Nope. No letterpress here. It’s all a Christmas illusion courtesy of those lovely boffins at mpressInteractive and their wonderful app…
Ho ho ho, indeed! All the best…
Archives for posts with tag: Letterpress
On super thick handmade paper. About A4-ish. Just for fun. One for me, a few for friends. Oh, and if you were wondering, it does…
I HAVE GOT TWO
TO GIVE AWAY!
If you would like one, you’re going to have to make me smile! Drop me a comment (by clicking that little box next to the date under the title of this post) and tell me something amusing about yourself. In seven days I will choose my favourites and contact you directly for mailing details. Winners will be announced as an addition to this post and on Twitter! Spread the word…
UPDATE!
Many thanks to all of you who commented here – it’s nice to know that I am not the only one with odd habits! As I said in the post, I only have two of these to give away and feel bad about disappointing people, so I will be sending something printy to everyone! Everyone has been emailed – just let me know when you get your pack!
Thankyou to everyone who joined in, especially Phoebe and Justin who will receive one of these prints (and a few other bits) in their mail soon!
I have a very inviting pile of nicely printed postcards that are demanding to be overprinted. Again, I am experimenting with some new colours (for me) and aiming for a grungy/retro feel on each of the cards. I had printed a number of additional cards to use as set-ups as there is nothing definite when it comes to printing, and every stage has an opportunity for something to go awry.
Take this first print. this slimy effect is the result of a combination of things: a lot of transparent extender, too much ink mixed and rolled out on my inkslab and subsequently too much on the roller. The block is then over-inked which squishes out the excess under pressure and leaves this ‘beading’ effect. I also find that it takes two or three prints for the block to ‘come up to’ readiness – where the repetition of re-inking saturates the lino surface and rids it of any greasy residue, either from the carving (a very hands-on process) or more likely in this case, of any soap left over from cleaning (I use a little liquid soap and water for Caligo water based relief inks, and baby wipes to keep my fingers clean during printing.)
But after a few prints, the block settles down and I start to get the results I’m after. This is quite a rich orange, but because of the transparent extender, it looks metallic, almost gold on the block!
This image has been my wallpaper ever since!
This was about 98% extender and 2% black! I couldn’t get the transparency I wanted so I under inked the block instead.
And then it was on to some shitty brown over the baby blue…
If anyone else would like to enjoy some printy wallpaper, you can down load it here.
The unseasonally warm start to spring (although it has been followed by some fairly sharp ‘brass monkey’ weather) seems to have got my dander up in the printshop!
I run out a decent number of postcards using my trusty Belmont coppertop block and added a blog link in 10pt Gill Sans Italic. I ended up using the full stops from another font as the Gill was ‘sans punctuation.’ This has resulted in an unsightly drop on the baseline, but I decided to go with it as I thought it did not detract too much. (I can hear the sharp intake of breath from the purists and am girding my loins in anticipation of the responses this may draw!)
My aim on this project was to experiment with some new colours, combinations and effects, and began by mixing up some Opaque White with a dab of Prussian Plue and a tiny smidgen of Process Yellow:
I added just a little more yellow to push this towards a pale turquoise.
I am very pleased with this colour – it has covered well and laid down a rich base for the next stage. Oh, I had cut these blocks to try to develop my cutting skills. Sorry, no images of that part.
The next coulour was a soft pink, again using a base of the white with a dab of magenta.
Again, this has covered well and dressed up this blackletter a little…
I did want these prints to be clean – free from the lino ‘peaks’ – but thought these added something to the effect. I kept making small adjustments to the block to keep these to a minimum though.
The next block was printed in a baby peach colour, made from white, yellow and magenta.
This one has printed very clean and sharp as I intended.
There is also a fourth block, but I’ll save something for the end! With 40 cards all printed and stacked in my drying rack, I’ll let you know what is to come next; transparent colours.
The Lestaret Corporation has recently been granted a franchise on one of the divisions of Hell and as of May 2012 will be issuing tickets for the new system of entry (for a small administrative fee, of course.) This will involve standing in lots of queues, and the continual listenening to the entire output of Justin Bieber. Not big changes then.
Just to demonstrate the levels of intense toil that goes into producing each ticket, here is a quick overview:
1. Taking reference from a classic format, all measurements were accurately taken.
2. A batch of sturdy card was trimmed to an oversized dimension (10mm all round,) for better handling during printing.
3. A template was created in order to gain an accurate position of the print. The centre was trimmed to show the maximum print area and used to overlay the makeready prints.
4. Printing. Well, not quite that simple. First the type needs composing – Univers 45 and 68 centrally aligned – this took around 45 minutes in all, particularly in the positioning of the type in the chase. This was then printed on the Adana 5/3 in a dark green. A day later, the numbering box was installed and the tickets were sequentially numbered in a deep red.
