Printing letterpress can feel a bit like the ascent up the steepest grade of an old-school roller coaster. A slow ratcheting up and up, until finally, the momentum of printing itself takes over. I find myself needing to encourage and reassure through what can seem like painfully slow steps: typesetting, proofing, correcting, proofing again.
This weather hasn’t helped. A week-long swelter, it’s hollow humour to suggest that it adds to the 19th century ambience of the enterprise. A thoughtful someone at the State Library arranged a tab for us at Journal Café and their lemon granita hit the spot this afternoon.
Yesterday and this morning saw us proofing the type and making corrections. Page formes have been assembled. Rosalind Atkins, well-known for her exquisite engravings, is in the class and offered to cut a block for us. The chapbook will be bound in a soft wrapper imprinted with the title. This involved a certain amount of gerry-rigging to print a 70cm long sheet on a 10×15 platen, but was possible with a team of five.
The storm started in earnest in the midst of this critical activity, a perfect time to discuss printing damp. Tomorrow is expected to be a welcome 22ºC, perfect weather for handling paper.
11 February 2010 1 comment
The story we are printing is Cate Kennedy’s Chiapas, 1965. It is a story about first contact between Westerners and the Lacandon Indians in Chiapas, Mexico. At first, it is lyrical, incantatory, disorienting. The last part of the story reads like whiplash, stops you dead with a sudden blast of shameful recognition and indictment.
There is always fear involved when setting type. Will I have enough sorts?*
We are setting Cate’s story in Van Dijck, a classic book face that I consider my house face. I’m quite confident we’ll have enough sorts, less so spacing. Just as letterpress requires the setting of each letter one by one, the spaces between words are created using small pieces of type metal cast in divisions of an em. An em is a unit of measure relative to type size: a 12pt em is 12pt square, an 18pt em 18pt square. The name “em” comes from the fallacious claim that a capital M is always a perfect square. Spacing narrower than an em is called an en (half an em), 3-em (3 pieces=an em), 4-em (4 pieces=an em) and 5-em (5 pieces=an em.) Quads are multiples of the em; thins (brasses and coppers) are divisions of the em.
In setting type at this size, the 4-em is the most used space between words. I was worried that we may not have enough. By mid-afternoon, the 4-em tin was worryingly empty. I was searching in other job cases, ready to cannibalise when I could. If necessary, we could print all the verso spreads, distribute, then set the recto, but this would be a drag. Finally, I thought to unwrap two packages of unidentified foundry spacing, never before opened. Both were filled with brand-new 12pt 4-em spaces. Huzzah!
*A note on the term “sorts”: Typographers gnash their teeth over the contemporary misuse of the word “font” in place of “typeface.” A typeface is sold as a font, either in metal or as digital files. The font is the collection of sorts that make up the typeface: all the letters, punctuation, ligatures, figures, and diacritic marks designed for the typeface. The font is the collection of parts that make up a typeface, not a term to describe the design of the face itself and the characteristics and features that distinguish it from another face.
10 February 2010 1 comment
Four or so years ago, I was asked if I’d be interested in teaching a week-long letterpress workshop for the Rare Books Summer School. I said was, contingent on my finding a studio. In the years that followed, I’d occasionally run into the organiser, who, in his enthusiasm, would scare me into thinking the workshop was imminent. When is it? I’d ask, worried. His response: February, 2010. Ages away.
It is now February 2010. The workshop begins tomorrow. There are six of us, five students and me. My plan is for us to produce a chapbook, in a limited edition of about 100. The story is something special, previously unpublished. I plan to post about our progress everyday. By Friday, there should be a new book in the world.
7 February 2010 1 comment
I don’t think I need to explain how my heart leapt on seeing these images. Made by Toronto-based artist Kristiina Lahde between 2004-2007, the works are constructed with meticulously altered envelopes. (It is no surprise that Lahde is also a paper conservator!) Her website is here.
13 January 2010 1 comment
I was woken abruptly at a quarter to five the other morning right in the sweet spot of my REM cycle. I know you’re not interested in hearing about the dream I was having right at that moment, but I’m going to tell you anyway. This is a dream for letterpress enthusiasts – specifically, Vandercook proof press enthusiasts. [Others may want to skip to the photographs below.]
In the dream I was admiring a pair of slippers a colleague had on her work bench, when my boss came by and snaffled them for himself. I was woken from the dream mid-protest, so there’s very little to tell narratively speaking. What made me laugh on waking were the slippers themselves – Chinese-style slip-ons, both insteps printed with the Vandercook logo, the earth encircled with the company name. In real life, my boss does own an SP-20, so it’s not such a long shot to imagine he and I arguing over who would get to wear the Vanderslippers.
As 2009 nears its end, I’d like to wish all Vandercooks a very happy birthday. I don’t believe the letterpress renaissance of the last ten years would have happened without the Vandercook, or without the public access studios that made them available to artists and writers wanting to learn to print. Happy 100th Vandercook!
