Letterpress projects 2024
In 2024 I made a conscious effort to learn more about and get better at traditional letterpress printing. Although the principles are the same (because principles, duh), the distinction between small type and large type is useful to me.
Small type
To improve my skills in working with lead type I joined the Poetry on the Press programma at Atelier t. in Belgium, last May. A full week of setting and printing small type. 12 Point Palatino to be exact. More on this very rewarding experience here (in Dutch).
Inspired by what I learned there I designed and produced the ‘to be, continue’ print in our own letterpress workshop. Hey while we’re at it, why not try and use 8 point type? The first version of this design was printed on A5 sized sheets, as part of a collection made for the 2025 edition of Letterpress Workers in Milan. In the second edition I used a much taller format that allowed for more space and more jellyfish!
Since I’m mostly still learning all this I’ve collected these prints under the Practium project here.
Large type
Designing posters is how I discover the possibilities of our wood type collection. Primary use case: GAH exhibition posters, and a smaller version of one I made earlier.
This Zines poster might have happened at the tail end of 2023 but I’m including it anyway. A small catalogue of typographic options in itself.
Most of the promotion material for my 50 birds exhibition was produced digitally, printed elsewhere. There was a list of all birds on those and I wanted to see if I could produce that full list in letterpress as well. It turned into this dyptich. I’d love to say I had calculated that things would all fit as nicely as they did beforehand, but no. Sheer dumb luck. We have two complete founts of this letter, which made it possible to set this much text in one go. (A fount is the full set of letters and symbols for a given font at a specific size. Many e’s, fewer w’s. An English fount has more y’s than a Dutch fount, etc.)
The When in doubt poster was an extensive exercise in getting all those characters in different stages of run-down-ness to an even printing height. Much proofing and putting small bits of paper under things for this one. Available to buy, even. Here.
workshops
- March saw an international group of printers work with our collection and produce work inspired by the Kwadraatbladen. The report, in Dutch is here.
- Posters à la Brattinga was the theme for another work week, producing posters using the 3 x 5 squares grid by Dutch designer Pieter Brattinga. Still needs its own writeup, that.
- I hosted a one-day workshop at the end of the year in which participants produced posters with their own XL note to self.
Letterpress 2025
The poster printing workshop was fun. As they say, to really learn something, teach it. Looking forward to do this a couple more times and streamline the process. As for the small type, I want to combine traditional lead type designs with LEGO letterpress and/or monoprinting techniques and see what that brings us.
