Letterpress - A much loved dying process

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03 Feb 2012 0 comment(s)

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Kathryn

This short film ‘Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film’ by Danny Cooke, documents the dying art of letterpress and one of the few remaining movable-type printing workshops in the UK, situated at Plymouth University, featuring Paul Collier.

Click here to watch the film

It is beautifully shot and edited explaining the 500 year old method of Letterpress printing. While digital printing involves spraying ink (or toner) onto the substrate, older styles of printing involve lining up lots of letters, putting ink onto them and then pressing them onto your substrate. Normally letterpress letters are made of lead, but you can also use wooden ones.
Because the type makes an impression on the paper, one can identify letterpress by running a finger down the page and feeling the impression of the type. Furthermore, letterpress uses ligatures (joined lowercase letters) such as fi ff fl ffi ffl and ct. I love the idea of this tactility from something as simple as a sheet of paper. It brings the design to life and this quality cannot be found in any other type of printing. Setting type is a very time-consuming activity, ensuring that designs must be well thought out before beginning to print.

In just 8 minutes Danny Cooke has captured the pleasure and enjoyment that Paul Collier continually sees day in and day out in new and returning students alike from a 500 year old process. It has created a huge desire in me to have a go. I wish I had signed up for a course in uni. Looks like endless hours of fun and frustration! This has most definitely inspired me to go on the hunt for a short course.

Even though there are only a few letterpresses still going, letterpress prints still seem to be much desired and there appears to be a lot of it around. Here are some prints I particularly love.