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.
Quick links
1. Into the Wild - 5-days letterpress workshop run by Edward Johansson of Ahvaland Press (FI) & Claudio Madella of Officina Tipografica Novepunti (IT). 16-21.08.17
2. Karel Martens: Motion exhibition at the Design Museum Gent (till 30.07.17)
3. Open call for independent publishers for the Fruit Exhibition in Bologna. 02-04.02.18
4. The new meets the old: making a QR code with a Monotype composition caster - link
Visiting the London College of Communication
The next day after visiting St Bride Wayzgoose and being overwhelmed by what I saw I had one more day, or to be more precise a half-day, left in London. And as my train was leaving only at 18 o'clock I headed to the London College of Communication (LCC) to visit the printmaking department I heard so much about and where Christian Granados, a letterpress technician, was kind enough to make some time free to guide me around.
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Christmas Cards Exchange 2016
Participating in the Christmas Cards Exchange project has already become a good tradition by now. The project is organized by the group of enthusiastic letterpress printers from the UK, but the participants are coming from the whole of the Europe & US and it is an absolute joy to receive the letterpress printed Christmas cards from fellow designers/ printers. Thank you! Check out all cards here.
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