Comments on: Hatch Show Print

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:11:59 +0000

I am senior in Visual Communications about to graduate!! Anyways, started taking a course in Letterpress. Talk about a moment when what I love to do starts coming full circle. There is nothing like bringing something to life by hand setting all of the type yourself and then being able to hold the tactile result of a letterpress. Love it and gives me a great appreciation for the history of typography and design.

* sidenote* Initially, when seeing the woodblocks as decoration I thought wow! I want to do that I love the letterpress. Then, about a second later I got a very low feeling because there is something very sad about breaking up a job case :( So, neat in theory but definitely go and have them laser cut from scratch instead of breaking up a case. Wood type is so gorgeous because of the way it gains more character (no pun intended) the older and more use it gets. So, don’t do it!

By: Sean Metcalf

Sean Metcalf — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:21:19 +0000

Amazing to see a letterpress still in the works. I think it’s great for designers to go back and appreciate the history that has got us where we are today. Enjoy your post, and love the wall art!

Sean

By: Kyle Jones

Kyle Jones — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:38:54 +0000

I live down the road from Hatch Show Print and it is always an inspiration to go in there. I also went to a Hatch workshop like Andrew (see above) and it was really great to get your hands dirty. Be sure to stop in if you’re ever in Nashville!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:09:37 +0000

I live in Nashville, TN and Hatch Show Print still does their demos. I took a few letterpress classes when I was in college, here. We used all types of fonts and many of them on wood blocks, along with some metal ones. The whole process ,etc was done on press beds from that era.

By: Graeme Fraser

Graeme Fraser — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:35:17 +0000

Thanks for this. Just sent this on to a friend who has his own letterpress business in East London: http://www.atwopipeproblem.com/

Its good to see this work still going on. Perhaps its an indication that there is a wider backlash to digitally generated design. People and clients want a more individual design experience.

By: Matt Jerauld

Matt Jerauld — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:05:30 +0000

I really loved that video. Thanks for posting that. I have never had the opportunity to print in Letterpress. I want to try that out one of these days.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:52:13 +0000

Thanks for the comments, folks. Gareth, I did some letterpress printing back in my university days, too. You’re spot on about the result. Graeme, why not? It’d be nice to see. Michelle, hear, hear.

By: Graeme

Graeme — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:38:35 +0000

Hello David,

I realy enjoyed your article. I have a few items of letterpress one of which is a hand carved block from Switzerland of a musical scene. My brother-in-law gave it to me. He is a printer who came to England in the 70′s to help start up a printing firm here. The Swiss were highly regarded in the industry.

I could send you a photo of it if you would like.

Best wishes
Graeme

By: David Lipset

David Lipset — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:33:24 +0000

To preserve the original letterpress blocks, but still be able to sell letterpress blocks as wall decoration, one could make use of a laser-cutter / etching machine.

By: Gareth Coxon - Dot Design

Gareth Coxon - Dot Design — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:09:50 +0000

I bought a selection of wood block type pieces some years ago at a market in south london to put in a frame, they were pretty expensive at the time and hard to get hold of. I’d imagine that as time goes on these will be highly collectable and that a very small niche will appear for printing using these old techniques.

We used to do a small amount of this type of printing at art college, you can’t beat the final effect, beautiful and hard hard to replicate with new techniques.