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          Tour de Lead Graffiti 2011
T H E  O V E R P R I N T: these are SOLD OUT
          103+ runs

the project | clamshell | title page | descriptive page | colophon | postcards | overprint

stages 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Rest | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | Rest | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

2012 edition | 2013 edition (coming)

In 4 words:
Beat to a pulp

. . .

Size: 14.75" x 22.5"

Stock: Somerset Textured White 300 gsm

Runs: 103 making up the main body of the poster plus an additional 15 of the date/destination/distance blocks.

Main typography: Clarendon, Clarendon Outline, and various (wood), & various (metal)

Production notes: handset wood & metal type. The stage / signature block was printed using photopolymer plates.

Press: Vandercook Universal III

Completed: 9:40 pm, July 24, 2011

Contributors: Ray Nichols, Jill Cypher, Tray Nichols, & 19 others

. . .

Description: We thought the idea of overprinting each run of every poster might produce an interesting visual. Keep in mind we had no idea what each poster would look like even while we were doing them, so we would really have no idea how this would come out in the end. But it just got better each day as more and more of the white paper was covered and the color and typographic texture built up.

We also figured that not many people in history have done a letterpress print with this many runs on it, so it might be cool just for that.

In the end the paper has been beaten to death, feeling like it weighs about 3 times as much as a blank sheet. And that deckle edge has also taken a beating. In the end it was very limp coming off our Vandercook Universal III.

Because we use rubber-based ink which need to be absorbed into the paper to dry, we would treat the surface with cornstarch every two posters to get the surface to dry. Even then, there is a fair amount of offset on the backs of these prints. We wanted to be careful with the final couple of posters to make sure we didn't cover up much of the wonderful texture that we had built up over the nearly 100 runs. Here is a closeup of a 2" square of the surface.

It took about 50 runs to start to really look good and, in the end, we thought it ended up wonderful.