Tested Learns the Craft of Letterpress Printing

We visit the San Francisco Center for the Book to learn about letterpress printing and earn another maker merit badge. We're shown how modern letterpress practice uses a combination of century-old machines and new technology, and put those lessons to use in designing and making our new Tested business cards!

[KGSnow]

I learned this craft in high school in the 60s, and continued teaching myself, and perfecting my skills with my own basement print shop (after my time in the Air Force) in the 70s. Your video was enjoyable and brought back good memories. One thing that the young lady said that needs clarification: I understand that sometimes people have their own way of doing things, but professional typesetters have always set type by holding the composing stick with the open side *away* from the body, and the closed side up against the body. Then type is set *left to right*, the same way it is read in a book. Each piece of type is a mirror image of the printed letter as it will appear on the page. The "nicks" cast into the body of foundry type always indicate the bottom of the letter, and type is set so that the nicks are away from the body as you hold the stick. By holding the composing stick as I have described, in the left hand, the thumb is used to hold your line of type in place until you reach the end of the line. Then, although this video did not mention it, each line must be spaced out exactly so that no piece of type will fall out when the whole type form is lifted. This is accomplished with thin brass and copper spaces. It is actually quite satisfying when a type form "lifts" properly. Good luck to you as you keep up the heritage of letterpress printing.

[SharpblueCreative]

I work at a printers as a designer. But started off life as a typesetter - we still use a Heidelberg Platten. Also we still use dry offset letterpress plates that are made from negatives and make these plates for cheque (check if your American) printing.

[davidstone]

I am very excited to learn about the Center for the Book and their work with letter press. I was introduced to letter press printing in junior high school which offered print shop as a form of the manual arts program. . This was in 1940s. I became an enthusiast at that time and have never forgotten how much I enjoyed the class My dream (which remains, sadly still a dream) is to set up in small print shop in the garage and print stuff - maybe hand bills and the like. Keep up the good work.

[christophemeathrel]

The reason for a lesser depth of impression was essential for maintaining the length of use or age of the type. Wear and damage cost, especially specialised wooden block faces or engraved plates would cause image quality problems. Pins keeping plates mounted on a wooden base would see pins rise and then needlessly print, that then needs the printer to read the printed image and hammer down those raised issues.

[ddave]

Good to see its not completely dead. Did it for 22 years then moved to Offset paper/poly plates

[richardd]

I'm glad others have commented on the incorrect way the setting stick is being held. I wonder what other skills might get lost in the mists of time, little tricks we all picked up from the journeymen as we were learning, things that didn't get taught in day release classes....

[wrongwayup.]

Nice little look at letterpress printing. I think there are many people who haven't come in contact with this type of printing that don't realise that pretty much all terminology we still use in digital typesetting come from letterpress. Things like upper- en lowercase, leading, pointsize and font. But also english catch phrases like 'coining a phrase' (quoin a phrase originally), 'mind your p's and q's', and 'out of sorts', to give a few examples. :)

[peterhrick]

Ok video, most info correct but she is using the setting stick upside down, should be in left hand with the base at the bottom and moved around the type case picking up the correct letters as you go making sure the nick is always uppermost. That’s assuming you have set the setting stick to the correct width to start with.

[patientbeast]

Letter pressing always looks equally maddening and fun. Always wanted to give it a try.

[JadeGordon]

I reject any "hipster" labels where "vintage" crafting is concerned. Think about the man hours that go back into production instead of overseas, and the kind of specialized skills, trade and otherwise, the *craftsmanship* involved. The time and effort spent to be knowledgeable, and to be caring about what you make is a gorgeous thing. This was a super cool video! Thanks!

[Phished]

You know what isnt fun? doing typesetting at a community college where all the letters are just thrown together hastily in big boxes. Really tested my font recognition skills and made the whole project a huge pain in the ass.

[sofiadragon]

After seeing this I am actually going to build my own letter press and job stick and make my own letters and do this to self publish my books when they are done.

[wrongwayup.]

It CAN be dangerous, but that's mostly the case for the platen presses (like the one she showed first). Later models of those were fully automatic, and don't stop for anything. Cylinder presses like the one used for the business card aren't very dangerous since they are either hand-cranked, so your hands aren't close to the cylinders, or operated with a button that is out of the way of the mechanism. You could stick your hands into it when it runs, but that would be silly and unnecessary. :)

[blakeolson]

their plate making is essentially the same as Chemical based flexographic printing plate making.

[cheeseg]

I'm currently taking a printing production course and I'm watching videos like this to help study for my exam on Monday. While Letterpress printing is horribly inefficient and costly (I'm referring mostly to time cost, but I can't imagine it being cheap either) I still think it's really cool. It has a very antique style I find very appealing.

I'm glad it's making a comeback, but really it's probably best suited for one-off things like signs or invitations that you want to have an antique, handcrafted feel. You wouldn't want to print off a book or a 500 page report with this kind of printer. It would take forever!

[SharpblueCreative]

We have a larger Polymero machine but that is exactly how I make steel backed polymer plates. Our press has a magnetic base so the steel plate sticks.

[trainroomgary]

I remember the California Job Case. Here is the poem to remember the case layout. / be careful driving elephants into small ford garages. • Line 2 let me now help out your printing work • Line 3 violet usually take 3-EM Space airplane rides. Hope this helps. Gary 😎 • Cheers from The Detroit & Mackinac Railway 🚂🚃🚃🚃🚃

[JollyRogerAerospace]

We had classes on this in high-school 25 years ago in Florida. A shame they still don't offer it.

[EvilGenius.]

I would like to see more on this type of printing....Very cool!

[floydlooney]

Interesting that something as new as the computer made polymer plate works with the really old presses