Design Production for Print//Letterpress.

Last week I booked a session down with the technicians in the Leeds College of Art college campus, Vernon Street, to have an induction session with letterpress and typesetting. Although never having experienced the process before, I was really interested to find out more about it- having greatly admired letterpress designs I had seen in contextual refrencing and research- and, most importantly, felt a desire to explore the process and finish for potential application in my 'Design Production for Print' Wes Anderson film festival designs (for covers, "special" type, etc). 

I went down with friends and fellow BAGDers Claudia and Sarah (Roberts) to have a short induction with the staff in the studio.

The range of typefaces available for letterpress (the small iron letterforms for typesetting). A good range- though a bit disheartened by the lack of Futura (!)- we were recommended to use 18pt for time and ease 
on this first induction session.

These charts (which are universally used) show the placement of type within the cases- acting almost as a keyboard. I was pleased that I (felt like, at least!) picked this up quite quickly- and felt it came quite naturally... pretty much quite want to be a professional typesetter now...

My final letterpress block set and ready for print- a simple text piece which reflects my project (set in 18pt Univers Light, as I felt this was most representative/visually communicative of Wes' work from the typefaces available to work with):

I saved Latin, what did you ever do? Rushmore, 1998, dir. Wes Anderson

Realised post-set that my question mark was set out with a middle (iron piece) between that and the 'do'... looked a bit "special" as the technician put it (not a good sort of special...) I've learnt for next time.

Our three set bodies of type- ready to print when we return to Vernon Street for printing on Wednesday afternoon- I'm really looking forward to seeing the bodies of text printed, and, hopefully, trying out some more variations of the type. For my printed outcomes, it may be a little too long-winded to actually produce, though I think proposing it on particular design finishes would be a good move- I'll analyse the results on Wednesday before I guarantee any print finish direction.