Workshops

Creative letterpress workshop
for groups
no prerequisite

7 working hours plus a light lunch. $100 per participant.
Minimum of 6 and a maximum of 12 participants .
Some offerings of this workshop have restricted enrollment. Know you have access before registering.

Typically at the request of a group with some common goals, we offer this type of casual, creative letterpress workshop for professionals or students who would like to experience printing via letterpress first hand, but who are not initially interested in renting our equipment for personal use. These workshops can be arranged upon request by any group from design studios, advertising agencies, schools, museums, writers, librarians, or others with a common interest. It is important to note that rental of our equipment requires the completion of the appropriate technical workshop.

Creative workshops typically require a minimum of 6 participants and we often offer them to design students with up to 12. The image on the left is a book we've produced in about 20 workshops for design students and there is a bit more explanation at the bottom of this page. We actually did one for 24 once, but that gets crowded.

These group creative workshops center around a joint creative experience (versus an in-depth technical how-to exercise) using our Vandercook presses because of the size of their printing areas and their ease of use. The workshop content can be tailored to match the group’s desired outcome. Because these workshops do not cover the depth of technical expertise required for press rental, are usually offered at a reduced rate and and also at a special student price.

Lead Graffiti workshops that cover detailed technical explanations and exercises related to our various presses are required for those people who want to rent our presses in the near future. To rent our presses you must have taken our Metal Type Composition (prerequisite introduction workshop and to rent our tabletop presses), our Vandercook workshop (to rent our SP-15 or Universal III presses), or our Chandler & Price platen workshop (to rent our motor or treadle driven floor-model platen presses). In addition we are happy to provide group workshops that are prerequisites for press rental (at the regular workshop rates) while also providing a more focused experience for any group with common interests.

All necessary materials will be supplied. Wear comfortable shoes and work clothing and dress warmly in the winter months.

Topics covered

• studio tour and samples of letterpress
• press & materials safety
• composing with wood & metal types
• using furniture, quoins & lockup bar
• ink (oil based, rubber based)
• inking using form rollers & hand rolling
• press makeready & packing the cylinder
• redistributing type & materials

Typical projects

• posters & broadsides
• keepsakes
• small books

Workshop calendar

A few Creative Letterpress workshop examples:

Three designers from Wieden + Kennedy /NY rented our studio for a weekend for a creative workshop to produce this tryptic printed on old magazine pages for the Manifest Equality exhibition in Los Angeles in March 2010.

This 18" x 24" poster was produced in a Creative Letterpress workshop with the board of directors of AIGA / Philadelphia and printed in an edition of 50.

The poster above was created by a group of 14 students from the Delaware College of Art & Design from a quote from Eric Gill's Essay on Typography. The poster lists the students (who set their name / typeface on our Intertype) along with the name of the typeface they used so there is a nice bit of metal typographic history included for future reference.

This booklet was produced by 6 Philadelphia University students. Each student designed and printed a spread which was bound into the booklet.

Below is a version of a booklet we often do in group student-oriented workshops. Each student has their own space in which to work. Everyone's page is locked up and printed as a broadside. This image shows how the structure works. Click on the image for a more detailed view.

Each partipant is responsible for a page which is printed as a 'broadside', meaning it is printed on only one side of the sheet. Then with a bit of creative folding and tearing the broadside will fold into an accordion-fold book. Coupling this with a cover made using Lead Graffiti pastepaper the final book can be formed without sewing or glue. You will produce one finished booklet during the session and then take home the printed materials and supplies to make another two.