"[6] The wordplay goes even further, however, given how many "colloquial terms for printing made reference to devils, hell and 'the black art,'”[3] as well as Baskin's artistic tendencies toward the macabre.
The high-quality craftmanship of the books were coupled with playfulness: type set in triangles, diamonds and other shapes, emphatic imagery, energetic lines, a key focal point sometimes highlighted with a splash of green or red, geometry that could get complicated despite a rough-hewn quality, and some of which was characteristic of the antique Chandler & Price treadle press that Baskin initially used to set type by hand.
Leonard Baskin continued to define the sensibility and typography and frequently the binding design of the books, as well as commissioning writers and illustrating the majority of the Press's works.
The University of Wisconsin's Messenger magazine described Baskin's book-making creative process, prior to the traveling exhibition Poets at Gehenna: 1959-1995 that was scheduled to visit the UW-Madison libraries in January 1997: Traditionally, artists provide images for existing poems.
The monumental Capriccio with poems by Ted Hughes, Sibyls by Ruth Fainlight, and the most recent book of the press, Presumptions of Death by Anthony Hecht, have all come from this atypical approach.
Working manuscripts, preliminary drawings, original woodblocks, and sequential proofs illuminate the creative process from the viewpoints of both artist and poet.
The most eccentric books directly reflected some of Baskin's more macabre visual interests, such as Demons, Imps and Fiends (1976), and Fancies, Bizarries & Ornamented Grotesques (1989).
Baskin was the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his work, including six honorary doctorates,[15] a Special Medal of Merit of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and a Printmaking Prize at the 1961 São Paulo Bienale.