#13, Main Gallery

Benschop Books is the publishing project of photographer and book artist Vera Benschop. All handmade, the photo-based collection of books varies in subject matter and binding style, creating unique projects with an emphasis on photography and storytelling. Ranging from artist collaborations to self-publishing to group zines, everything is thoughtfully designed, printed, and handmade by Vera Benschop in Denver, Colorado.

#41, Main Gallery

Bert Green Fine Art is a fine art gallery and print publisher. Founded in 1999 in Los Angeles and moved to Chicago in 2012. Full exhibition program as well as the publisher of limited edition prints.

#27, Main Gallery

BOVINE represents the publishing practice of Raeann Van Zee, a designer, printmaker, and educator in Chicago, Illinois. BOVINE publishes books and other printed matter via the Risograph, and is primarily concerned with publications that investigate value, forms of labor and currency, and the activity self-publishing. Raeann's work has been exhibited at the LA Printed Matter Art Book Fair, San Francisco Art Book Fair, Detroit Art Book Fair, and more. She has been publishing since 2022, and under the name BOVINE since 2025.

BOVINE press commits to publishing books about the personal, the paradoxical, books about human consumption, about leisure, about work. Books that have words that may be significant, or words that may just sound nice. BOVINE considers a book to be a collection, an appendage, sometimes a state. BOVINE prefers a knowledge if it's a poetic one, whatever that may mean. BOVINE loves a bibliography, perhaps more than the content the sources contribute to.

#15, Main Gallery

Campfire Printing Press is a co-working art studio centered around printmaking processes in the Heart of a Chicago neighborhood. We provide a welcoming environment for professional artists and the art-curious public to explore new processes, hone skills, and bring artistic ideas to fruition.

#28, Main Gallery

Catdrool is a mail club run by Hannah Sellers, sending risograph prints to people in the mail every month.

#63, Gallery 5

Chicago Fine Art Salon is a contemporary local artists’ gallery for emerging and mid-career artists.

#20, Main Gallery

Combos Press is a queer-run small publisher based between the Hudson Valley, NY and the Pacific Northwest. We sprouted in 2022 after publishing Queer Earth Food 1, an anthology of writing and art at the intersection of food, agriculture, and queerness. Currently, Combos Press is focused on publishing work by LGBTQ+ people, anyone involved in food and agriculture, rural folks, and unpublished writers.

#8, Gallery 4

Conner Gordonis a Kansas-based artist exploring photography as unreliable narration. Through self-published photobooks and zines that often focus on a sense of place, he works to highlight photography's fragile translation of ourselves and our world.

#67, Gallery 6

Conor Stechschulte is a cartoonist and screenwriter. He is the author most recently of the graphic novel Ultrasound, published by Fantagraphics, along with dozens of self-published comics, including the most recent, “Crepusucline #1.” He adapted Ultrasound into the screenplay for a feature film directed by Rob Schroeder and released by Magnolia Films in March of 2022. He has exhibited his work internationally and published with Breakdown Press in London, Colorama Press in Berlin, and Coconino Press in Rome, among others. He lives in Berwyn, IL, and teaches classes in comics, printmaking, and self-publishing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

#46, Main Gallery

Daniel Mellis makes artist's books with a wide variety of media: letterpress, offset, digital, and riso. They also completed a very elaborate project to translate a Russian Futurist book printed on wallpaper: www.tangowithcows.com

#19, Main Gallery

Opened on September 19th, 2014, Kavi Gupta Editions is a curated space with a focus on art publications and artists’ multiples, located at 835 W. Washington Boulevard in Chicago. We feature monographs, theory, fiction, and nonfiction literature, comics, zines, and ephemera, as well as rare artist's editions and out-of-print art books, in the field of contemporary art.

Editions is a satellite of Kavi Gupta, a leading contemporary art gallery based in Chicago that hosts more than a dozen museum-quality exhibitions each year. Editions is also the gallery's publishing imprint, producing monographs, exhibition catalogues, and artists' books and multiples, as well as collaborative editions.

#26, Main Gallery

Ensemble Academy is an artist-owned small press that celebrates originality, authenticity, and creativity that brings people together.

#59, Gallery 5

Field of Grass is a design company working largely in music packaging, publishing, and visual identity for independent craftspeople. They have been named as one of Newcity's top 50 designers and awarded a Grammy nomination for packaging by The Recording Academy. A move towards small press publishing in recent years has led to the creation of an internal collaborative mail art campaign with a focus on the exploratory, philosophical, and conceptual origins of our visual culture. All work is made by Timothy Breen, Ben Chlapek, and Kirk Faber.

