Monday was the last session of my Digital Letterpress class at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle. For the past ten weeks my students immersed themselves in the joys and frustrations of letterpress printing, and discovered that old-school and new-school technologies can go together like peas n’ carrots. The class focused on taking digital images, processing them into photopolymer plates and then hand-printing the images on the Vandercook (just like the process behind the Dead Feminists; read more about it here). I added a little extra challenge, and required each student to create an image that combined a hand-drawn element, digital typesetting, and at least two colors that had to line up or “register” in some way. Well, the students all turned out to be folk after my own heart—every last one was an overachieving perfectionist, which is the absolute perfect combination for this kind of fiddly letterpress work. Everybody pushed themselves to create a beautiful, technically proficient piece, and they all exceeded my wildest expectations. Since the class was too big to include everybody’s project here, I’ve just highlighted a few examples:
Andrew Saeger decided that two colors weren’t tricky enough for his first letterpress piece, so he added a third. He tackled all kinds of challenges (large color fields, on-press ink mixing, crazy-hard registration, etc.) with aplomb, and blew us all away with the result.
Robin Kessler came with years of commercial pre-press experience, but had never laid her hands on letterpress equipment before. She received a crash course in Everything That Can Go Wrong with Ancient Communal Presses, and liked the challenge so much she ran out and bought two presses of her very own. I love it when students catch the printing bug as badly as I did!
Mirka Hokkanen is a seasoned fine-art printmaker, but new to the world of letterpress. On the first night of class I outlined all the things that would make for a printing nightmare—large blocks of color, super-fine lines combined with heavy areas, tiny text. And Mirka turned around and put all of those elements into her design at once—just to prove that she could do it. I tip my hat to you, Mirka.
Honora Gerbeck combined impeccable technique and tricky patterning to create a piece as yummy as the vegan cupcakes she brought to the last class. Since it’s clear that she bakes as well as she prints, you can bet I’ll be first in line when she opens up that vegan bakery someday.
You’d never know it, but Honora was also a first-timer. Look at that registration!
Sara McNally, another newbie printer, just seemed to get it. It took her all of three seconds to figure out what would work best within the limitations of the medium, and she whipped up a print that combines all the best features of digital letterpress.
Veronica Velasco also tacked a three-color project for her first-ever letterpress piece, and the challenges she faced with this piece would have been daunting to the most seasoned printers. She spent hours getting the registration just so, and the finished product is lovely. And alliterative names? How cute is that?
Laura Bentley is a teaching assistant for another SVC letterpress class, so she came with lots of printing experience. This is her first photopolymer project, however, and while it looks like a straightforward design, the process behind the piece was anything but. There’s a limit to the size of plate one can make in the platemaker we used—Laura had to cram all these design elements onto a plate that was about half the size of the finished piece, and then cut the plate apart to place each fragment of the design in the right spot on press. That made for ten separate puzzle pieces to measure, line up, and register.
And her design is accurate to the millimeter. I think she’s some kind of analytical genius.
For me the best part of teaching is watching the look on the students’ faces when they pull their first-ever print off of the press. That moment of proud astonishment is its own reward, and I think it’s what makes letterpress so addicting. Working with students always makes me remember my own first printing experience, and reminds me of why I love this stuff so much. So thanks for having me, SVC. And to the students: I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
