I never imagined that it would take so long to letterpress our invitations. Last week, I spent two days in a letterpress studio setting type for our invitation wording and directions. If you've never set type before, just image setting tiny metal dominoes.

I was able to use the studio for free as a favor from our friend Nick. It is located in a garage in Squirrel Hill with no running water or toilet facilities. After my hands got too dirty from the type I couldn't rub my eyes. Happily, it rained later that afternoon and I was able to hold my hands out in the downpour to clean them off. The next day I brought a bottle of water and a towel.

A few days later Nick helped me to get the type ready for printing. We spent from 8:00 pm until 4:00 am just setting up the press and adding pieces of onion skin paper so that the type would hit just right. We spent six hours the following day printing and resetting for the next page. Once we finished adjusting the press it took less than an hour for the whole 200+ print run. The same would have taken four hours with a silk screen and would have suffered a much higher error rate.

The press itself is from (circa) 1895. I runs on manual power and moves smoothly despite its age. First, the roller grabs ink from a plate and rubs it on the type. Next, the type pivots forward and kisses the card on the platform. While the roller grabs more ink a human (Nick, in this case) takes out the printed card, lays it out to dry, and then places the next card. All this happens while someone (me or a trained monkey) provides the power by spinning the wheel.

By the time we finished our two sets of cards my arms were ringing and I was sick of looking at my invitations. I gave up on letterpressing rehearsal dinner cards and returned home. I am tired of invitation work, but they still must be assembled and mailed. I would kill for a crafty post office fairy right now.

It's standing room only in the garage:


An iron frame for holding type and spacers called 'furniture' in the type industry:


Some of the type I set:


Paint and shelves of wooden type:


Drying prints:

Labels: invitations, letterpress, print, tedium, type, typesetting, wedding

posted by Alison 6/28/2007 12:52:00 AM : (0) comments : splink

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