St Brides Letterpress Conference

It was great to go to this Conference at St Bride Library and get a feel of what is happening in Letterpress at the moment. The conference was called "Forward Thinking" and I had hoped to see innovative use of this lovely, tactile print medium. A lot of the days' content focussed on tales of saving presses and drawers of type, which is of course good news, but it's what you do with it that's the really important bit, isn't it? Letterpress is obviously in a state of flux (not only in being melted down for scrap value) but also it's in the process of making a huge leap from traditional usage to being used by artists as an art form in it's own right.

There is great work out there. Alan Kitching and Celia Stothart are pioneers in this field, and some of the students Alan worked with are now making their mark: see this link to a short film about Kelvyn Smith on Creative Review's blog for November.

Here is a brief summary of the talks and links to websites from the speakers:

Dafi Kuhne, Zurich: graphic designer and letterpress printmaker using a Macbook and lasercutter to make new woodtype blocks.

Phil Abel, England. Hand and Eye Letterpress workshop. Talked about a re-invention of Letterpress, not a revival. Worked on a system for linking a Mac with a metal casting machine and casting type with molten metal.

Justin Knapp, Typoretum, England. Studied at Central Saint Martins, set up his own Letterpress studio, part of the Occasional Print Club.

Sandro Berra, Italy. Tipoteca Italiana A huge collection of wood and metal type that can be accessed and used by anyone interested. It is just outside Venice. Also has archive of Campo Grafico magazine, published 1933 - 39. (Sandro showed a cover design for this magazine and it was the most exciting forward thinking, read Futurist, image I saw at the conference)

Gen Harrison, Scotland. Robert Smail's Printing Works, a fully working printers now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.

Catherine Dixon, talking about Grafica Fidalga, Brazil. See Creative Review, January 2009.

April Sheridan, U.S.A. Studio manager at Columbia College Chicago's Center for Book and Paper Arts.