Line by Line

I guess I'll keep with a theme and share another Letter Press story, this time about Jerry Richardson in Fargo North Dakota...

Jerry Richardson is a man of letters – many, many letters. 

Talk to the 82-year-old and you’ll likely get a carefully considered, concise response delivered in a low, quiet, even tone. 

While not known for his prose, he is well respected for his visual presentations of words in print. 

In the basement of his Ninth Street home in Fargo, Richardson runs two letterpresses, producing some of the finest textual prints in the region, from individual literary lines to limited edition books and broadsides. 

To paraphrase a great orator, Teddy Roosevelt, “Speak softly and carry a big pica pole.”

One of the printing presses in Richardson’s basement weighs about 2,000 pounds. Each piece of paper that is printed on is placed by hand. Dave Wallis / The Forum
Read the entire article here: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/374709/

Old becomes new again....

Everything old becomes new again.... not sure I have the cliche exactly correct even if the idea is appropriate.

http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/entertainment/168205986.html


In a small town in Canada, at the Okanagan College, a new project called 'The Bunker' is opening soon.

What makes The Bunker so special? It is a Letter Press shop that is going to teach students how to set type by hand and print with ink on paper. And when I say ink I mean the kind that gets under your fingernails and stains your fingertips like your Father and Grandfather used in their shops.

I am very excited to see a program like this opening even if it is in Canada, and therefore very far away from here, because this is how I got my start in printing. I have a huge appreciation for modern typesetting and layout programs because I know what it used to be like. And I truly appreciate the irony of early in my career being 'rushed' to manually typeset a newsletter in several days to now being 'rushed' to typeset the same newsletter in an hour or less. As the technology improves so do the expectations placed upon the technology.

Anyway... click the link above and admire some beautiful equipment and enjoy the glimpse back to the print shops of the 50's and 60's.