Fast/Good/Cheap

I first came across this quote as 'Coppola's Law' on my film degree. Reportedly, legendary director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, etc.) had the following quotation displayed on his trailer door during filming:

"Fast, Good, Cheap - Choose Two"

The gist of the idea being (in case it isn't clear):
Something made quickly and on a low budget will be a bit crap.
If you want something cheap and good, you'll have to be patient.
If you want something made fast and high quality, it's gonna cost ya.

So, clearly very relevant to film production, but certainly to many other industries as well.

Alongside Grey Letter Press, I also have a 'day job' at the inimitable children's book publisher, Usborne. I work in the Production department, where this quotation is very relevant indeed!

So, I decided a letterpress print of this quote was exactly what the department needed as a little "farewell (for now)" gift from me as I went off on maternity leave.

A lot of our printing gear is still in semi-storage as a result of all the renovation work we've recently had done on the house, so I had limited typefaces to choose from. We found this rather dusty wooden type in the loft:

Interestingly, we purchased this from Italy, so it comes with some lovely accented letters and a rather unfortunate letter distribution for the English language:

Good old Gill Sans Bold was luckily also to hand:

For the ink, I mixed up a sort of inky blue, and a then a sobering black for the reality check part of the quote:

Ooh, glossy:

I'm pleased to say the print was very well received. Here it is taking pride of place amongst the snacks, until someone gets around to putting it up on the wall: