Letterpress takes us back to basics, to hands-on experiences that no computer program can replicate, is this why we love it so much? In this age of disposables and digital completixy, do we yearn for more tactile, simpler, more lasting times? If you are Leslie Evans, Katie Harper or Karen Battles, the answer is a resounding “YES!”
Yes, but ... for different reasons. Letterpress can be a form of print-making, a tool for teaching typography or the means to a successful business venture. And it is always a subject of passionate debate.
LETTERPRESS AS PRINTMAKING
For illustrator and artist Leslie Evans of Sea Dog Press, letterpress offers the perfect medium for printing her linoleum cuts and wood engravings. Both the delicate, exquisite lines of a wood engraving and the strong, organic forms of a linoleum cut are rendered with unequaled sensitivity on her Vandercook proof press. Evans’ home, studio and print shop are demarcated only by a flight of stairs. She moves easily from ceiling-high drawers and shelves laden with her posters, cards and children’s books; to her electronic studio with the requisite computer; and down the stairs to her basement print shop. These days it is Clyde who keeps Sea Dog Press true to its name, but the original inspiration came from Morgan, Evans’ faithful black Lab companion and muse for 16 years: Morgi is Welsh for “sea dog.”
Evans was a printmaking major at Rhode Island School of Design just before the letterpress revival hit. An elective typography class sparked her interest in type and letterpress equipment, but it was her experience in Ray Nash’s book-arts workshop after graduation that, she says, “really hooked me for good on letterpress.” In one of her early jobs in a design studio, she landed fortuitously in the former Golding Company, a printing equipment manufacturer sold long ago to American Type Founders. The abandoned type cabinets she found there launched her collection of equipment for her own shop.
Over the years, Evans has built an extensive portfolio that illustrates the breadth of her talent and the depth of her passion for printmaking and type. From her hand-colored linocuts for cards celebrating the Chinese New Year to her whimsical and innovative Black Morgan Alphabet, she demonstrates her skilled eye for composition and line. No stranger to wordplay, Evans combines her verbal wit and visual talent on broadsides, invitations and self-promotional pieces. “Get Your Fresh Art Daily” indeed: Tomatoes, anyone?
HANDS-ON LEARNING
Educator, designer and art director Katie Harper of Ars Brevis Press describes herself as “a writer who works with images.” Her passion for typography is inseparable from her love of teaching. To Harper, typography is “the least-understood yet most critical aspect of graphic design.” She finds too often that young designers consider type an afterthought, as something subservient to the design.
In workshops and when teaching typography to design students, Harper has consistently relied on metal type and letterpress to provide hands-on, experiential learning. Referencing the book The Hand by Frank Wilson, Harper speaks with great enthusiasm about the hand teaching the brain, rather than the other way around. In the gap between manually setting metal or wood type and manipulating letterforms on a computer screen, a lot is lost, says Harper. “Too often, students begin to think visually in terms of what they can produce on a computer, rather than seeking the best tool or solution for the challenge at hand.” Considering only one tool can severely limit the design.
In her own work, both client-driven and personal, Harper lets the content “talk to her.”
For Harper, “the content drives the form.” She delights in combining text and image in unexpected ways, for example using ink-jet printing with letterpress type. “Something needs to be said, a message needs to be conveyed, an audience needs to be moved to act—and all these needs come into me looking for the right expression and manifestation.”
PRESSING ON WITH BUSINESS
Husband and wife Karen Battles and James Shanley of B Designs use letterpress in what some would consider its most liberal interpretation. In their print shop there is just one old type cabinet with metal type and ornaments. B Designs manufactures greeting cards and social stationery that pay homage to the “old days” while being produced in a decidedly modern way.
Battles, the design half of the team, has always been inspired by letterforms as art. She finds much of her inspiration in hand lettering from the late 19th and early 20th centuries—times when people took great care with their personal correspondence. She says she strives to “honor the past while interpreting it.” Working digitally, Battles refines scanned type and image and distills each to its essence, capturing the simple elegance that is the hallmark of the B Designs style.
Film is created off-site, but photopolymer plate production is done in-house. This is one of many efficiencies that Shanley, the business part of the team, has introduced to streamline what might be characterized as an inherently inefficient process. Formerly an architectural photographer, Shanley uses his skills in “solving a series of problems” to keep the business aspect of B Designs running. And letterpress has become quite a competitive business: At the 1995 National Stationery Show in New York, B Designs was one of just three letterpress print exhibitors. At the 2007 show, there were more than 60.
Although the make-ready section of their operation may be modern, there is a reassuring antique rhythm to the shop’s four Heidelberg “windmill” presses that run almost nonstop. Operating these presses—often all four at once—is Katey Corrigan, a far cry from the burly pressman one might have seen in the 1950s. Corrigan interned at B Designs while a student at nearby Montserrat College of Art. After working in a high-end commercial letterpress shop for three years, she came back to B Designs full time. Shanley gladly handed the press reins to Corrigan, as the repetitive physical demands of running the presses had taken a toll on his back and elbows, and the business end of things was calling out for closer attention. Corrigan talks about listening to the presses. Each one has a distinct sound, and even while tending to one she can hear if another has gone amiss.
Letterpress is like that. It involves multiple senses and thus connects us more closely with both process and results. We touch the type, the paper, the plate; we smell the ink; we feel the impression; we see the three-dimensionality. And we strive for that just-right “kiss” impression that affirms our love of this timeless craft.
www.seadogpress.com | www.arsbrevispress.com | www.bdesignsinc.com THIS PAGE: KAREN BATTLES & JAMES SHANLEY, B DESIGNS
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