#42, Main Gallery

Foreshadow Pub, which signifies the pursuit of subtle clues beneath the surface, is a publishing group formed by two visual creators with a background in Chinese culture, currently residing in the United States. Our publications encompass various creative forms such as graphic design, illustration, photography, and editorial work. Our explorations cover a range of topics including but not limited to social issues, feminism, and folk studies.

Foreshadow Pub places a strong emphasis on in-depth cultural research and practice, striving to pinpoint the specific focal points within broader themes to achieve authentic self-expression. As practitioners in the realm of graphic arts, visual imagery is just one facet of our expression. We equally emphasize the power of words to meticulously unveil the essence of the subjects we address.

#61, Gallery 5

Form & Imprint is a Chicago-based artists’ book and print media collective. Led by SAIC Printmedia faculty Myungah Hyon, Brian Rush, and Jess Giffin, they emphasize the physicality of print and the narrative possibilities of books, engaging with both contemporary and historical approaches.

#62, Gallery 5

General Things Press is dedicated to presenting works by artists, whether that be visual art, writing, performance, experimental book making, etc., and making sure they are supported in what they do. Our work has manifested as a radio show, an interview series, reading events, and book publishing.

#9, Main Gallery

What began as a dedicated but directionless sketchbook practice has, for George Porteus, after marinating in Chicago’s independent and underground publishing scene for the last decade (Trubble Club, Spudnik, CAKE, Zine Not Dead, etc.), evolved into a steady output of printed matter that traces the outer limits of what might be considered ‘comics’. Graphic experiments with sequence and readability are employed to philosophical, scientific, and satirical ends, consistently presented as 2-color, Risograph-printed, short-run ephemera.

#7, Gallery 4

Gildpress Studio is an artist-run print studio founded in 2024 by Rachel Clore. Rachel graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2012 with her BFA in Fiber and is a printmaker and textile designer based in Chicago, Illinois.

Through lithography, risography, screen printing, and relief printing, Gildpress focuses on reprocessing and reimagining a collection of imagery from nature. Contrasting color, pattern, digital and hand-drawn details, and textural layers inspire our most recent work.

#5, Gallery 4

Go Press Girl! is an independent comics micropress based out of White River Junction, Vermont. We publish zines, graphic novels, and artist'’ books with an emphasis on strong emotional narratives, experimental formats, and a sense of whimsy.

#21, Main Gallery

Based in Chicago, IL, Have a Nice Day Press develops and publishes books, editions, and ephemera by artists whose work is informed by Internet culture and digital life. The Press was founded by Lele Buonerba and Laurel Hauge in 2019.

#10, Main Gallery

Hive Center for the Book Arts builds community through writing, reading, papermaking, printmaking, and bookbinding. We help people engage with the book arts at every stage: making paper, creating prints, binding signatures into text blocks, developing their fiction, non-fiction, and poetry-writing skills, and reading or listening to books read aloud. We create safe spaces for all people to create, learn, and connect.

#57, Conference Room

Homie House Press is a sisterhood, an evolving plan, and a sci-fi sequence where historically underrepresented folx are equipped with the tools to create + publish in the foto book medium. We are visual recorders navigating the current moment with a wolfpack mentality. Community over everything means that we confront with care.

We are color-nerd, glitter-obsessed, sticker collectors. Call us book fairies. We are a playground where joy is big and pleasure is major. Safe spaces aren’t always accessible, but we do our best to be the big spoon. We reemerge secret stories with gentle wonder and welcome close examination. The result is always honest, sometimes playful allegory, and other times irreverent fables.

Find us in the nuance between cuddling and mycelium.

#23, Main Gallery

Created by Brooklyn artist J. Morrison in 2010, HOMOCATS is an annual zine publication connecting the modern popularity of the feline with social politics.

#18, Main Gallery

Immaterial Books is an independent publisher of contemporary art and literature on photo media and its practice. Based in Champaign, Illinois.

#33, Main Gallery

Jasjyot Singh Hans makes prints and zines, typically risograph printed or screenprinted.

#48, Main Gallery

Jason Vaughn publishes books, zines, and artist’s books. Most of their work centers around bookmaking or the purpose of printed matter.

#39, Main Gallery

JS. Press makes risograph-printed zines and posters inspired by collecting.

#64, Gallery 5

KGP MONOLITH (est. 2009) was founded by Kris Graves and is a Black-owned publishing house. We collaborate with artists to create limited edition publications and archival prints, focusing on contemporary photography and works on paper that address issues of race, identity, equity, gender, sexuality, and class.

#34, Main Gallery

Lark Sparrow Press designs and prints fine press books, graphic short stories, broadsides & postage stamps.

