While I’ll talk more about the beginnings of my letterpress time in my other projects, elsewhere, it is the ongoing work that I find both calming and invigorating! This was enhanced in 2019 with the purchase of a small platen press, a Craftsmen variation of the C&P Pilot press. While this has only a small 6-1/2″ x 10″ maximum print area, it is plenty for setting cards and even small book pages.
This kind of press is also great for testing out small-ish blocks (wood, linoleum, or polymer). And for playing with color. If you saw my work on the My Mighty Journey project, you know I’m a big fan of handmixing printing inks.
This yellow, for example. Used for the type in the cards shown above, I wanted it to be bright and cheerful, but also still legible in the 18pt Century Schoolbook I was printing it in. Mostly yellow, but a fair bit of red and a touch of blue to give it more depth.
Simple, but Fun
Buying a Font
With digital fonts so ubiquitous, many designers and creators forget about where the “fonts” we use actually originated. But when working with handset metal type in letterpress, it becomes very apparent. Here is the delivery of my first purchased font of type, a set of 10pt. Century Schoolbook.
This small collection of type should be enough to get me started. Here, I was comparing this version of the Century Schoolbook, produced by M&H Type on their Monotype composition caster, with the type in the Minnesota Center for Book Arts collection. If you look really close, you’ll see that the baseline is slightly different; the MCBA type is probably original foundry type. Both work fine, but you can’t mix the two!
