Letterpress Print Shop

On the east side of campus a letterpress print shop is run by a retired typographer who teaches students to set metal type by hand. Composing a sentence letter by letter from a type case is slow enough to change how you think about every word you choose. Individual lead characters are organized in the type cases by frequency, with the most common letters in the largest compartments nearest to the compositor's hands. Dating to the 15th century, this arrangement follows a spatial logic that has not been improved upon because it already optimizes for the human body's reach patterns. Each character is set backwards and upside down in a composing stick, and the text only reads correctly when printed in reverse onto paper under pressure. A Vandercook proof press from the 1960s requires manual inking, paper placement, and a hand-cranked roller that presses paper against the inked type with about 600 pounds of force. Last week I printed a poster there and the impression of the type into the paper, the physical indentation called deboss, creates a texture impossible to replicate digitally. Raised edges of each letter catch light and shadow in a way that gives the text a dimensional quality that printed ink on a flat surface cannot achieve. Three-hour introductory workshops at $40 cover basic typesetting, ink mixing, and printing on the press. Classes fill every semester because the tactile nature of the process appeals to students who spend most of their design work on screens.