Letterpress
It all started in Santa Fe.
Maybe it was that I had just moved my blog from Blogger to WordPress, a blogging platform in the company of Movable Type, both of which have names evocative of earlier printing technology.
It also may have been the fact that in moving from North Carolina to California, I was going to be working for an actual publishing company, one that produces physical books, though I’d be part of their online publishing group.
In any event, the universe was seeming to say, look into this. The funny thing is that it took so long. I’m not sure what the impetus, but last October I found myself looking at printing presses on eBay when I discovered the San Francisco Center for the Book. Sounds almost quaint in the age of the internet, doesn’t it?
Much to my delight, they offered classes. Unfortunately all the intro letterpress ones were booked through the end of the year, so I got myself on the mailing list and eventually squeezed into a class that was held this past Saturday.
I have to say, it was phenomenal. Other than having to wake at 7 on a Saturday to get to the city by 9, I can’t express how excellent it was. I felt like I was completely transported out of my life for a single day.
The instructor, Mary Laird, was a charming and loquacious woman with her own small press in Berkeley. She demonstrated small book binding, explained type and type sizes (em’s and en’s, points and picas!), as well as leading and spacing. Over the course of the day we were going to create a book (!) and print enough copies for each of us to take 5 home.
Here’s what type looks like. Each of those drawers contains one typeface, in one point size, in one style. Like Garamond 18pt Italic. One whole drawer, just for that.