#54, Conference Room

Latitude is a non-profit community digital lab in Chicago. We maintain a digital lab with high-end printing and scanning equipment, process 35mm and 120 color negative film, operate an artist-in-residence program, and organize ongoing arts programming. We gladly welcome all members of the public, including artists, photographers, students, educators, and enthusiasts.

#70, Gallery 6

LMRM (“loom room”) is a project space that blends art, research, and community programming around digital weaving. Based in Chicago, LMRM is currently one of the few places in the world offering public access to a TC2 digital jacquard loom and the only one in the U.S. with an open studio model: no residency application, and no university enrollment.

Through rental equipment, workshops, events, and collaborations, LMRM strives to emphasize weaving as a contemporary art practice.

In weaving, the open shed is the space through which everything passes in order to create interlaced cloth. As a project space focused on experimentation, LMRM aims to facilitate that open shed for weavers to exchange ideas. LMRM’s artist program provides artists with the opportunity to knowledge-share processes, display samples from adjoining workshops, and amplify their practices.

#2, Gallery 4

Looky Here, founded by artists in 2017, is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization, gallery, thrift store of art supplies, Risograph print shop, and art book press located in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Our shop is predominantly volunteer-run and serves the community by providing affordable used and donated art supplies, Risograph printing services, access to our printing equipment, and by publishing literary and art books by freak folk artists and writers. We print poetry books, art books, a biannual literary and art magazine, essays, journals, paintings, and prints. Our programming includes workshops, literary events, gallery shows, and more.

#16, Main Gallery

Magdalene Ma is an artist and self-publisher; her work mainly consists of comics, illustrations, and prints. She enjoys exploring immersive everyday narratives as well as incorporating elements of nature in their work.

#47, Main Gallery

Maggie Minor is an artist and educator based in Vermont. She received her BFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2017 and her MFA in Book Arts from the University of Alabama in 2020. Through photographs and text, her work explores warping and inaccurate recall of place. She creates atmospheric imagery that captures disintegrating memories and explores the quiet spaces in between them.

#40, Main Gallery

Maggie Umber paints, prints, and programs graphic novels and zines. She's published four graphic novels — Chrysanthemum Under the Waves, Sound of Snow Falling, Time Capsule, 270°. Her work has been widely anthologized. Chrysanthemum Under the Waves is nominated for a 2024 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel.

#1, Gallery 4

Matiz Press is an independent print studio and creative platform dedicated to education, public programming, and community engagement through printmaking. Specializing in risograph printing, zines, and artist publications, Matiz Press offers workshops, collaborative projects, and hands-on learning experiences that make print accessible to artists, educators, and the public. Blending vibrant color, experimentation, and social practice, Matiz Press champions print as a powerful tool for storytelling, cultural expression, and collective knowledge-sharing.

#17, Main Gallery

Matthew David Crowther is a Chicago-based photographer, designer, and bookmaker. His work uses personal, subjective experience to investigate relationships between humans, time, and our environment, challenge the duality of human vs nature, and explore cultural understandings of our place in the world. With books ranging from photocopied zines through handcrafted artist books his practice explores the material elements of the book form to create intimate, contemplative experiences for the viewer.

#37, Main Gallery

MR JAMAIKA is a collective hub of nine independent publishing imprints formed through the UIC School of Design’s MDes program. Operating at the intersection of design, publishing, and critical inquiry, the collective supports collaborative learning and independent experimentation in print. Each imprint maintains its own distinct voice and practice, while MR JAMAIKA functions as a shared platform for production, distribution, and public engagement. Together, the group embraces publishing as both a site of discourse and a tool for collective action.

#58, Gallery 5

Founded in 1976, the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP) is a leading academic art museum dedicated to the exhibition, collection, and study of contemporary photography. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, MoCP advances a greater understanding of the artistic, cultural, and political role of photography in our world today.

As one of the few museums globally focused exclusively on photography, MoCP remains an admission-free institution whose exhibitions and programs consistently push the boundaries of the medium. Annual programming includes three to five exhibitions, over thirty public programs such as artist talks, lectures, symposia, and workshops, and more than 400 educational engagements through guided tours and print viewings of the permanent collection.

#35, Main Gallery

Nathan Pearce is a photographer who works primarily in zines and photobooks, creating images about life in the rural Midwest.

#38, Main Gallery

NIGHTED (est. 2012) is a photo zine and book publishing house based in the Bay Area. We showcase the things that happen when the world’s not watching.

