On Friday, I was lucky enough to go to the St Brides conference titled "Letterpress: Something to Say"
This one-day conference set out
"to explore letterpress as a means for delivering real content, be that a set of sharply thought-through design intentions; a re-imagining of the possibilities of the inky process itself; an analogue springboard to new digital visuals and environments; or a reconnection with the power of a simple press to communicate ideas. To step beyond the production of work to be merely admired and consumed, and to reclaim letterpress as a viable means of distributing a message; to tell stories; to galvanize our communities; to allow practice to resonate beyond the frames of our living room walls"
Speakers included Thomas Gravemaker, Ian Gabb, Jono Lewarne & Charlotte Hetherington, L’automatica (Barcelona), Anthony Burrill, Dylan Kendle (Tomato) and Gee Vaucher plus a presentation on the 6x6 project which is a collaboration between staff and students from six colleges with active letterpress workshops (CSM, Brighton, Camberwell, Lincoln, LCC, and Glasgow)
Ian Gabb from the RCA (above) delivering his excellently "shambolic" talk (...his words, not mine!)
Workshop demonstrations were held throughout the day. Richard Lawrence was working on a very interesting linocutting project that he took the time to explain to me.
Helen Ingham from Hi-Artz Press
www.hi-artz.co.uk was also in the workshop giving demonstrations and working on projects.
Below is my modest little table of printed examples that I took along to show our papers in action:
...and who should have the table next to me, but my industry colleagues from that other well known, Hull based, paper merchant! Mark and Vanessa were good company and we enjoyed the day together.
As we were in a side room, this is the sign I wrote (...exhibiting no bias at all!)
It was an excellent day and most important of all, it was a sell out. This is the third one day conference that they have run, so the lesson here is book early, to avoid disappointment. Congratulations to the organisers, Catherine Dixon and Rose Gridneff and thanks to them for inviting me along.
http://www.stbride.org/
http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/something-to-say
http://letterpressworkshop.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 13.11.2012
This is an exceptional exhibition catalogue for the artist Hans Hartung which features an essay by Odile Burluraux alongside the work. Published by the Timothy Taylor Gallery.
On this piece of literature - just the cover makes the difference!
On Friday, I went to the Monotype - Pencil to Pixel exhibition at Metropolitan Wharf. It featured material from Monotype’s historic archive of original artwork, type drawings, equipment and publications. 
Today, I was lucky enough to attend the BN International annual event, which this year was a luncheon cruise on the river Thames. It was hosted by BNI, FJ Ratchford and Société d Enduction et de Flockage (SEF).
Now for those of you not familiar with the names of these compan-ies, they are mainly involved with materials for bookbinding, covering and all things mounted. Product names that you may have heard of but which may not realise are from these suppliers are Balacron, Reflections Bookcloth, Windsor and Colorado rayon cloths and of course, our own Flockage!
Most of the invited throng were customers involved in the covering industry, bookbinders, boxmakers, printers etc. Here I am talking to Roy Eve, organiser of the event and BNI head honcho in the UK.
Bentply is a London based shop established by Bruna Naufal in 1989 specialising in 20th century, modernist furniture. This post is about a unique business card produced for Bentply, which also works as a promotional piece - it simply makes up into a cut-out miniature of the iconic 1934 bent plywood chair designed by Gerald Summers.
I've only just found out about this amazing exhibition which is on this week. Titled ‘Pencil to Pixel’ the exhibition is only on this week (19th-23rd November) and features Monotype’s historic archive of original artwork, type drawings, equipment and publications - in fact, nearly everything to do with type design through the 20th century.
This is a job from a couple of years ago but it's not really old enough to be a "job from the past" and I've just received some good pictures of it so I thought I'd post it now!
...whilst I was at St Brides on Friday (see below post) it was all happening in Brighton at an event called GLUG!
It's not some dry business card swapping networking event - oooooh no! It's about like minded people hooking up, listening and seeing something really interesting and having a drink or two. With live art, talks by top creatives, interactive fun, pop up shops and more - sounds like a great way to spend a Friday night!
There was also "live Screen-printing"! by Parliament of Feathers, a local screen-printing company who teamed up with Séverin Millet who designed a limited edition print for the event which were given out for free on the night. The prints were produced on our Colorset (100% Recycled) 270gsm.
This one-day conference set out "to explore letterpress as a means for delivering real content, be that a set of sharply thought-through design intentions; a re-imagining of the possibilities of the inky process itself; an analogue springboard to new digital visuals and environments; or a reconnection with the power of a simple press to communicate ideas. To step beyond the production of work to be merely admired and consumed, and to reclaim letterpress as a viable means of distributing a message; to tell stories; to galvanize our communities; to allow practice to resonate beyond the frames of our living room walls"
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