Letterpress Printing Videos

It's been a while since I posted anything about printing technology, so here's a link to the YouTube channel of Jukebox Print. They're a Toronto company specializing in things like high-end business cards, stickers, letterheads, and many custom printed products. (I noticed that they're located just down the street from where I had my first job after I moved to Toronto. I wish I'd known about them then). 

The videos on their channel are pr0n for printing geeks like me. Watch this one as they how create an embossed business card with three different colours of foil (including edge foil!) on a 1960's letterpess. 

Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing this one out.

High-end letterpress printing is demonstrated in all of its glory on the Jukebox Print YouTube channel. Jukebox is a high-end custom business card printer in Canada.

Each video on their channel, shot in their letterpress department, is usually close to 30 minutes long and takes you through the entire process of 5-color letterpress printing, foil printing, gilding, die-cut printing, and more.

And for printer enthusiasts, their beautiful shop, filled with old, well-oiled and maintained Heidelberg presses, is to die for.

Howard Iron Works Museum of Printing Presses

The invention of the printing press is arguably one of the key events of the last millennium. It opened the way for the mass dissemination of information and was the dominant technology for information distribution until the mid-20th century. 

I've been fascinated by printing technology and printing presses ever since childhood. My father worked for a newspaper and I saw the evolution of printing from hot lead to computerized typesetting and offset printing first hand.  

So I am excited to find out (thanks to BlogTO) that there is a museum of printing presses not much more than an hour's drive away from where I live. The Howard Iron Works Printing Museum and Restoration facility is located in Oakville, Ontario. 

The Howard Iron Works Museum and Restoration facility is a lifelong dream of Liana and Nick Howard. The Howards are custodians of Howard Graphic Equipment Ltd., a company that is a leading edge supplier and rebuilder of printing and converting equipment. The business continues into its 48th year having started in 1967.

The museum's website is a treasure trove of printing lore. Sections are devoted to various types of printing presses in use from the 1830s to 1950s. There is an introductory page that describes the basic features of that type of press and pages for individual examples. The website includes a gallery of letterheads, which are fascinating in their own right. 

Once we're through the pandemic, I intend to head down to Oakville for a visit (by appointment only, according to the website.  

Remembering Letraset

I just came across a Twitter thread that brought back some memories. Does anyone remember Letraset?

Today in pulp I look back at the simple idea that launched a thousand fanzines: Letraset! Launched in 1959 by Dai Davies and Fred Mackenzie it heralded a graphic design revolution that brought funky fonts to the masses...

Today in pulp I look back at the simple idea that launched a thousand fanzines: Letraset! Launched in 1959 by Dai Davies and Fred Mackenzie it heralded a graphic design revolution that brought funky fonts to the masses...

 Letraset started life as a wet transfer system: you placed the letter into water, carefully slid off the transfer and tried to apply it to the paper without creasing it. Whilst fiddly it was still quicker than hand-painting your letters.

 In 1961 Letraset adopted the dry transfer process: letters screenprinted onto a polythene sheet were sprayed over with adhesive. You placed the sheet over the paper and used a pencil to rub over the letter, which detached from the carrier sheet and stuck to the paper. 

By the time I got into technical writing, dekstop publishing was already in its infancy. However, there was still a place for Letraset, as I found when I had to use it to produce headings and titles for my first manual. I never did use it for fanzine (I published a science fiction fanzine in the early 1990s.) as by that time I was able to use Ventura Publisher on a PC and laser print my pages.

You young kids don't know how easy you have it. You'll never know the exquisite pain of using your last 18 point Futura letter E and realizing that you need one more, and it's 7 o'clock in the evening on the night before a deadline and the printing shop closed at 6:00.

The Tiny Type Museum

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have noticed that I'm a bit of a typography geek. That's a family influence; my father worked at the Sault Daily Star, working his way up from a errand boy to running the composing room. During his career, he went from setting the newspaper in hot lead using Linotype machines to computerized typesetting. By the time he retired, I was able to show him a fanzine that I produced at home using Ventura Publisher. 

If you're into typography, you probably are going to want the Tiny Type Museum. 

The Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule is a celebration of type and printing, and an effort at preserving history for future generations to re-discover. Each custom, handmade wood museum case holds a couple dozen genuine artifacts from the past, including a paper mold for casting newspaper ads in metal, individual pieces of wood and metal type, a phototype “font,” and a Linotype “slug” (set with your own message), along with original commissioned art and a letterpress-printed book and a few replicas of items found in printing shops.

Ingredients for the museum will be sourced from active letterpress printers, type foundries, artists, and nooks and crannies where people stashed the past in the hopes of someone showing interest in preserving it. I’ll pull all of this together into a unique collection that’s impossible to find outside of a full-scale printing history museum and put it into your hands.

The museum comes with a letterpress-printed book in which I trace the nearly six centuries of development of type and printing since Gutenberg printed his Bible. This book will be the “docent” for the museum, providing insight into the stages in technological and artistic development that took place, and explaining the importance and nature of the artifacts. It will also slip neatly into a slot in the top of the museum case. (The book is available as a separate reward.)

The museum lays out the history of printing in miniature, and serves as an object of study and conversation, a teaching tool, and a time machine—offering a small, but deep, glimpse into the past to those who discover it in years to come.

I wish I could afford this, but I don't have a grand (US) to splurge on it. There are some cheaper price points, one of them being getting a PDF of the book for $10, which I might go for. It would probably be worth it just so I can explain to my kids and grandkids what my dad did.