Forbes.com recently had an article about the revival of letterpress printing. They mention Hatch Show Print, a print shop in Nashville that’s been making entertainment posters (“show posters”) since 1979 (that’s one of their prints to the left, you can see more here).
It’s a breezy short article. And amusing in that it ends with a discussion of the debate on whether using photopolymer plates to print is really letterpress. Several of the commenters to the article say it isn’t letterpress unless the printer uses hand-set metal type. The Beast Pieces blog has a good counter-argument here.
At SFCB, our beginning letterpress courses all teach hand type setting — but that’s because, in a studio already stocked full of metal type, it’s the easiest, cheapest way to start learning. But anyone who continues usually wants to design pieces that can be difficult, time consuming and costly to print hand-set, so my recommendation for a follow-on class is always the Printing from Photopolymer Plates class.
Forbes is years behind the trend, but hey, why quibble?
I’m glad you brought this subject up. It seems to me that real printers use whatever medium is appropriate to the job. There are those that would argue that Hatch’s use of wood is not true letterpress either. In fact some would say it’s sloppy printing. Me, I like it, but I also like a beautiful handset broadside with all the i’s dotted. Matter of taste, I think.