Yesterday evening, I jointly hosted a small event together with Mondi, the manufacturer of our new Pergraphica range of text and cover papers. We invited 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 the evening started with an introduction about the
Pergraphica range by Isabel Bernd (below) from Mondi.
We then moved to the Letterpress workshop and were given a history and briefing by the technicians, Bob, Barry and Andrew.
Then everyone was encouraged to have a go at 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, conference rooms.
Everyone had a go at lino-cutting, Andrew had selected the letter E from a Pouchet engraved alphabet which was divided into 16 pieces which were individually cut by different people over the course of the evening.
...just look at the concentration!
When each of the panels was finished they were assembled and put on a proofing press, as you can see below:
...and here is Andrew Long with the first print:
...and here's the finished result:
Thanks to Mondi for sponsoring the event and for providing the
Pergraphica paper used throughout the evening.
My personal thanks to all the staff and friends at the St Bride Foundation with special thanks to Bob Richardson, Mick Clayton, Andrew Long and Barry who made the evening really good fun.
www.sbf.org.uk
https://www.mymondi.net/ufp/en/brand-group/pergraphica
Posted by Justin Hobson 14.11.2019
Last Sunday, I had a stall at the St Bride Foundation WAYZGOOSE. This is a term (unfamiliar to most people) that used to refer to an annual holiday in a print-works and was often an awayday to the coast or some other sort of day out, more often than not, paid for by the firm. In this instance the St Bride Wayzgoose is a kind of letterpress 'bring and buy' sale.
This is the title of a forthcoming book by Rian Hughes and also a talk (via Zoom) which is being hosted by the St Bride Foundation on September 2nd.
Last Wednesday evening, I was privileged to be at the launch of a new book which is set to be required reading for anyone studying design and type. This new book contains over 1,800 typefaces which are organized by category – Serif, Sans Serif, Display and Script – and subsequently arranged by recognized sub-categories. This allows the reader to make a direct comparison of typefaces with a similar appearance, thus facilitating a deeper understanding of the design and selection process.
Yesterday evening, I jointly hosted a small event together with Mondi, the manufacturer of our new Pergraphica range of text and cover papers. We invited 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 the evening started with an introduction about the Pergraphica range by Isabel Bernd (below) from Mondi.
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.
The St Brides Annual Christmas lecture is next week and you should think about going!
Further to my post about IPEX (International Printing Exhibition) last week, it may interest you to know that this week I find that I am now at the exhibition all week!
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