Category: Printing

I’m always on the look out for printing methods to use in my books and broadsides and with my letterpress printer.

Presses in a Row

Printing Room 1858
On one of the letterpress lists I read, someone asked for references for women working in the printing trade in 1879 St. Louis, MO, and doing “a menial job where she’ll get very inky through the course of her daily job.” There were quite a few answers, and one was from Richard Polinski, who referenced his blog post about the printing trade circa 1958.
What interested me about the picture, and made me then read his post, were 2 things. First, when I got my press, my friend Eric told me it had probably been set up as those in the picture — by some sort of overhead pulley system that provided electricity. When I later tried to add a motor to my press, I found that I’d have to make quite a few modifications to accommodate one. Second, I was surprised to see so many women in the drawing, in the background. According to Polinski, they are feeding the presses. Read his entire post here.

Ink Usage

Ink usage for various font facesMatt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth took “a selection of the most commonly used typefaces (to) compare how economical they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface.” See them drawing here. (Found here.)

Craft in America

Julie Chen working on a book projectHere in the bay area, our local PBS station is showing a 2-part series called Craft in America. (I think it’s the continuation of a series that started last year.) According to this article from the SF Chronicle, the second program (entitled Process) features two Bay Area artists, book artist Julie Chen (that’s her to the right) and printer Tom Killion.
I’ve got the shows set up to record on our DVR, and you can also watch season 1 online.

Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies

HaberuleIn my letterpress classes I am constantly reminding students to use a ruler or pica pole to measure things — Is the type straight on the page? Is it really centered? How much furniture do they need for the lockup? Some resist (although everyone comes around by the end of the day), but others start immediately to reminisce about using a type gauge, like the Haberule ones on the left.
I looked up the Haberule the other day, to see if perhaps I could find one to show students. I immediately found the Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies, full of tools that were useful not-so-long-ago, but have been mostly supplanted by computers. Look here for info on the Haberule (be sure to look at the comments, which explain how it works).

Early Office Museum

CyclostyleWhen I wrote about the Lifestyle Craft letterpress combo kit the other day, dinah commented that it “looks to me like the ancient ‘cyclostyle’ thing schools used (50+ years ago) to print PTA notices.” I didn’t know what that was, but wikipedia says

The Cyclostyle duplicating process is a form of stencil copying invented by David Gestetner in London in 1890. A stencil is cut with the help of small toothed wheels on a special paper underlaid with carbon paper which serves as a printing form. Gestetner named the Cyclostyle after a drawing tool he used. In 1875 Thomas Edison received a patent for the “electric pen”, which a decade later became the basis for the mimeograph machine. Gestetner’s cyclostyle was similar and provided more automated, faster reproductions.

I also found a picture of the machine at the fascinating Early Office Museum website. Look here for the “exhibit” on early copying machines.
The exhibit and the cyclostyle brought back memories of my mom making duplicates at home of the choral music she wrote using a gelatin-based system. According to the museum, it was a “hektograph” or “spirit” duplicator.