Lyme Bay Press have started to produce type high letterpress printing blocks using deep relief KF152 Photopolymer plates alongside plates currently available and will enable many printers, who still use hand set type to incorporate imagery and non standard fonts into their own designs.

After much research they have sourced a water/chemical resistant MDF board which they have produced to the correct height to enable them to mount our standard deep relief KF152 plates. Designed to come up to 0.918”, type high, they will drop straight into your chase and you will be ready to begin printing.

There are perfect for someone who has just bought a small press Like an Adana or Excelsior 5x8 and are getting to grips with printing or don't possess a Lyme bay Chase Base. 

For more information about ordering and prices visit: lymebaypress.co.uk/type-high-blocks

Pressing on

A documentary about the survival of letterpress and the remarkable printers who preserve the history and knowledge of the craft.

Why has letterpress printing survived? Pressing On is a documentary examining the relevance of a physical process that is anything but modern! We have faster, cheaper methods to print things now – so why has this endured?

As the individuals who have kept letterpress alive are aging quickly, irreplaceable knowledge and techniques stand in danger of being lost forever. However, there is hope! A dedicated faction of young printers, designers, and hobbyists are on a quest to preserve letterpress.

With traditional tools and processes, they push the boundaries of contemporary creativity while sustaining the historic knowledge of the craft. Pressing On will explore the historic culture, the close community, and the remarkable craftsmen who are making letterpress thrive.

To read all about and pledge go to Kickstarter, they're just over half way there!

Letterpress Apprenticeship at Leicester Print Workshop

As part of its focus on letterpress, Leicester Print Workshop is offering a post-graduate level Letterpress Apprenticeship.

The selected candidate will access high quality teaching and support from our expert typesetter and printmaker, Sat Kalsi and join our community of artists. Through regular attendance at our studio, the apprentice will have the opportunity to learn, practice, experiment and create to gain substantial knowledge and technical proficiency.

This is a 12 month unpaid apprenticeship opportunity, to begin in
January 2014. More information and application details here

Deadline for Applications: 9am on Tuesday 27 August 2013.

Call for applications for the Sheffield Print Fair, deadline 30th August 2013

for more information visit

www.sheffieldprintmakers.com

more information can be found here

Pearl No. 3 Press for sale SOLD

FOR SALE! PEARL No 3

A friend is sadly having to part with his Peerless printing press. This is a great little press, nice and compact in size so if your short on space it's an ideal press for the letterpress enthusiasts wanting to start out or upgrade from an Adana. Chase size 11"x7", easy to maintain and complete with new rollers and original feed boards. Obviously if you are new to letterpress I thoroughly recommend you get some instruction first!

I upgraded to a Peerless and loved it, I miss treadling away!

For more information contact Simon Goode here

PLEASE NOTE THIS PRESS HAS NOW BEEN SOLD!

Hurray now in the UK!

For those of you familiar with the Boxcar Base in USA you'll be pleased to know that an equivalent system called the Chase Base is now available in the UK and Europe from Lyme Bay Press. Also if you already have a Deep Relief Boxcar Base they also supply KF 1.52mm polymer plates you've be longing for!

“Manufactured from high quality aluminium & ground flat by precision engineers, anodised matt black then laser etched, this is the ultimate photopolymer plate mounting system.

The white relief exposes the details of the high contrast registration grid for a long lasting surface resistant to press chemicals, allowing easy plate mounting year after year. The 10mm grid is easily visible through all foil backed polymer plates allowing small adjustments after mounting for easy alignment. The hard anodise coating is durable & easy to keep clean.

Our plates come with a sticky mounting membrane already applied & specially designed to give high tack to the polymer plate side & low tack to the Chase Base side for easy repositioning & easy plate removal after printing.

Simply replace the plastic carrier sheet on the sticky surface & store your plate in a ziplock bag to use again time after time. If the membrane gets dirty or spoiled, additional sheets can be purchased economically from our store.”LBP

Full support will be offered in getting you up and printing using the base plus there will be a forum on the website too soon. They also stock Vanson ink plus plenty of new developments in the pipeline.

I recommend contacting LBP to check which base is more suited to your press, they are a friendly bunch and will happily go though all the technicalities.

lymebaypress.com

Home-Made Gripper Bar

Missing a gripper bar on your small proofing press well Alan from The Hedgehog Press has come up with a brilliant idea!
I've a gripper bar, paper feed tray and a side lay gauge on the large Farley but on my smaller S&B proofing press there's nothing which I find very frustrating if I need to position more accurately!
Alan has kindly uploaded a large file to flickr so you can zoom in on the detail and written a description with added notes on the photo, which you can read HERE.
A clipboard spring and part of a bulldog clip, brilliant! I think even I can manage to make one, when I do I'll photograph the process.
Thanks to Alan for a very innovative idea, don't you think?

LINOTYPE: The Film

UK SCREENING TOUR

London, England

Thursday, April 26, 2012 – Time TBA

Save the date - more information soon!

Brighton, England – Ampersand Conference

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Basement - Pre-Party, 7:30 PM

24 Kensington Street, Brighton,BN1 4AJ, UK

Friday, June 15, 2012

Brighton Dome Corn Exchange - Ampersand Conference - 12:45 PM

Church Street,Brighton, BN1 1UG, UK

Q&A sessions after the screenings with the director, Doug Wilson.

To book tickets and for updates on the UK Screening Tour

www.linotypefilm.com

Fingers crossed it heads up North!

