Featured Video - Letterpress
Our new home page video short is by Danny Cooke and is titled 'Upside Down, Left to Right: A Letterpress Film' with a soundtrack by Tony Higgins.
It's an interesting short film that's well paced and focuses on a letterpress that's still in use at Plymouth University. Printing created from letterpresses as opposed to being produced from a modern printer, is undoubtedly more interesting to look at (although not easier to read in any quantity) and definitely has the edge through the creative opportunities of mixing different fonts, thicknesses and colours of ink, adjusting the pressure applied by the rollers and a greater variety of papers available. On larger fonts the uneven take up of ink along with the other options available to the typographer can lead to a much greater subtlety of definition on individual letters, making the process more creative and fulfilling.
In view of the above, it's sad and slightly strange to think of one of man’s greatest inventions (Gutenberg’s Press circa 1450) and an industry that became so widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries going out of existence almost overnight, well certainly in the last 50 years. The rise and rise of the micro-chipped printers offering a brilliant mixture of convenience, speed and clarity at a fraction of the cost of letterpress printing effectively destroyed commercial letterpress printing in this country, and I guess in the western world. Printing via a word processing or photo program has been enthusiastically taken up by everyone from the young to the old, and in the home office, organisations and commerce. Power failures and apocalypses aside, it’s unlikely that this will ever be reversed.
However letterpress printing hasn’t disappeared entirely and seems to be making a bit of resurgence, gaining popularity again through creative projects and a growing awareness of letterpress printing as an art form. With credit due to organisations like Plymouth University who appear to have a dedicated typography department and a working letterpress, ensuring the protection and preservation of the skills and knowledge and informing new generations of the potential. Old posters and bills are very collectable as are of course books from specialist presses and I see the current creative works produced with type fonts and press printed text as going the same way.
Danny’s film is an excellent short documentary balancing the facts and images to soundtrack with great success. You can watch or download other works by Danny from Vimeo.
Recommended.