Celebrating Letterpress
For my Final Major Project at UCA, I decided to celebrate traditional techniques. I was able to interview people in the industry and tell their stories and experiences through a series of publications and a motion graphic. Investigating printmaking allowed me to learn traditional print techniques, including letterpress (wood and lead type), screenprinting and lithography. Focus
Printmaking
Publication
Skills
Letterpress
Bookbinding
Date
Feb. 2025 - May 2025
I experimented with printing and paper before settling on GF
Smith, Cromatico. I wanted to create a flipbook where each word of the quote
would appear on the next page and found that this translucent paper added
another visual that regular white paper didn’t, because you could see through
to the next page and the black ink created a shadowy effect. I constructed
these books with a Japanese Stab Bind as it allowed me to print on individual pieces
of paper, rather than groups, and meant I could create a more interesting
binding design. Each binding has a different number of ‘lines’ made of thread,
to indicate the order the books should be read and show that they are a
collection.
This is a project that I would love to work on more and
expand, talking to more letterpress printers and maybe creating a complete
publication of their stories to share with the world and help bring letterpress
back into focus.
When this project began, I didn’t know what print technique I
wanted to pursue, so I decided to attend workshops on letterpress, lithography
and screen printing via my university, to better understand and learn about the
process of making for each.
Out of all the processes, I was most drawn towards
letterpress. I knew that I wanted to create a publication and decided that my
subject would be about those still in the industry because we have many books
on the process and the history of letterpress, but I felt hearing stories from
those that work with the process would make my project feel more real.
I conducted interviews with Graham Bignell and Richard
Ardagh from New North Press, Barry from the St Brides Foundation and Theo
Hersey and learnt how each of them learnt about letterpress, why they enjoyed
it and where they think it stands in the modern age. I pulled out quotes from
these interviews, leaning heavily towards answers that focused on where letterpress
is now and where it is going, to not only celebrate the resilience of the craft
but raise awareness about it.