In the beginning of October, I decided to take a short break to visit my family in Armenia as well as to visit the Granshan non-latin type conference which this year took place in Yerevan. Upon arrival in sunny Armenia, I've discovered that the Printing Museum in Yerevan just got open and rushed there as soon as I could.
The museum is located in the building of the National Library of Armenia (Teryan street, 72) and the Library had already expressed the idea of establishing this museum back in 2012, when Armenia was celebrating the 500th anniversary of Armenian printing & UNESCO named Yerevan as World Book Capital. But it was finally opened for public just recently, on 25th of September 2017.
Quick links
1. Boekkunstbeurs in Pieterskerk in Leiden. 11-12.11.2017.
2. The Wolpe Exhibition - a month-long exhibition to celebrate the launch of a new collection of typefaces, originally designed by Berthold Wolpe, now revived by Monotype.
3. Making third stream books in the post-digital age, lecture by Russell Maret. 17.10.2017
4. Double Dagger Issue 2 is now available for pre-order.
Quick links
1. Women in Print: production, distribution and consumption. Call for papers.
Deadline 15.11.2017
2. Frank Baseman’s Inner Ben Franklin by Steven Heller
3. New Prints 2018/Winter. Call for submissions. Deadline 09.11.2017
4. Nieuwe business modellen in print. 05.10.2017, Mechelen
Zomertyposium 2017
Last Saturday I got up early to take the train to Antwerp to visit Zomertyposium where this year it was all about the creation of letters; then, but surely now. The impressive list of speakers promising an interesting day ahead includes Martin Majoor (NL), Thomas Gravemaker (NL), Patrick Goossens (BE) and René Knip (NL), covering various topics of type design, from punch cutting and producing new wood type to digital type design and 2 & 3 dimensional type on an industrial scale.
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Th e Itinerant Printer Project
In early 2015, Chris Fritton, former Studio Director of the Western New York Book Arts Center, set out on an ambitious cross-country journey through US & Canada that has taken him to 45 states, 4 Canadian provinces, and over 135 letterpress printshops; he’s already traveled over 45,000 miles & made over 15,000 prints - but it doesn’t end there. The trip continues throughout 2017 and will eventually result in a book that features photos of all of the prints, printshops, and people he met. The project is called "The Itinerant Printer".
Read MoreShakespeare's Sonnet n°38
Last year I got a chance to participate in a Sonnets 2016 project organized by Alexandra Franklin, coordinator of the Bodleian's Centre for the Study of the Book in Oxford, commemorating the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death.
At the beginning of 2016, the Bodleian invited printers around the world to submit hand-printed copies of each of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets - a cycle of 154 short, 14-line poems first published in 1609, where William Shakespeare meditated on themes of love, death, and desire. Each printer had to choose sonnet and all 154 hand-printed works, in various languages, were added to the permanent collection and I'm proud to be amongst them.
(Vlek19) Aymeric De Tapol – Les Horizons, 2015, letterpress
Capturing the Music of Printmaking
Belgian printmaker David aka Dimitri Runkkari is creating fascinating letterpress printed LP record sleeves by using just brass rules, metal type, pieces of plastic and cork. David is one of the co-founders of Vlek, a music label from Brussels, and he’s the one who is responsible for the whole visual art direction of the label. Although you can listen to their music online they emphasize the importance of producing the physical releases.
"Having a physical object for each of our records acts like a business card – it’s a good way to get people’s attention" explains David. These are mostly limited edition runs, usually 300 copies, designed, letterpress or screen printed by David in-house.