Letterpress Printers’ Guild

Chetham’s Library

The Letter­press Printers’ Guild held an inter­active and intimate conference at Manchester’s Chetham Library.  The first event of its kind, it drew an audience from a wide variety places and sectors.  We were welcomed with an intro­duction to the library and its purpose before Graham Moss went over the day’s programme.

Christian Brett: Bracketpress

Christian Brett of Bracket Press

In describing his intro­duction to letter­press, Christian of Bracket Press took us full circle from his begin­nings on a Lino­tronic system to his current use of a Mac to originate plates for some work.

Using ephemera, pamphlets and books, he explained the process behind each and invited ques­tions on the role of the printer and book artist, the process of letter­press printing and the influ­ences on his work.

Graham Moss: Incline Press

Graham Moss and Kathy Whalen’s Incline Press in Oldham produces fine books but also the jobbing work typical of a town’s letter­press printer.  He took us through some ephemera — three small hand­bills for a dog rescue — and explained how these came together and were shaped by the content.  Turning to a book in progress, Graham explained in detail the step-by-step process that might take two years of going from initial idea to first printing.  Again, the guiding prin­ciple was that the subject should dictate the smallest details that contribute to a fine work.

Chad Pastotnik: Deep Wood Press

Chad’s Deep Wood Press of Michigan produces fine books in a complete sense: from initial idea, text and type­setting, illus­tration and printing and through to binding.  Chad passed around his work to inspect while talking candidly about his devel­opment from 1992 to the present day.  He spoke about his enthu­siasm for all aspects of the ‘book arts’ and his plans to take steps to have further control over the process — including type casting and paper making.

Themes

Some points were consistent between each speaker –

• The ‘book arts’ are so wide and deep that a person could easily be consumed in learning the allied trades.  We spoke of paper making, type founding, and the act of letter­press printing from moveable types as once-massive indus­tries that now fall to indi­viduals to sustain
• Design, layout and typo­graphy of each piece of work is at least guided by the content: whether it’s the period of the work or the content, no-one had a boil­er­plate template to fill with content