So for my new Idea I want to look at what role the printing press has in today's society and how this is relevant to the graphic designer in the 21st century. I feel that letterpress is a magnificent process which has had one of the biggest impacts on the world out of any invention known to man causing the mass enlightenment and the spread of new ideas and theories. I want to look at how this machine went from being a weapon of mass dissemination to a specialized process reserved for mainly image making nowadays as apposed to a typographic machine for dissemination. Obviously as cheaper printing methods came about like offset litho the letterpress business took a rapid decline in production, but in the past 10 years or so there has been a resurgance of letter pressed design work and I want to investigate why this is happening and work out why the letter press is still relevant to graphic design today.
Primary Research
Contact Letter Press
I think this will be a fun research project and will allow me to carry out sufficient primary and practical research. In order to find out how the industry has changed and what letter press is now most commonly used for I will have to contact various Letter press work shops in order to find out what type of work they are involved with and their views and opinions on letter press in today's society and why its becoming more relevant in today's society. This will also help to find out the limitations and benefits of the press, and I will hopefully get some hands on help and experience to help me along the way if I'm lucky.
Contact Graphic Designers who work with Letter Press
By contacting graphic Designers who use letter press I can find out their reasonin behind why they use this process. By talking to designers it will help to build up an inderstanding of the positives of letter press but also the problems. This will also be a good resource for tips and hints on the process itsself and also to find out their opinions on the industry and the machinery. It will also be interesting to try find out what they think the future of letterpress is. With the new technology of 3d printing getting cheasper and cheaper it may be possible to create new sets of 3D printed letter forms for the press which opens up a whole new world of digital fonts for practical printing methods.
Contacting Universities which offer letterpress or that are currently introducing the process
I think by contacting Universities it will give a 3rd point of view on the relevance of letter press in todays society. it will also be interesting to find out why they offer the service or why they have recently decided to introduce the press. There is obviously reasons to why this is beneficial to the world of graphic design and how it helps with the practice. It is obviously important to teach type setting and helps build layout and gridding skills as everything needs to be precise and exact.
Practical Response
In terms of my practical response I will create some form of letter pressed book / booklet which Promotes letter press to the graphic design community and looks at the relevance it has in today's society whilst also highlighting its historical significance and why its important to carry on with printing traditions. By creating letter pressed aspects of the book it will inform me on the process and also help to build on my typography skills. I can analyze my experience with the letter press machine also which will help my personal practice.
Random Question List
I wrote a series of questions that will probably need answering to complete my research. I think getting opinions from people with different involvements with letter press will really help to triangulate and compare my research.
- How has the role of the printing press changed?
- What role does the printing press play in today's society?
- Why has the role of the printing press changed?
- Who uses letterpress today?
- What are the main uses of letter press in today's society?
- What educational benefits does the letter press machine offer to the graphic designer?
- What are the limitations of the letter press?
- What are the positives and negatives of the printing press?
- Who is the leading face of letter press today?
- What are the social and economic factors surround letter press today?
- Why is it important to carry on these traditions?
- What is the History of the printing press?
- What significant events has the printing press influenced?
- Why has their been a resurgence of letterpress?
- What is the future for letter press?
- Print or digital, how does it compare?
- How has the industry changed and why?
- What are the costs involved with letter press?
- Why do people want letter pressed work?
- How many types of letter press machines are they?
- How many letterpress studios are there in the UK?
- What are the letter press trends?
- How sustainable is the letter press machine?
- How can I make letterpress more popular?
- How do digital designers design for letterpress?
The alluree of handmade
- Design
- Freedom
- Durability
- Conventions
- Physical Substance
- Standards
Establishing conventions
- Scholar Printers
- The Jobbing printer
- Artistic Printers
- Mechanization of Casting and Typesetting
- Arts and Crafts Movement
- Private Presses
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