Letterpress

Long before Wordpress there was Letterpress.

A revolutionary printing technology that changed the world forever…

Before letterpress printing, the main way to print something, aside from writing it, was with a hand carved wooden block.

This not only took a lot of effort to make, but it meant you were essentially limited to a stamp that was prone to wear.

Letterpress printing, credited to Johannes Gutenberg around the 1450’s, was designed as a modular system where single letters of type were moulded from metal and could be re-used and moved to form new layouts.

This meant printers could now produce masses of works at a fraction of the time, labour, and cost.

Information was made more accessible and a myriad of religious, scientific, political, and cultural revolutions were laid with their foundations set firmly on the press of the letterpress printer.

The world was never the same.

  • “Before printing, a century was equal to a thousand years.”

    — Henry David Thoreau

The beauty of letterpress printing

Comes from the impression that it leaves behind.

Unlike other forms of printing, letterpress uses a raised surface that is inked and then pressed directly into the paper, leaving behind its tactile and timeless feature known as a “kiss”.

Early printers were taught that a “kiss” should only be light enough to ink the paper, and that the debossed effect was a sign of bad craftsmanship.

Today, however, the debossed effect is the unique sought after feature that sets letterpress apart from the rest.

  • “All our Impressium prints are handset and printed on an Albion Press, an early iron hand printing press, designed and manufactured in London during the 1830’s.”

    — Reggio Fox, Head of Design