Letterpress printing

In theory, anything that is "type high" (i.e. it forms a layer exactly 0.918 inches thick between the bed and the paper) can be printed using letterpress.

[4] Johannes Gutenberg is credited with the development in the West, in about 1440, of modern movable type printing from individually cast, reusable letters set together in a "forme" (frame or chase).

Gutenberg also invented a wooden printing press, based on the extant wine press, where the type surface was inked with leather-covered ink balls and paper laid carefully on top by hand, then slid under a padded surface and pressure applied from above by a large threaded screw.

Fully automated 20th-century presses, such as the Kluge and "Original" Heidelberg Platen (the "Windmill"), incorporated pneumatic sheet feed and delivery.

In a newspaper press, a papier-mâché mixture called a flong was used to make a mould of the entire form of type, then dried and bent, and a curved metal stereotype plate cast against it.

The plates were clipped to a rotating drum and could print against a continuous reel of paper at the enormously high speeds required for overnight newspaper production.

Letterpress printing was introduced in Canada in 1752 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, by John Bushell in the newspaper format.

[8] One of the first forms of letterpress printing in the United States was Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick started by Benjamin Harris.

Since its revival letterpress has largely been used for fine art and stationery as its traditional use for newspaper printing is no longer relevant for use.

Letterpress publishing has recently undergone a revival in the US, Canada, and the UK, under the general banner of the "Small Press Movement".

[14] In 2004 they state "Great care is taken in choosing the perfect wedding stationery – couples ponder details from the level of formality to the flourishes of the typeface.

Affordable copper, magnesium and photopolymer platemakers and milled aluminum bases have allowed letterpress printers to produce type and images derived from digital artwork, fonts and scans.

[1] The Ludlow Typograph Machine, for casting of type-high slugs from hand-gathered brass matrices, was first manufactured in Chicago in 1912 and was widely used until the 1980s.

The Elrod machine, invented in 1920, casts strip material from molten metal; leads and slugs that are not type-high (do not print) used for spacing between lines and to fill blank areas of the type page.

The working of the printing process depends on the type of press used, as well as any of its associated technologies (which varied by time period).

A traditional letterpress printer made a heavy impression into the stock and producing any indentation at all into the paper would have resulted in the print run being rejected.

Part of the skill of operating a traditional letterpress printer was to adjust the machine pressures just right so that the type just kissed the paper, transferring the minimum amount of ink to create the crispest print with no indentation.

The labor-intensive nature of the typesetting and need to store vast amounts of lead or wooden type resulted in the letterpress printing process falling out of favour.

[19] The invention of ultra-violet curing inks has helped keep the rotary letterpress alive in areas like self-adhesive labels.

Rotary letterpress machines are still used on a wide scale for printing self-adhesive and non-self-adhesive labels, tube laminate, cup stock, etc.

The printing quality achieved by a modern letterpress machine with UV curing is on par with flexo presses.

Detailed, white (or "knocked out") areas, such as small, serif type, or very fine halftone surrounded by fields of color can fill in with ink and lose definition if rollers are not adjusted correctly.

Several dozen colleges and universities around the United States have either begun or re-activated programs teaching letterpress printing in fully equipped facilities.

[22] The current renaissance of letterpress printing has created a crop of hobby press shops that are owner-operated and driven by a love of the craft.

Several larger printers have added an environmental component to the venerable art by using only wind-generated electricity to drive their presses and plant equipment.

[23] He has drawn attention both from commercial printers and fine artists for his wide knowledge and meticulous skill with letterpress printing.

He collaborated with restaurateur and free speech activist Alice Waters, the owner of Chez Panisse, on her book 30 Recipes Suitable for Framing.

[24] He has created strikingly colorful large posters for such Bay Area businesses and institutions as Acme Bread and UC Berkeley.

This is one of the world's foremost collections and is located off Fleet Street in the heart of London's old printing and publishing district.

The museum holds many workshops and conferences throughout the year and regularly welcomes groups of students from universities from across the United States.