Craft guide
ORBISBOOKSELLERS & STATIONERS IN MELBOURNE5 stores · curated ORBIS register
Collingwood, Melbourne
Hares & Hyenas is a community bookshop inside the Victorian Pride Centre in St Kilda specialising in queer literature, covering fiction, biography, sex education, trans and non-binary titles and parenting books. It also stocks comics, poetry, plays, magazines, CDs, vinyl and DVDs alongside rainbow merchandise.
Best for Queer literature and community bookshop
CBD
Hill of Content is an independent Melbourne bookshop founded in 1922, with a long reputation for curated literature and nonfiction. Since 2025, the shop has traded at 1/32 Bourke Street.
Best for Bourke Street historic bookshop, curated literature, and non-fiction
Melbourne / Australia
Letterpress-printed business collateral and stationery from a Melbourne studio running century-old platen and proof presses.
Best for Letterpress-printed business collateral and stationery from a Melbourne studio running
Hungry Workshop runs a working letterpress operation out of Brunswick East, Melbourne, printing on vintage equipment that includes an Asbern proof press dating to around 1960 and a Chandler & Price platen press over a century old — real, named, dated machinery rather than a generic claim of "vintage presses." The studio's own framing of its work is compact: "We make things that are not only seen, but felt," a line that ties directly to letterpress's tactile, debossed-impression signature.
Its service list runs from business cards, packaging and invitations through swing tags, gift certificates, notebooks and coasters, with custom letterpress projects produced for what the studio describes as "design-conscious brands, creatives and individuals who care deeply about the details." Hungry Workshop also runs small-group letterpress workshops (four to eight people) at the Brunswick East studio, and lists collaborations with makers across other trades — chefs, bakers, tailors — commissioning printed goods, which points to an active commercial-production practice rather than a hobby space kept open mainly for classes.
The business is contactable directly (listed phone and email, appointment-based hours), and its stock in trade is letterpress and closely allied finishing techniques — foil stamping, embossing — rather than digital printing with letterpress as an occasional add-on. That combination of dated working presses, a production-first service list, and a real Melbourne address supports treating it as a dedicated letterpress print house.
CBD
Melbourne CBD bookshop on Bourke Street operating since the late 1960s, known for densely packed shelves and late hours (open to 11.30pm Friday and Saturday); runs a free monthly author Salon Series downstairs at the Bard's Apothecary.
Best for Literary paperbacks, poetry and independent presses
The Paperback Bookshop has operated at the quiet end of Bourke Street in Melbourne's CBD since the late 1960s - co-owner Rosy Morton, who has owned the shop since 2000, dates its founding to either 1968 or 1969. It originally stocked paperback editions of Australian and international titles and has since broadened into a wide range of fiction, classics, travel and art books, packed densely enough into the small space that browsing the whole shop takes only minutes. The Paperback Bookshop also runs a free monthly Salon Series, inviting authors to discuss recent releases at the Bard's Apothecary space downstairs.
Fitzroy / Online
Melbourne stationery design studio and store producing archival products, journals, paper goods and personalised in-house stationery.
Best for Collectible stationery since 1989 — cards, notebooks, handmade paper, wax seals, ribbons
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