Typeface

TYPEFACE showing on Sky Arts, next showing Monday 19th March 8.50am

skyarts.sky.com

or buy the film from here typeface.kartemquin.com

Back to the future

In the era of iPhones, iPads and quite-literally iEverything, a Wood Type Museum might seem rather outdated, to say the least. But could it be that something so traditional, primitive even, can inspire today’s avant-garde digital artists?

Filmmaker Justine Nagan’s insightful documentary visits the Hamilton Wood Type Museum and Print Shop in Wisconsin to explore.

Once a bustling hive for artists and designers, the museum now sadly resembles a time capsule of what used to be the glory days of manual printing; in other words, the days of freshly-scented books, hand-crafted gifts and minimal consumerism habits. Housing 1.5 million pieces of wood type, the museum is no-doubt still very rich in resources, but it is nevertheless struggling to remain afloat as the new generation of digital obsession fails to look back on these basic but essential days.

In the documentary Typeface, international artists meet the workshop’s retired craftsmen, who have lived through the evolution of the printing industry and are among some of the last practitioners of the art of wood-type printing. Together, they attempt to comprehend the convergence of modern design and the traditional technique and find the answer to the question “could the future of the printing industry possibly lie in the past?”

We take a fascinating, in-depth look at the effect of computers and the demand on traditional manual techniques.

Thanks to Little Red Press for the Heads up!

UK Screening with Q&A with Amos Kennedy

Proceed And Be Bold!

How far would you go for your one true love? Would you give up all of your earthly possessions, your job, and your family? What if your one true love was a printing press...

At 40 years of age, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. abandoned the traditional American Dream to follow his own.  Laura Zinger's film, Proceed and Be Bold! joins him for a titillating retelling of this story, while examining the pretensions and provisions of the art world. 

The work of this self-proclaimed “Humble Negro Printer” raises emotionally-charged questions and reveals remarkable depth beneath the bold print. By learning the rules and then choosing to break them, Amos redefines what life (and letterpress printing) can be: exhilarating and subversive.

Join us for a showing of this film and Q&A session afterwards with the man himself.

Tues March 20th, 7pm - 9pm £5 adm

Book here: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/2916638745/eorg?ebtv=C

Print Festival 2012

Celebrating traditional and contemporary print process through type and image.

26th to 31st January 2012

Leeds Gallery
York Street, Leeds LS9 8AG

The one-week Leeds Print Festival 2012 at Leeds Gallery has a programme of exhibitions, lectures, workshops, open studios and performances covering all print disciplines. This unique collection of events will deliver a dose of inspiration whilst drawing attention to print and its importance in contemporary design culture.

www.leedsprintfestival.com

A Letterpress Film by Danny Cooke

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

Letterpress Workshops from Turnbull Grey

Workshops take place in our studio in Clerkenwell so we allow 3 people per session, there will be 2 people teaching and guiding you through. Sessions will fill up quickly so it will be first come first served. If you have a group of 3 people and a date in mind please let us know and we will see if we can set up a session for you.

£50 including all materials, tea and coffee.

Dates are as follows:
Tuesday 29 November 10am - 1pm
Thursday 1 December 10am - 1pm
Tuesday 6 December 2pm - 5pm
Thursday 8 December 10am - 1pm
Tuesday 13 December 2pm - 5pm
Thursday 15 December 10am - 1pm
Tuesday 20 December 10am - 1pm
Thursday 22 December 2pm - 5pm

To book your place or to find out more please call 020 7608 3324 or email info@turnbullgrey.co.uk
www.turnbullgrey.co.uk

Clever idea!

Makr Box Printing. from Jason Gregory on Vimeo.
Box Printing with custom milled platen. Antique press used to print the Daytona Herald. Printed by Nick Sambrato of Mama's Sauce printing. Filmed and edited by Jonpaul Douglass.
found via Type & Press

Letterpress Exhibition in Denmark

I'm please to have three prints included in this letterpress exhibition wish I could visited but will have to make do with photos from their flickr account, lots more to see here and regularly updated www.flickr.com/photos/symposium2011. 

In the background of the first photo you can just see flowers&fleurons work ‘Tower of Babble’. John was lucky enough to visit the private view, you can see more pictures of his process and pictures of the exhibition soon over on his blog here

The exhibition has been designed and curated by:

Keith Bassford – graphic designer and letterpress printer and Jens Jørgen Hansen – letterpress printer

Letterpress Mexico

Ditoria from typometro on Vimeo.
Thanks to Scott for link to this video, not new but I missed it the first time round via Spiekermann
The music's a little LOUD at the beginning but settles down. Great to see glimpses of book production at a small press!

20 line De Little no.181

http://www.flickr.com/photos/printforloveofwood/6032099508/in/photostream

This has to be one of my favourites in my wood type collection, so was jumping for joy when I managed to acquire all the missing letters and a no.3 to complete the set. At 20 line (approx 84mm) it takes up a lot of room in a case so marked with a white pencil they are now stored ontheir end in a deep drawer but with the ampersand on display!

Workshops with Alan Kitching

World-renowned typographer, designer and letterpress practitioner Alan Kitching (RDI AGI Hon FRCA), will teach a hands-on two day course exploring the details and fundamentals of typography. The course will give each participant an exceptional understanding of typesetting and the art of letterpress printing.

Who wouldn't like to take part in one on Alan Kitchings workshops? At £700 it doesn't come cheap, especially if you live miles way like me, so now for now it's on my wish list!

For more information on the project and forthcoming dates visit www.thetypographyworkshop.com

Help Japan

Calling all letterpress printers, deadline for entries is 30th July. There's still time to send a contribution to a letterpress exhibition to raise money for the earthquake child support group in lwate prefecture. The exhibition will be traveling to Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum.
More info can be found here