My dream studios:
The Milan-based Italian Sales Representatives Display Van (with Universal 1).
Or the Vandercook Mobile Technical Center (with SP-15).
(Photos from here, courtesy Fritz Klinke.)
14 December 2009 2 comments
Due to popular demand, I’m moving to a once-a-month workshop schedule, starting with a last-minute, pre-Christmas weekend December 12–13. Last year’s December group spoke both of the relief of escaping the holiday madness and gratitude at being able to knock out some beautiful and unique gifts! Classes fill quickly, so let me know if you’d like to reserve a spot.
Details can be found here and you are, of course, most welcome to call or e-mail with any questions you might have.
Dates: December 12–13, 2009
January 16-17, 2010
February 8–12, 2010. [This is a special week-long course offered by the Rare Books Summer School. Applications close December 11. For information, see here.]
March 20–21, 2010.
26 November 2009 no comments
My show at Mailbox 141 is up for just a few more days. Following the State Library’s curatorial example, I’ve had three changeovers of the show, so that all thirty-two of the pieces I made have had a turn on display. (A heads-up for writers – this week’s changeover is for you!)
With all the busyness of getting the show up, and then getting myself off to India days later, I haven’t had a chance before now to show you any of the before or after.
Sometime in July or so, I realised that I was going to have to pick up the pace if I wanted to have work to show by September. Last Christmas, September seemed such a long time off in the distance. By July, not so much.
My solution, implemented temporarily, was to get into the studio just before seven in the morning, work for an hour and a half, then come back after my day job to clean and set up for the next morning’s print run. Somewhat surprisingly, I loved this schedule. I was alert, the mornings were clear and calm, I felt I’d achieved something before the real workday had even begun.
It was such a pleasure to be working on a project of my own for the first time in a long time. And as is often the case, after following a few unsatisfying trajectories, I found myself with an idea I was very happy with. It was a wonderful moment to realise that I didn’t need to search all over town for envelopes with security linings. I have boxes and boxes of letters sent by friends over the years – the designs all came from inside these.
Mailbox 141 is in the foyer of Pawson House, a lovely Deco building opposite the Scientology headquarters. I love incidental art spaces. The morning I installed the show, a man was cleaning the glass front door and I brandished my Windex in greeting. As he passed by on his way to the elevator, he asked What’s in here now? It’s always interesting.
As you can tell by the clock on the wall behind me, I was still unwrapping fortune cookies ten minutes before the opening was due to start up the street.
Champagne was had and fortunes discussed. Twitter friends might be interested to see @virginia, @lucytartan, @artyfufkin and an obscured @sophiec discussing something serious.
The studio was sparkly, the show launched. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to see it.
27 October 2009 5 comments
I woke the other morning to a request from my journalist friend Lisa for my opinion about the Ikea/Verdana flap. Just up, I was already running late, so rushed off a few lines and promised in-depth analysis later. Turns out, Lisa was on deadline but was happy with what I wrote; I’m quoted in her article here. Like all of us watching a brouhaha about something we hadn’t realised had any great importance at all (in my case, most sporting kerfuffles, diplomatic fall-outs between sister cities) Lisa is bemused about all the attention her article has received. A journalist who most often writes knowledgeably and thoughtfully about food, she’s surprised an article about a typeface ranks #1 on Time Magazine’s Most Read list. I’m sure lots of people are shaking their heads – who knew anyone cared about such things? Hand on mouse, pull down menu, cursor click on Verdana. There. Done. What’s all the fuss?
Others far more knowledgeable than I have weighed in eloquently with their opinions on the matter. But I’ve a few thoughts directly related to the analogy I drew for Lisa. I wrote that using Verdana is akin to choosing to build a skyscraper with Lego, when steel would clearly be the superior choice. I do think this is true, and stand by my statement that Verdana is dumbed-down and over-used. But, it occurs to me on reflection that perhaps this is precisely the reason why it’s a perfect choice for Ikea. What is Ikea after all but the dumbed-down, over-used Lego of the furniture world? Those of us who come from a world in which type on the page is the end result of a process involving hand-drawn optical scaling, punch-cutting and sensitive kerning might be best to look at what’s really happening here: advertising for low-cost, mass-produced products dependent on third-world labour. When design is working at the behest of advertising, the mandate is to find the best fit between medium and message. Using this metric, Ikea’s decision is genius: Verdana is the Ikea of typefaces – easy, serviceable, cheap. Our protests are as fruitless and misguided as a guild of woodworkers picketing the store with the demand that they abandon the Allen key for the dovetail join.
So hooray, I say! A noble face has been freed from shameful servitude to an ungrateful master. Will we be handing down our Expedit bookcases and our Stornäs credenzas to our grandchildren? If the state of any of my Ikea purchases is anything to go by, I think not. Quality lasts. Long live Futura!
29 August 2009 typography 4 comments
