New blog 'Type & Press' is online!

Hi everyone!
I have some good news:) I'm happy to announce that my new letterpress blog - 'Type & Press' went online this morning. Yay! So please update your bookmarks.
Type & Press' is a blog dedicated to the love of wood type and letterpress printing. The goal of this blog is to document experiments, catalog and share inspiration. Feel free to browse through old and fresh content, explore resource pages or submit links and interesting letterpress-related projects.

Thank you all for your interest and I hope to see you soon!
Armina

This blog is moving

It's been a while since my last post. And there is a reason for it - I decided to move this blog to a new level - to a new blog platform. New blog will have a new name, new look, more features, more links to resources etc. The content will not change, I would still be posting about woodtype/letterpress related matters and everything I used to post here will move along to the new platform. This blog will continue its existence, but as an archive, it will not be updated anymore.

The new blog is planned to go online in the middle of july.
If you want to be notified you can subscribe using the form below.

Keep me informed!

Thank you all for your interest and I hope to see you there!

Poster. Dominic Rechsteiner.

Nice letterpressed poster made by a Swiss designer Dominic Rechsteiner. I like the combination of wood type and linocut.

found via Swiss Legacy

WNY Book Arts Center. Kickstarter

The WNY Book Arts Center has grown from a rough idea into one of the most active letterpress printing and book arts centers in USA in a very short time. But woodtype has become a scarce commodity for printers and now with eBay sellers cashing in one letter at a time, full sets of woodtype have become very scarce.
'A collection of woodtype from a local printer has come to the attention of WNYBAC and we are torn up that we cannot muster the funds to buy it up. If we do not, the seller has decided to sell on eBay. We are looking to secure the funds to purchase this collection for use in the WNYBAC printshop. It has been dormant for more than 50 years, and we'd like not only to make it available to the local printing community, but also to woodtype aficionados by distributing specimen sheets of the fonts that haven't been printed in decades.'

Help Buffalo's WNY Book Arts Center to buy wood type by supporting them on Kickstarter

Godspeed poster by Studio on Fire

Godspeed is a recent work by Studio on Fire made for 'Artcrank' - a poster show for bike people. The construction of this poster is an assemblage of prints created with actual bicycle parts (love the idea!). Used bike parts were inked up with a brayer and printed by hand. These prints were then digitally arranged on top of a pencil sketched layout. It was plated in photo polymer and printed on letterpress in 2 colors.

check out for more pictures here

Matthew Carter and his first wood type

Interesting article on eyemagazine blog about how Matthew Carter designed his first wood type using a computer-controlled router cuts.

Wood type by Lead Graffiti

12 line Bradley as first font of wood type

Many of those who is printing with wood type had to work with damaged wood letters of incomplete letter cases. Lead Graffiti design studio came up with a solution to make letters from endgrain Rock Maple using random sized blocks which helps counter any warping and with as accurate a type height as is achievable in wood (which shrinks and expands based on humidity and temperature). This technique gives a lot of opportunities: creating a new (own) wood type, replacement of damaged letters etc.
So, if you have missing characters you can supply a proof and Lead Graffiti will supply it in wood. Great!

read more about the project

FPO Awards

There are a lot of design competitions organized every year, but this one is special!
"Organized by UnderConsideration, the FPO Awards is a judged competition that celebrates the best print work from around the world during 2010 — a direct extension of the popular blog FPO: For Print Only.
The FPO Awards categories are focused on print production over project type. Categories are open to design professionals, students, printers, and hobbyists as long as the work was produced in a minimum quantity of 50. Work must have been produced in 2010."

Deadline: 3 june 2011

more information here




"This Flickr set shows the selection, inking process, and larger versions of the lock-ups above."

3D printer

On 31 march, the MIAT museum hosted an event about 3D printing. The idea of event belong to department of Applied Engineering of Hogeschool Gent.

RepRap in action.

test letters printed from different materials.

got freshly printed letter in my hands:)

unfortunately the surface of the printed letters is not perfect yet, (but we all knew that, anyway:)

Pure Reversal

PureReversal from Build on Vimeo.