#32, Main Gallery

No-Type Magazine is an independent publisher of contemporary photography. We champion lens-based artwork that sparks conversation, invites critical thinking, and pushes the boundaries of visual storytelling. Our mission is to explore photography’s role as both an artistic practice and a cultural force—one that documents, disrupts, and deepens our understanding of the world. Each biannual print issue revolves around a central theme, showcasing work that challenges conventions, plays with form, and speaks to the complexity of human experience.

The first issue, Oh! Chicago! will debut at Staple + Stitch Art Book and Print Fair.

#66, Gallery 6

Poety Unlimited primarily publishes Molly Colleen O’Connell books, goods, and services (for now). MCO has been self-publishing and producing editioned artworks for two decades. Straddling the comics and fine art world, her work unlocks the surreal potentials of the often underestimated art form (comics).

#44, Main Gallery

Process Rubine is an emerging printing and distribution collective formed by Paul Oh (previous Staple + Stitch exhibitor Rascally Sophist Press) and Eliza Strong (Roselupin Press).

Predicated on the idea that collaborative work is able to access joy and creativity that singular vision alone cannot, Process Rubine works to bring voices together and uplift one another through artistic endeavor. We approach this goal through practical small-scale steps, including consulting artists, engaging with them directly throughout the production of artists’ books and zines, and distributing their work. And having fun, let’s not forget that.

#50, Conference Room

Quimby’s is one of the longest-standing zine and small press-focused bookstores in the US, with a 70% stock of consigned zines and comics from around the world.

Quimby's Ink is our new publishing program in which we are curating a selection of creative work in printed form from around the country and world.

#22, Main Gallery

Quotidian Press publishes conceptual books that collect and recontextualize objects and ephemera.

#6, Gallery 4

Realm Book is a contemporary photobook and photo zine pop-up shop in Chicago.

#36, Main Gallery

Riesling Dong is a Chicago-based book artist and graphic designer whose work explores the intersections of experimental book forms, narrative sequencing, and material storytelling. Drawing from both analog and digital techniques—including risograph printing, letterpress, and unconventional bindings—her practice reimagines the book as a sculptural, interactive object. Through playful structures and layered visual language, Riesling investigates themes of memory, identity, and perception, inviting readers into immersive, non-linear narratives.

#60, Gallery 5

The Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the students of book structures, zines, and photographic books in particular.

#65, Gallery 6

The Department of Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute presents an interdisciplinary exploration of printmaking that prizes experimentation and emphasizes the research and discovery needed to bring ideas to fruition. Iteration and discovery, purposeful execution and serendipitous results are highly valued. The department’s approach to materials, technique, and process is contemporary.

#11, Main Gallery

Sarah Christianson is an artist and educator in Oakland, CA.

I grew up on a four-generation family farm in eastern North Dakota (an hour north of Fargo). Immersed in that vast expanse of the Great Plains, I developed a strong affinity for this landscape and its stories. This connection to place has had a profound effect on my work: despite moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009, I continue to document the subtleties and nuances of the Midwestern landscape and experience.

My long-term photographic projects and artist books revolve around home and family, and often incorporate materials from my family’s archive. Throughout my work, I use my personal experiences and connection to the land to evoke a strong sense of place, history, and time.

#68, Gallery 6

The School of Visual Arts at Columbia College Chicago fosters a dynamic environment where artists, illustrators, and photographers are encouraged to develop their unique creative visions. Through close collaboration with art historians, students engage deeply with modern and contemporary art, blending hands-on practice with critical exploration to shape the future of visual culture.

#51, Conference Room

Shadow Work Press is the literary imprint of William J. O’Brien Studio, a creative platform where visual art and literary craft meet. Through Shadow Work Press, O'Brien translates the textures, moods, and narratives of his visual practice into poetry, short fiction, and artist’s books and zines—each publication informed by the same deep engagement with material, shadow, and form that defines his painting and mixed-media work.

#56, Conference Room

Founded in 2009, Small Craft Advisory Press (SCAP) is an artists book press at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. Our mission is to enable artists and scholars to create artists book editions that push the boundaries and traditions of the book arts.

#52, Conference Room

Sonnenzimmer, a collaboration between artists Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi, approaches graphic arts with an interdisciplinary mindset, aiming to create new understandings that transcend specific disciplines. Their work encompasses image-making, sculpture, writing, publishing, exhibitions, design, music, improvisation, and performance, exploring the physical and mental effects of visualization.

They often discuss the concept of Graphic Arts Future, which refers to the fusion of all human-induced media beyond conventional reception and intention. Through their experimental practice, they aim to evoke metaphysical curiosity and encourage formats that engage with this concept. They believe that by embracing the Graphic Impulse, we can collectively reconsider our approach to mark-making and signage, ultimately benefiting society as a whole.

