The Art in Letterpress

Art... what you don't think it's art!

Letterpress printing started to fail in the 1950s and was all but gone by the 80s. Offset printing was coming of age, and with desktop publishing in the late 80s it closed the door on the letterpress.

It’s still a specialty craft. Some graphic artists have revived the art.  Not getting the results they were looking for in desktops flat design. They found a medium and expression in the letterpress. Though specialty shops and internet stores some have found a following for the look and feel of letterpress printing. “Letterpress is like the new engraving” said Kitty Maryatt “it looks different, it feels old and people love that. It’s the romance of the impression of the letters pressed into the paper that people feel good about” I couldn’t agree with her any more. I love the feel of the impression, the sound of the press  and that is where the art comes from. The master or the pressman knows just how much to push. Not too much or it will cut, not to soft or it won’t have the feel and look of letterpress. It’s what we see and feel on the paper that opens the old world printing in our Imagination. The remembered old wedding invitation or business card found long ago that’s the “feel good” part Kitty was talking about.

Art, yes I think its art. Just like an old painting on the wall it’s an expression of the artist.

The progression of offset printing, where do I start.

I guess there isn’t any form of printing in modern history as much fun, and brings out the art of printing as Letterpress. Letterpress changed the way we copy the written word more than any other process. It has given us the way to quickly change content and mass produce the written word.

But this was a long time in the making. First China invented wooden blocks that were carved with letters or whole words around 2000 years ago. Then in the mid 1400s a guy with the name of Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany which was in the heart of German wine growing region. He built a printing press on the same idea as the wine presses of his day. Using movable type in his printing press he opened a whole new process of printing.

As the printing process spread so did the number of people who could read and the number who could afford to reproduce their ideas, there religious thoughts, and the news of the day’s events.

 But that’s history. I want to talk about the Art of Printing with the letterpress. It was just as creative as photography or oil painting, in Gutenbergs time an apprentice would work for 6 to 10 years before he could be called a printer, and even more before being called a Master Printer.  The process required understanding  of paper,  ink, and the nimbleness of placing very and I mean very little letters in reverse order so when the letters were inked and were pressed in to the paper it would read correct. Even the measurements were different in printing. Pica and points were used. 6pt to a 12pt pica. When lead type was first invented they made a cast 1 inch in height. When it cooled it shrank to .918 which is what we call type high, one more new measurement for the printer to use. The measurements for amount of space side to side where called M’s and N’s for a cap letter M was the largest width of a letter and an N was ½  of that.

The arrival of the letter press changed the way we communicate maybe more than any other form of communication in history. With people like Gutenberg and Ben Franklin pushing the process in to everyday lives.