A few years ago, when the Museum of Industry still had the old name MIAT, I designed and letterpress printed several posters for the museum shop, among them a factory poster on the image below.
It was one of my first attempts to design and typeset an illustration build from typographic material available in the museum. As the museum is housed in a former textile factory I had an idea of representing the building using only brass rules, wood and metal type. This sounded like great fun, but proved to be slightly challenging when it came to make-ready, adjustments and lock-up, as everything had a different height and there were not enough wood blocks so I had to flip a few letters to create the texture of the size I needed. Armed with tweezers I was improvising with whatever material I could find at the printing department, building windows, doors, engines and spools using brass rules, with electricity lines cast on Intertype accompanied with triangles I accidentally came across in a type cabinet. Back in 2018, I printed it in one colour, black.
These posters were quickly sold out back then and I thought it was time to design and reprint a slightly adjusted version. As I dissed the material a long time ago, I had to build it from scratch and this time I decided to add two more layers and make a multicolour print. Six hours later, after finding back all the materials, the illustration of the factory was rebuilt. For the first layer, printed in light green in two print runs, I used the large wood type representing an industrial city on the background. Then I printed a few more letters in yellow which illustrated the steam coming out of chimneys. Once everything was dry the final forme, the illustration, went on the press ready to be printed in blue. Now it was the time for make-ready, to make sure everything was on the same height (as the lines typeset on Intertype were quite low and some of the brass rules were damaged so I had to replace them). Once this has been done the final colour was printed and posters were trimmed the next day.
While working on the factory poster I had an idea for another work. Last Christmas I got a lovely present - a box of LEGO dots. After playing with it at home and being inspired by various projects by fellow printmakers I decided to give it a try. And I had a good excuse for that, as I was invited to participate in an international typographic project ArchiTypo 2024 in Olsztyn, Poland.
I used the LEGO dots and metal type to build an imaginary city. And it was quite fun to make. I mounted the base plate on wood block, adjusted the height and printed the first colour. I must say that the LEGO dots are printing very well. Then the second forme went on the press, typeset with metal type, ornaments and a basket of flowers I found in one of the drawers in the museum.
Both works are currently for sale at the museum shop, yay!
Industriemuseum
Minnemeers 10
9000 Gent
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