We provided an interesting, longer-than-expected Creative Letterpress workshop to 14 students from the Delaware College of Art & Design and their professor John Breakey. We do a workshop with DCAD graphic design students each year and wanted to do something different, yet informative.

We took a long quote from Eric Gill’s An Essay on Typography, divided it into segments for each student which they handset in a different metal typeface from our collection, and then snaked them together into the 15″ x 22″ broadside you see below.

This gave the students the chance to see some different typefaces from what they see on their Macintosh computers along with seeing the value in a group project where everyone contributes a part, making the sum total a quite impressive broadside for them to keep as both a historical as well as a creative reference. We also got to see some of our collection printed for the first time. Here is the list of typefaces from top to bottom.

          Gill Sans
          Augustea Inline
          Champleve
          Boulevard
          Agency Gothic
          Packard
          American Uncial
          Othello
          Cochin Open
          Profile
          Anthanaeum
          Stymie Black Condensed
          Eve Bold
          Bauer Bodoni Heavy Italic
          Spartan Heavy
          Legenda
          Delphin
          Castellar
          Garamond & Garamond Italic

We produced the opening word of the quote the day before with wood type in Gill Sans to celebrate the author using our handrolling technique we refer to as TypeArt. As an added experience for the students, we cast the broadside’s credits on our Intertype C4 with each student personally doing their own name in Palatino and the typeface they handset in Palatino Italic. Seeing the Intertype in action is always a showstopper.

Here is the quote we used.

TYPOGRAPHY (the reproduction of lettering by means of movable letter types) was originally done by pressing the inked surface or ‘face’ of a letter made of wood or metal against a surface of paper or vellum. The unevenness and hardness of paper, the irregularities of type (both in respect of their printing faces and the dimensions of their ‘bodies’) and the mechanical imperfections of presses and printing methods made the work of early printers notable for corresponding unevennesses, irregularities & mechanical imperfections. To ensure that every letter left its mark more or less completely & evenly, considerable and noticeable impression was made in the paper. The printed letter was a coloured letter at the bottom of a ditch.

–Eric Gill from An Essay on Typography, 1931

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