5. The top and bottom are then trimmed. I set up a temporary jig on my cutting mat to speed this up.
6. The tickets were then perforated using a small perforating wheel bought from a local craft store. Again, a temporary jig was used for this process.
7. Holes were punched with a hand held single hole puncher, using a cardboard jig to ensure consistency of position.
8. Edges removed to enhance the reveal the ticket!
This is a lot of effort for such a small bit of ‘stuff’ but I like it!
…The next stage is to plan out the layout for the cards and run some set up prints…
The first part of this is locking up the type into the chase. This is more fiddly than you’d expect, and involves a fair bit of trial and error, inserting tiny slivers of metal to balance up the lines, then blocks of wood and metal (called furniture) to pack everything out:
As this was a test run, it really did not matter too much, but I quite enjoy the setting up so spent quite a while making sure everything as all set tight – if you look at the image on the left the ‘a’ is slightly lower, dure to some uneven packing, but a bit of finagling soon sorted this out. This adjustment is a matter of about one tenth of a millimetre…
And then to set up for printing. The forme was locked into the pressbed and inked up and a few test prints were made onto the cards – just to get the position right – I discarded these as soon as I knew that I could run prints at about the right place on the card. More fine tuning can be done later.
I only printed six cards and found that I was very pleased with the first sighting, but unhappy with the quality of the print.
This is the first time I have printed on coated stock – card with a slightly shiny smooth surface and I think my set up works better on thicker, uncoated stock. Also the impression appears very slightly smudged, suggesting that I may be applying too much pressure – a lighter touch next time.
As I say, I am pleased with the general direction – clean and minimalist, but practical too.
As well as improving the print quality, I also want to work on the typesetting too – I like type that optically aligns (my students will testify to this!) and I need to apply the same standards here that I do on-screen, especially in the vertical alignment:
More work to do!
My last post on letterpress was a little vague. Well, a lot vague really, so I guess I should explain a little further. I have been considering some possible new projects, mainly ‘old school’ letterpress but different from the short run abstracts that I have been doing up to now.
After a few days sketching out ideas I decided to make some typographic playing cards. Let me say this here first; this is not a new idea. Many people have made very a nice job of this, these people included:
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/9353/typographic-playing-cards.html
http://design-fetish.blogspot.com/2010/01/typographic-playing-cards.html
http://p22.com/products/deck08.html
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Typographic-Playing-Cards/1127553
http://fontgear.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/typography-playing-cards/
But rather than follow them into the same territory and produce another set of typographic cleverness I decided to opt for a much simpler approach. Also, as I was going to produce them all by hand (and not farm them out to a commercial printer) these would be made in a very limited quantity, giving them a different status than a standard deck.
Letterpress playing cards are also nothing new. There are some lovely sets out there – I may just buy a set of these:
http://www.greenchairpress.com/index.cgi?id=0029
and I have been ogling these decks too:
http://www.railwaystationpress.com/
http://www.michelleghiotti.com/1297123/CIRQUE-PLAYING-CARDS
http://www.mesart.com/artworkps.jsp.que.artwork.eq.21213.shtml
There is a space for a different approach amongst these fine examples and so decisions were made to discard traditional conventions and typographic expectations. The first thing to go were the suit symbols. Yes, you read that right; playing cards without the suit symbols. Next were the numbers. Well, the figures at any rate – all were now to be spelled out fully
I had explored using Times New roman (mainly because I have a soft spot for the italics) and Rockwell because I have a decent number of weights and sizes, but in the spirit of the minimal approach I was taking I eventually opted for Univers Bold at 10pt.
I purchased a batch of pre-cut blank playing cards; blank both sides – I considered getting some ready printed with a pattern on one side, changed my mind when I saw this copper top block on eBay:
At the perfect size for me…
I’ll show the full image later on – this was just a quick test print!
The next stage is to plan out the layout for the cards and run some set up prints…
“If you like to gamble, I tell you I’m your man
You win some, lose some, it’s all the same to me
The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say
I don’t share your greed, the only card I need is…”
10pt Univers Bold. Nice.
I bought this printing block in a rash eBay frenzy the other day. It’s not something I would generally go for but this really caught my attention. The eBay image was not particularly sharp with a very scant write up, but there were only a few minutes to go, so ‘bing!’ and it was mine.
It arrived this morning and it wasn’t a fully carved woodblock like I thought It was, but actually metal strip inserted into a heavy wood block. Absolutely beautiful!
If I print from this block (I am unsure whether to because I don’t want to damage it) I will only hand-roll it for a soft impression. I like the patina it already has too.
The block measures approximately 19 x 23cm and the design is raised 4mm high. This doesn’t mean much until you put it into proportion with something else:
So what is it?
And for those who can’t appreciate the reversed world of the printer:
I wondered if I could trace where it came from and did a quick search for shirtings, cotton mills, chorley and found that there were quite a few. Without any other identifying marks I think this is far as I go.
