Letterpress Part 1

As far as the dissemination of texts and images go, the internet has been the great leveller: now, anyone with something to say can publish his or her two cents on the web by creating a website or blog, or by adding to pre-existing sites and blogs. Likewise, any web surfer trolling the net has access to that information. But, in this age of quick, cheap information exchange, I implore you, let us not forget the vehicle that began it all: the printing press.

Because I own and print with an archaic Vandercook printing press (above image from www.fiveroses.org/intro.htm), I have a soft spot for printing words and images the old fashioned way, painstaking though it may be. Why painstaking, you may ask? Well, for starters, if I wanted to print this paragraph on my press, I would first have to spell out all of these sentences letter by letter using small pieces of lead with individual characters (letters, spaces, and punctuation) stamped on them. Next I'd have to spend an hour or two placing these sentences just so on the press and locking them in tightly so that they wouldn't slip when I started printing. Then, before the actual printing could begin, I'd still have to follow through with the paper-cutting step, the inking-of-the-press step, and the adjustment-of-the-image step. And, after printing, I'd have to save a half an hour or so to clean the press, a process which, if you learned how to print at the San Francisco Center for the Book like I did, would involve Crisco, rubbing alcohol, and--your favorite and mine-- paint thinner.... Naturally, most people have a million other things to do, right?

All that being said, I love the relative slowness of printing with a press; the work involved makes the words I print worth more. And, I love the end results, which can vary according to what I'm trying to do.

Currently, most people doing letterpress work (i.e., printing with presses) are artists to greater or lesser degrees, and they're interested in the particular aesthetics of their products: a letterpressed wedding invitation, for example, should be both visually appealing and should have that unique texture that comes from stamping lead letters into nice, thick paper. If you're confused here about what I mean by "texture," you might stop in at Noteworthy on Higgins in Missoula to run your fingers across some of their letterpressed greeting cards. They also have a working Vandercook press in the back that you could take a look at.

And, here's a few of my favorite online letterpress related resources:

The San Francisco Center for the Book: http://www.sfcb.org/index.php
Fameorshame Press: http://fameorshame.com/
Briar Press: http://www.briarpress.org/
Introduction to Letterpress Printing: http://www.fiveroses.org/intro.htm