Thursday 9 January 2014

Letterpress Diary Day 2 : Thursday 9th

 When its Appropriate Use it when its not Don't


Today went allot more smoothly than yesterday. I was straight away back into my rhythm and managed to set this poster fairly quickly. This is a statement that Martyn from The Beautiful Meme said in the interview which I think really sums up letterpress for graphic designers. A good designer chooses the right medium for the message. This was fairly easy to set apart from a few loose blocks which I managed to rectify.


I only used one typeface for this poster but experimented with upper and lower case type. I am really happy with how this has turned out. The composition works well and the statement is bold and appropriate.

Unique Tactile Exciting


For this poster I wanted to use some of the random italic font to highlight the unique tactile qualities of letterpress as much of this type looks worn and is allot different to any of the other type I had been working with. Because this type was italicized I had to use tape in order to position the blocks together. This stopped the lettering from moving about in the chase. One problem I did have with this type was finding the write letter forms. The box of type was so mixed up it took around 40 minutes to find the correct letters for the job.


Once I had managed to tape up the italicized font and lock it in place the rest of the lettering was fairly easy to assemble. I wanted to showcase how different the lettering can print with letterpress so I used 3 different typefaces to produce this poster. I am really happy with the print, I feel like the aesthetics and texture of the poster represents the statement.

 

Here you can see the range of stocks I used. I printed each of the posters on some colour stock as well in the style of Anthony Burrills posters which really bring the statements to life. They look bold and eye catching and highlight the characteristics of letterpress.
Letterpress Teaches Core Typography Skills


I had trouble finding the right letters to produce this poster. I wanted to use the serif typeface for the 'letterpress' however I could only find a b instead of a p. I decided to stick with the grotesque typeface instead and decided on a different composition.


Here you can see the type set in the chase. This piece took quite a while to set as there were so many loose letters. I had to pack the chase loads in order for it all to lock in.


Once I had finally set the type I realized that I had put the 'C' in backwards in the word 'CORE'. This was pretty frustrating as it had taken so long to lock in place but luckily no other letters fell out once I had corrected it.

Overview

Today went a lot smoother than yesterday, I managed to get 3 posters printed in the same time as it had taken me to do 2 posters the previous day. I definitely found my rhythm today and found setting type allot easier, it also helped that I had plenty of bits of card and paper pre cut from yesterday. I also found it easier when positioning my paper on the chase, producing much straighter prints.

Apart from positioning letters the wrong way I didn't really have any major problems. Luckily I caught that mistake before I had started printing. I am really pleased with my progress so far and have already exceeded my expectations.

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