Workshop Fun

Last week, I organised for a small group from The Partners to spend the evening in the print workshop at the St Bride Foundation. There were about twenty of us in all and after an introduction and briefing by Michael Clayton the group were encouraged to have a go at setting type, inking up and printing.

For those not familiar with the St Bride Foundation, it was established in 1891 to fulfil social needs in the Fleet Street printing area. Facilities included a library, baths and a swimming pool (as hygiene was poor) and a printing school which was the forerunner of the LCP. Nowadays, this historic building houses a world renowned printing library with a large letterpress collection, a community theatre space, a bar, print workshop, meeting and conference rooms. It is still located in the original building, just off Fleet Street.

As well as printing, Andrew Long demonstrated lino-cutting and most people had a go. As the name suggests, this technique is actually engraving into a piece of floor linoleum, which is then inked and used to print from. The results can be amazing! ...you can see the concentration at the lino cutting bench below:

Andrew, selected one of Stanley Donwood’s London Flood prints. The engraving which was divided into 15 pieces which were then individually cut by different people over the course of the evening. I even had a go and this was my section (as you can see, I initialled it with a cheeky J!)

At the end of the evening the pieces were assembled and below, you can see Marc Spicer printing the result: 

...and here he is holding up the finished result:

Below is the comparison with the original on the right hand side

You might have spotted there is a head floating in the river which looks like me! Thanks to Nick Eagleton's lino cutting skills, he used his piece of lino to produce a likeness of me, which he also used to print me a card below

You can read a far more erudite version of the evening on The Partners blog written by Marc: http://www.the-partners.com/blog/2017/8/11/letter-heads

It was a really fun evening, where everyone got a chance to have a go and join in. We had some food and a few drinks laid on at St Bride's and a few of us even made it to The Old Bell on Fleet Street afterwards!

My thanks to all the staff and friends at the St Bride Foundation with special thanks to Mick Clayton, Andrew Long and Bob Richardson who made the evening really good fun.

I just wanted to note that Peter Smith who is resident wood engraver at St Bride was unable to join us as he is recovering after an operation but I want to wish him well and a speedy recovery.

www.sbf.org.uk

http://www.the-partners.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 16.08.2017

Workshop evening

Last week, I organised for a small group of designers from a variety of different studios to spend the evening in the print workshop at the St Bride Foundation.

 

There were about twenty of us in all and after a briefing by the technicians, Mick, Bob and Peter, the group were encouraged to have a go at setting type, inking up and printing.

For those not familiar with the St Bride Foundation, it was established in 1891 to fulfil social needs in the Fleet Street printing area. Facilities included a library, baths and a swimming pool (as hygiene was poor) and a printing school which was the forerunner of the LCP. Nowadays, this historic building houses a world renowned printing library with a large letterpress collection, a community theatre space, a bar, print workshop and meeting & conference rooms.

  

As well as printing, wood engraver, Peter Smith demonstrated lino-cutting and many people had a go. Peter had selected an engraving which was divided into 12 pieces which were individually cut by different people over the course of the evening.

At the end of the evening the pieces were re-assembled into the image and then placed on the Vandercook proofing press, below:

The superb printed result was printed on Shiro Alga Carta, Ivory 250gsm and it's just beautiful!

In the Layton Room there was an exhibition on display by Designer Bookbinders. The exhibition shows 58 bindings, spanning the career of Trevor Jones (1931-2012), a founder member of Designer Bookbinders. Jeanette Koch from the society was on hand to talk about the exhibition and his work.
http://www.designerbookbinders.org.uk/

It was a really fun evening, where everyone got a chance to have a go and join in. We had some food and a few drinks laid on and most of us made it to the Bridewell Bar downstairs afterwards!

My thanks to all the staff and friends at the St Bride Foundation with special thanks to Mick Clayton, Peter Smith and Bob Richardson who made the evening really good fun.

www.sbf.org.uk

http://peterssmith.weebly.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 09.04.2015

Making Faces

STERN PRO www.canadatype.net

Calling all typophiles - if you want to see this, you'll have to be quick!

Next Tuesday (5th November) at St Brides in London, there is a screening of a really interesting documentary with an introduction by the project instigator, Richard Kegler.

US based type foundry P22, commissioned Canadian type designer, Jim Rimmer to create a new type design (Stern) that became the first ever simultaneous release of a digital font and, hand-set metal font in 2008. The skills needed to create a metal font are known by very few people and Jim Rimmer was possibly the only individual who designed and cast typefaces in metal as well as in digital format. The opportunity to document the processes of the historic with the contemporary was grasped and this film was made. Sadly Jim Rimmer died in 2010. Here's a trailer for the film:

You can read more about it here:
http://makingfacesfilm.blogspot.co.uk/

Details for the screening are as follows:
Tuesday 5 November 2013 from 6.30 to 8.30pm, film screening at 7.15pm in the Bridewell Hall, St Bride Foundation. Tickets £10, Students (bring NUS card) £6

As well as the screening, there will also be live demonstrations from Ruth Rowland in calligraphy, Oli Frape in hand-lettering, Helen Ingham and Richard Lawrence in letterpress and lino printing and Peter S. Smith in wood engraving in the workshop where you'll be able to have a go and find out more about their practices ...and I'll be there too!

There are still tickets available ...but it's on TUESDAY, so don't put it off, come along: www.stbride.org/events

www.p22.com
www.canadatype.net
www.stbride.org

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.10.2013

CRUSH Launch at the St Brides Foundation

Yesterday, we held an open evening with Favini at the St Bride Foundation to launch our new paper range called CRUSH.

Over a hundred guests joined us at St Brides for Italian beer and olives! After a brief introduction by Chris Brown of Favini, there was a presentation by Michele Posocco, product manager from Favini who demonstrated how waste residues from food processing is used in paper making.

In the splendid surroundings of the Bridewell Hall, Michele squeezed oranges and liquidised pulp and the dried micronized fruit residue to show how the patented process works.

The reasoning behind holding this event at St Brides was to make this a very "hands on" experience. The letterpress workshop was open all evening with printers Helen Ingham www.hi-artz.co.uk, Richard Lawrence www.richardlawrenceprinter.co.uk and wood engraver Peter Smith www.peterssmith.weebly.com in attendance.

Wood engraving by Peter Smith printed on an Adana press.

As well as printing, guests were treated to a demonstration of lino-cutting and were "press ganged" into having a go themselves ...just look at the concentration on those faces!

Under the tuition of Richard Lawrence, each person was given a small section of a 16th century engraving The Manufacture of Oil, by Jost Amman. The picture was divided into 20 equal squares, individually cut over the course of the evening and then re-assembled.


Jost Amman 16th century

The final lino-cut, ready for printing

...and here is the fruit of everyone's hard work! a 21st re-interpretation using 19th century equipment! Printed on Crush 250gsm.

Throughout the evening, the chief executive of the St Bride Foundation, Glyn Farrow and his team conducted short tours of the foundation and famous library, showing just a few of the many treasures that the foundation has in it's possession.

I should like to extend warm thanks to our partners at Favini, to all the staff and friends at the St Bride Foundation. Special thanks to Peter Smith, Richard Lawrence and Helen Ingham in the workshop who made the evening such a special occasion.

...and I mustn't forget to say thank you to Andrea at a Taste of Sicily for the amazing Castelvetrano olives. www.tasteofsicily.co.uk

www.sbf.org.uk

www.favini.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 27.09.2013