My freshman year in college was a year of transformation. I started out as a math major, but  through a mixture of depression and flu had to drop 2nd semester calculus to avoid what would have been my only failed class in my lifetime--this after I had 103% on 1st semester calc.

While figuring out what I was going to with myself, I found the Printing and Publishing Arts program at my school, and one of the most influential professors that I ever met: Megan Benton. She nurtured an artistic aspect of my life that I didn't even know existed. It is because of her tutoring that I not only became an art major, but I also went on to get a fellowship to co-teach an art class and was chosen to create the poster for my graduating class's final gallery exhibit.

P&PA is a cross-disciplinary minor that was a part of both the English and the Art department. There were classes on editing, and book publishing and design, Chicago style and that type of thing, but there were also classes on letterpress printing and typesetting.

Letterpress printing involves little mirrored-image lead letters that you put together into lines, with strips of lead in between the lines (leading), strips of brass/copper in between letters (kerning), and then you put the individual lines together in to a frame called a chase. All of that goes into an old-fashioned printing press that you have to operate with a combination of a foot treadle and a lever. An ink roller spreads ink on the block of type, while you slide the piece of paper into place. Then the press presses the inked lettters into the paper. This not only transfers the ink, it also leaves an impression in the paper. You can control the depth of this impression. Pro Tip: you don't want to smash your hand in there when you put each sheet of paper in.

I am not too creative, but I am imaginative and I have a deep love of craftsmanship. Letterpress is perfect for me. There are so many things that you can consciously control to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

It starts with content--the source text and/or illustration or carving that you want to print. You can write your own (I never did) or pick a source text. My first project was the opening paragraph from The Hobbit with the JRRT logo below it.

Type selection is the next major choice. A "font" is a specific typeface in a specific size. This distinction isn't too important in the digital age, but in cold lead it is everything. What fonts do you have available, do they have enough of the letters that you need to print a whole page of your text, do they fit the theme and message that you are looking for in your design.

Small fonts have plenty of individual letters, but are very hard to set. My fingers are big enough that I often had to use tweezers. Large fonts are heavy (they are made of lead after all) and don't have as many of each letters. For some like Q or X there may only be one or two individual letters in that size.

Anyone with Powerpoint can tell you also that the font selection can completely change the tone of the source material.  You also get to play with the spacing--the leading and kerning. 

I carved the JRRT logo into a piece of linoleum and set the type using an Uncial typeface in about 14 point. I kerned sparingly, and chose a fairly large amount of leading to spread the lines out more.

Next comes the paper selection. Paper is fun. In this age of copier paper and newspaper this gets hidden. Paper can be hand-made or machine-made. It can contain different textures, colors, ink absorption properties, edges and more. I chose a hand-made paper made from banana leaves in the Philippines that had a nice woven texture, a yellow tinge and a deckle edge.

Deckle edges of paper are a byproduct of the paper-making process. The paper pulp/goo gets pressed between two planes. As the goo reaches the edges, it thins out (like waffle batter does). That edge is normally cut off for books and other things. When you leave it on it can be decorative. Deckles are often simulated by tearing or cutting normal paper, but they don't have the same thinness and beauty of a real deckle.

Since this was a hand-made paper it had deckles on all for edges of the master sheet. I decided to cut the sheet into quarters so each of my pieces would have deckles on two sides--the right and the bottom. I composed my type and image to fit on the cut paper with good margins and white space.

Next comes the ink. Printing ink is sticky/tacky not runny like the ink from a fountain pen. You only need a little bit. You can print in multiple colors if you want to, but what that means is that you have to have a complete set-up/tear down for each color--you can only print one color at a time. Because multi-color takes multiple passes it introduces more room for error. Your passes might not line up correctly, especially because you are feeding the paper in by hand in a moving machine (again, don't smash your hands).

I decided to go with a single ink in a slate blue that contrasted nicely with the yellow of the paper. The combination looks pleasantly aged.

"Impression" is the term effect caused by how hard the inked type is pressed into the paper. It is really easy to control by putting other sheets of paper behind the one that you want to print on. The more sheets, the deeper the impression, the more the outline of the type is visible on the back side of the paper and the more of the ink is transfered to the paper

I further increased the aged look of the piece by choosing a light impression.

Here is the finished piece:

You can download a higher-resolution version here. I recommend zooming in on the edges and on the type and logo to see more of the details.

It took about a month to create this from beginning to end (while doing other classes etc). I only printed 8 copies. One is on display at the Elliott Press, I only have this one, and I gave the rest out to friends (I don't remember who got them). The only other project I have from this time are my wedding invitations and programs.

My professor had a beautiful hand-made book of the poem Leaves of Grass. It was multiple color with type at all sorts of swirling lines and angles. Extremely complex printing. It is the most beautiful book I have ever seen.

I haven't printed anything since I graduated. I would love to find a place where I could rent press time. Eventually I would love to have a press all to myself, but that is kind of like having a large pipe organ. Not very practical. Printing perfectly mixes so many things I love: craftsmanship, machinery and humans both contributing to the end result, design, collaboration with others, communication. There are so many levels to it for those that know how to manipulate and see them.