leTterpresS IN
AMErICA by QUINN AVERY DAVIS
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LETteRPREsS IN AMErICA by
QUINN AVERY DAVIS
First published by Hatch Show Press in 2011 316 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37201 USA www.countrymusichalloffame.org Davis, Quinn Avery Early American Letterpress All photography by Quinn Avery Davis p.cm ISBN 5-8721-1234-5 Printed in Seattle, Washington Person L Books LLC 4800 S Chicago Street Seattle, WA 98118
“I liked the fact that this simple, crude look stood out against all the slick, sterile, corporate work that was the standard...� Charles Anderson, contemporary graphic designer
CONTENTS
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1. Introd u ction
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2. A Short H istory
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3. M eet The Press
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4. Letter press Reviva l
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5. Referen ces
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INTRODUCTION
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What is Letterpress? Letterpress is a printing process that uses individual, movable letters and image blocks that are coated with ink and then pressed onto a surface, usually paper. The technique is believed to have originated in Asia, but a 15th-century German goldsmith and printer named Johannes Gutenburg is credited with perfecting true movable and reusable type. His 1454 Latin Vulgate Bible was a major innovation in printing technology, a methodology that became the industry standard for the next five centuries. There’s a tactile dif ference between something printed with letterpress and something printed of fset, silscreen, or digitally. Run your fingertips over a letterpressed item. Feel the peaks and valleys created when type and imagery literally bite into a smooth paper surface. This is the tangible beauty of letterpress.
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Letterpress Technique A block of wood must be car ved for eachprinted color of an image. Movable wooden or metal letters, called “type,� add content and context, providing a hierarchy of information for the reader. All of these visual elements are then locked into a frame, positioned like a mirror image, backwards. Light-colored inks are traditionally printed fi rst, on paper fed through the press one sheet at a time. These blocks are then all replaced in the press by blocks for darker colors. Each new appliction of additional color requires a fully new pass through the press. The same sheets of paper are fed through again, as many times as necessary, until the work is complete. The process requires a high degree of craf tsmanship and skill, and in the right hands letterpress has wonder ful qualities. The press creates an impression into the paper, giving greater visual definition to the artwork, and a three dimensional ef fect. The spread of ink provides a richer look, picking up on the texture of the paper, and giving the image life. Each print is unique.
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a short history
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Around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg is credited with the invention of modern movable type printing from individually cast, reusable letters set together in a form (frame). He also invented a wooden printing press, based on the extant wine press, where the type sur face was inked with leather covered ink balls and paper laid carefully on top by hand, then slid under a padded surface and pressure applied from above by a large threaded screw. Later metal presses used a knuckle and lever arrangement instead of the screw, but the principle was the same. Ink rollers made of composition made inking faster and paved the way for further automation. With the advent of industrial mechanisation, the inking was carried out by rollers which would pass over the face of the type and move out of the way onto a separate ink plate where they would pick up a fresh film of ink for the following sheet. Meanwhile, a sheet of paper was slid against a hinged platen
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which was then rapidly pressed onto the type and swung back again to have the sheet removed and the next sheet inserted (during which operation the now freshly inked rollers would run over the type again). Fully automated, 20th-century presses, such as the Kluge and “Original” Heidelberg Platen (the “Windmill”), incorporated pneumatic feed and delivery of the sheet. During the 1950’s, the invention of of fset printing and phototypesetting technologies revolutionized the printing industry. The result was the rapid demise of letterpress printing. But a passionate collective still thrives in the U.S., as we will see in the last section...
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meet the presS
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Platen Letterpress A platen press is made of two flat surfaces called the bed and the platen. Type is secured in the bed side of the press and the substrate is secured to the platen. The opposing sides are then pressed together by either a lever or screw so that the ink from the type is transferred to the substrate by pressure. This is the most popular type of letterpress and is of ten used for short runs of items such as invitations and stationary.
