If you are handling antiquarian books all day, it’s always useful to have a practical understanding of how these things were once printed. Last month a number of our cataloguers visited the New North Press in Hoxton for a letterpress class run by Graham Bignell, who runs the press, and Nigel Bents, our designer.
The studio is an Aladdin’s cave of printing equipment stacked from floor to ceiling, with seemingly every inch of space occupied by some long forgotten, yet vital artefact. But it is far from being a museum; the ethos of the press is rooted in the here-and-now; the hundreds of drawers with their thousands of wood and metal letters are constantly being selected and printed on cast iron Victorian presses.
The day-long session gave everyone a hands-on introduction to the craft of letterpress; they experienced the entire process from composition (hand-setting, spacing and locking up type) to printing (inking and pulling the press). Everybody had to set a favourite first line using anything that took their fancy from the substantial library of wood and metal type, and ended up going home with their hand printed first lines as a typographic masterpiece!
If you are a lover of words and would like to display that passion in your home, you can purchase Nigel’s, The Letterpress Manifesto, a stunningly beautiful poster which teaches you the finer points about letterpress production by actively showing you what can be achieved through the use of a printing press. You will find no finer example of such expertise and craft in the world of letterpress printing.