#29, Main Gallery

SWRDis an art collective made up of designer Sarah Wang and illustrator/writer Ryan Davis. United by friendship and a passion for books, together we uplift and support one another in explorations in self-publishing. The two of us also collaborate on print and community-based projects - currently working together as design fellows in the Center for Urban Pedagogy's Making Policy Public program.

#3, Gallery 4

Half Letter Press is a publishing imprint and online store initiated by Temporary Services. Temporary Services is Brett Bloom & Marc Fischer. We have published books and booklets as an element of our collaborative work since 1998. Half Letter Press also distributes the work of our presses Public Collectors (run by Marc) and Breakdown Break Down Press (published by Brett).

#30, Main Gallery

Test Strip is a mail-order photographic micro-publication and print edition featuring a new emerging lens-based artist each month. A residency on paper, an open space to publish works beyond the spectre of exhibitions. The format offers a low-stakes field in which to experiment: Works in progress, forgotten, found, freshly scanned, personal, professional, or just for fun.

#69, Gallery 6

THUNGRY–a practice, publishing initiative, and artists’ book bindery complicating traditional ways of book building and semantics through experimentation + queering praxis. bex ya yolk utilizes the confines and structure of the Artists' Book, fundamental principles in design, and exploratory methodologies in sculpture to activate, interrogate, speculate, and disrupt what we’ve come to understand qualifies a Book.

Through extensive, generative research into subgenres like care work, reproductive design, abortion access activism, reproductive justice, health care disparities, and container technics–– yolk explores the intersectionalities between the Book + these kinds of bodies.

#12, Main Gallery

TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO / Short Leash Editions is a collaborative publishing practice between Izze Norman and Emma Dwyer. We’re both artists/designers interested in exploring the book as a form and what publishing can mean. Our work addresses themes including the ways in which power and meaning are produced, fantasy as a means of expression, violence as metaphor, and the desire to be ungovernable. All of our books are printed and bound by the two of us—we work mainly in Risograph and typically produce 25 to 100 books per edition, depending on the project.

#14, Main Gallery

Too Blue Press is a hand papermaking project operated by Molly Berkson. The goal of Too Blue Press is to share unique handmade paper with the art and creative community, and also to create an outlet for me to experiment and play within the medium of papermaking. Overall, I see Too Blue Press as a project to explore the formal, material, and conceptual properties within a sheet of handmade paper.

In my larger artistic practice, I aim to describe my experience with sudden hearing loss, disability, and grief using material, text, and image. I am interested in how grief can be intertwined with nostalgia, and how I can invoke that sense of time using experimental fiber in hand papermaking and images that reference found ephemera and collections.

#49, Conference Room

Tricia Treacy is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose experimental and collaborative practice intersects print media, design, and publishing into participatory projects. She attempts to blur the boundaries between art and design while extending the notion of a book. At the fair, new risograph printed books from the Poster, Performed and Unfolding Library projects will be on view, along with several other collaborative works.

I am also a publisher that collaborates with artists, writers, designers, and students, providing a publishing platform for many who would not be able to share their ideas or artwork with a larger audience.

#53, Conference Room

Ulterior Press isn’t your ordinary hobby shop or print studio — there’s something more going on than just paper & ink. Something’s a little off. Using vintage 19th-century handset letterpress printing technology to create fresh and eye-catching works, from artist’s books, posters, zines, to anything else that can get inky.

#43, Main Gallery

Venn Diagramm is a creative project originally started by two designers (Maddy Angstreich and Mikki Janower) who wanted to make books together to stay in touch during the pandemic lockdown.

Since then, Venn Di has grown into a multi-media craft publisher that rejects modernity (design that greases the wheels of capitalism) and embraces tradition (making cool shit for our friends). We write and publish zines and books, sell arts and crafts by our talented pals, and—above all—steal art supplies from our corporate offices. We want our work to blur the lines between fine art and DIY.

Venn Di is a testbed for more accessible modes of operation and distribution. Pricing is sliding-scale, art swaps are welcome, and certain works are free to print and share.

#4, Gallery 4

Using hand and digital processes, Heather Corcoran writes, designs, and produces small editions of visual books that integrate stories and essays about place.

I am interested in their natural and human histories and my own personal connections and observations. My work sits at the intersection of typography, data visualization, and creative non-fiction writing. My work integrates letterforms and type with photographs, color swatches, and maps. I have created books about the landscape in San Diego in the 1970s, the palette and design world in Chicago in the 90s, and an island that I lived close to for part of my childhood. All of these projects fall under a larger examination of the role of place, and the relationship of the natural and designed world.

#53, Conference Room