Rotary Letterpress Rotary presses are either sheet fed or web fed and are most of ten used for long-run commercial printing. The most popular types of plates are stereotype, electrotype, and molded plastic or rubber. Web fed rotary presses are designed to print on both sides at the same time and are popular in printing old-style newspapers, utilizing a single substrate that gets cut down af ter printing.
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F lat-Bed Cylinder Letterpress Flat-bed cylinder presses are either vertical or horizontal beds. The plate is secured in the bed that passes over an inking roller and then is pressed against the substrate. The substrate then passes over an impression cylinder on its way from the feed stack to the delivery stack. This process is very slow and other printing processes have been adopted into its place.
Industrial-scale use in the 20th century The letterpress is time consuming and therefore should be used for projects that require large runs of the same design. The letters, symbols, and illustrations are mounted into a chase (the frame in which the metal or wood blocks are held). This is securely fastened together and placed on one side of the press. Ink is then prepared and spread evenly over a roller which will transfer the ink to the metal or wood blocks. The substrate is placed on the opposite side of the press and is pressed against the blocks using either a lever or screw to tighten the plates together.
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REVIVAL
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Rise of ‘craft’ letterpress With the introduction of the high-volume of fset process in the middle of last century letterpress became an outmoded process. In recent years a small but passionate community of high-quality art and hobby letterpress printers have emerged, producing fine printed material in the tradition of the craf t printers of last century. The old days of letterpress printing were replaced with the push of of fset printing; however, since the 1990’s letterpress has undergone a revival under the banner of the ‘Small Press Movement.’ The Small Press Movement was a new generation of authors whose writings were of ten rejected by mainstream commercial publishers. In order to reach a wider audience many small publishers sprung up using letterpress printing. The goal of these presses was not artistic but rather to spread love through their ideas. With the invention of com-
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mercial print shops, many letterpress printing presses were discarded, allowing for many af fordable ones today. Fine letterpress work is crisper than of fset printing because of the impression it puts into the paper, adding definition to the type and artwork. A small amount of high-quality art and hobby letterpress printing remains—Today, many of these small Letterpress shops survive by printing fine editions of books or by printing upscale invitations and stationery, of ten using presses that require the press operator to feed paper one sheet at a time by hand. In the U.S., the movement has been helped by the emergence of a number of organizations that teach Letterpress such as Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., New York’s Center for Book Arts, Studio on the Square and The Arm NYC, the Wells College Book Arts Center in Aurora, New York, the San Francisco Center for the Book, Bookworks, Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts, Black Rock Press,
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North Carolina State University, Washington D.C’s Corcoran College of Art and Design, Penland School of Craf ts, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the International Printing Museum in Carson, CA.
Hatch Show Print The Hatch Show Print story began when printer Rev. William T. Hatch moved his family to Nashville in 1875. Rev. Hatch taught his sons, Charles and Herbert, the printing trade, and af ter his death in 1879 the two sons opened C.R. & H.H. Hatch Printers at 22 North Cherry Street (now Fourth Avenue South). On April 12, 1879, Hatch created its first poster, a 6-by-9 inch “dodger” -- or handbill -- announcing a Henry Ward Beecher speaking appearance. From that point, Hatch was dedicated to producing distinctive posters for all forms of entertainment, including vaudeville, circus and minstrel shows. It remains one of the oldest running letterpress print shops in the U.S.
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references
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Sherrarden, Jim . “Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop” 2001, Country Music Foundation Inc. Kreis, Steven. “The Printing Press.” The History Guide -- Main. 13 May 2004. Web. 13 Dec. 2010. http://www.historyguide.org/ intellect/press.html “Handbook of Type Designers: A Biographical Directory.” Eason, Ron. 1991. Gordon Rookledge. 19 Nov 2010. Morgan, Kim. “I Heart Letterpress: a History and Tribute” 2009, Oak Knoll Press, Chronicle Books LLC
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The printer is the designer, the designer the printer. Human energy translates through the medium, making it an authentic and honest art form that is truly “a tonic� for our information age.
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