One of the joys of running a letterpress studio is to share the experience with others. At p98a we set up workshop sessions for a group of individuals or entire teams.
Workshop sessions start with a historical introduction to letterpress and with a look at different methods of printing as well as the typographic measurement system. This is followed by a tour through the workspace. Participants become acquainted with our favorite wood type and get to know the presses along with some of their technical details, so they are confident enough to operate them by themselves at the end of the day. We then demonstrate the basic printing process. Our instructors explain the press setup and how to lock up a printing form.
Divided into groups of three or four, our participants learn how to compose a layout and will carry out several print runs. We encourage participants to come up with ideas of quotes or short phrases, that they would like to print, prior to the workshop. However, eventually the constraints of limited type sizes or missing letters may lead to a change of copy – an experience we consider to be an essential moment of our workshop. Many of the best ideas stem from having to work with what is available.
The workshop ends with cleaning up the mess all of us created during the day. Putting reglets, quads and leading back in order, sorting letters and assigning them to the appropriate type case and cleaning any remaining ink from the press rollers is a task equal to designing and printing. At the end of the day we wrap things up, share each group’s printed work and each participant takes their printed work home.
