The cover of this newsletter was designed and printed in the printing department of the Industry Museum in Ghent. A department with an impressive collection of printing presses restored and maintained by an enthusiastic team of passionate professionals and volunteers. You can regularly find them on the 4th floor, where they demonstrate various printing equipment or you can also apply for various workshops taking place at the museum (letterpress, drypoint, silkscreen and lego print). The great strength of the printmaking department of the museum is the collection of wood type, which is regularly used to create printwork for the museum. And when Thomas Gravemaker asked me to design the cover for Drukwerk in de Marge, I thought 'Ha! Let's make something beautiful out of this!'. Let’s place our printing department in the spotlight, as it may somehow remain under the radar.
“Drukwerk in de Marge unites people who are interested in printing and publishing, letterpress printing or other techniques.”
By being actively involved in the activities of the printmaking department for many years, as a volunteer, workshop supervisor and cataloguing the collection, an idea for the design emerged almost immediately - to create composition by using the collection pieces with a modern 'twist' on what can now be called letterpress printing with of course a link to the history of printmaking in the city of Ghent.
I’ve trying to create a playful combination of an illustration of a 19th-century paper press from the collection, typeset from the aluminium lines and ornaments, accompanied by the lead and wood type and a magnesium cliché of an image of the Mary of Ghent with the three towers of Ghent on its background, a characteristic image of our city. This image originally came from the hand of Robrecht de Keysere, university humanist and Ghent printer (1470-1532), alias Robertus Cesaris or Robertus Gandenses. One of the most important Ghent printers in this period, together with Pieter de Keysere. Despite their name, they were not relatives nor descendants of Arend De Keysere (? – Ghent, 1490) by any means.
Robert is the son of a prominent Kuiper family who had four children including Robert. Robert graduated in Paris in 1496 as a Master of Medicine, Theology and as a humanist, he was a confidant of Desiderius Erasmus.
In 1500 he bought the 13th-century house “De Lindwoorme” north of St. Michael's Church (Korenlei) and set up a humanistic Latin school there.
Printing 650 covers in 3 colours on FAG 405 didn't seem possible to me, so I felt relieved when Jean-Pierre Berth, one of our finest printers, volunteers and former teacher at the Plantin Institute for Typography, suggested help so we can print the entire edition on Heidelberg KSBA. So we ordered the paper, Nautilus Classic 250 gr, and I started to typeset 3 formes. The choice of the colours was easy: I chose the three colours of the museum.
While Jean-Pierre was printing the first colour - yellow, for which I had used the wood type from the collection, I was busy preparing the second forme to be printed in warm red.
The printing of the second colour went smoothly as well, so it was time to prepare the third and the last forme: a composition with a large wood type accompanied by the Grotesk of 12pt in metal. Here we faced a little problem as these blocks turned out to be very unevenly cut, causing the letter 'N' to suddenly rise from time to time and causing troubles. I looked for (and found) another letter 'N' to replace it, but we still decided to print this forme in two print runs: first the metal type and then the wood type on top. After endless proofs, the cover was finally printed. The next day we cleaned our workshop and everything was ready for shipping to the Netherlands!
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