'Pure Reversal' is a short film produced by Build for the launch of the new typeface 'Nokia Pure' (created by Dalton Maag). Bridging digital to analogue Build commissioned a woodblock version of the typeface, highlighting the craft of Matt McKenzie of the Paekakariki Press.

Filmed on location at his workshop in Walthamstow, a ltd-edition print was produced and printed on his original 1959 Heidleberg KS Cylinder 38 x 52 Press.

source

found via Erik Desmyter

Wood Type

This entire weekend I spent at the museum, sorting out the wood type (50+ letter cases). It took me some time to find all missing pieces and organize everything alphabetically. But I had a great fun!

Wood Type

Now, the next step is to identify each one of them, as there is no records at the museum. Something tells me it will take much more time than just sorting it out:)

Letterpress (second edition). David Jury.

After a succes of 'Letterpress:New Applications for Traditional Skills' in 2006, RotoVision has released a second (updated) edition - 'Letterpress: the allure of the handmade'.
'Newly revised and updated with luscious and inspiring images of contemporary work, this book allows today’s graphic designer to rediscover the creative potential of letterpress. Thanks to its physical presence on the page, letterpress has a unique and visual impact, and offers a powerful means of expressing ideas through a more intelligent use of type.'

found in RotoVision Catalogue

Memory game

"Built Icons" memory game is a wonderful result of craftmanship of Marcel Gohring from Druckwerk printing studio in Basel. This game box includes 48 letterpress printed cards (each card is designed using wood and metal ornaments) and a folder with impressive photos of lock-outs (I can imagine how time-consuming it might have been). The entire box is available for purchase here. On my wish list!

found via letterology

This type illustrations slightly reminds me of work by Almost Extinct.

Blog

Yesterday I came across this interesting tumblr blog. It is dedicated to the art of print-making, no matter what techniques has been used.
A lot of inspiration out there!:)

found via printeresting

Get Up Printing Kit

Love the idea of handmade stamps for Barcelona based 'Get Up Hair' stylist. It's fun and flexible!

made by Alexis Rom Estudio

Oakland wood

These wonderful wood letters of Oakland (by Zuzana Licko) were created by Evan Christie (School of Visual Concepts, Seattle, WA). "Typefaces of the past, many of which are now staples of modern graphic design, took physical form as moveable type," said Evan. "I wanted to use a typeface that was never meant to take physical form, and Oakland was the perfect typeface to use because it embodies the birth of the digital era where nothing is tangible." Christie milled the maple down to type height and etched the letters in long strips using an epilog laser engraver. They were then cut off the strip into individual blocks.

source

I'm curious about the prints:)

Letter March

Letter March is an interesting project by Aymie Spitzer, a graphic designer located in Brooklyn, New York.
'This is an experiment in carving one linocut letter per day in an attempt to complete an entire alphabet by March 31st. Chosen typeface: Champion Gothic by Hoefler & Frere-Jones.'

Looking forward to see more lino carved letters.

Making Books

This nice video, produced by Encyclopedia Britannica Films Inc. in 1947, shows laborious process of producing books. Amazing!

Книга Букв (The Book of Letters)

While surfing on we love typography I've spotted some interesting images of cyrillic wood type. Apparently those images are coming from an exhibition in Moscow called 'Книга Букв' (The Book of Letters). It has been orginized by designers Maxim Gurbatov & Anna Tsjaikovskaya.
In this exhibition there are texts and images. But the images of this book are to read and the text - to watch. Here is the story told by authors: "Once upon a time we stumbled upon wood characters. They were laying on the dusty pavement near the gates leading into the printing house. For us, to found a dozen of old wooden letters was like to become an owner of map that leads to the Treasure Island. So the letters hunt had began! It became immediately clear that in Moscow there was nothing to find. So we brought six bags of letters by truck from the printing house of the 'Pravda Severa' newspaper, from Archangelsk. We orginized this exhibition because we wanted to show that letters are beautiful, they combined art, technology and literature, and if their service in the printing industry is over, then their place is in the art.'

exhibition is open from 16 to 28 februari at 'Mars' Gallery, Moscow (map)

I wish I was there…

click here for more pictures