Pressing Matters.. PRINTED

I decided to use three different metallic sheets for the three different chapters.

– Rives Traditional Ice White 250gsm

– Conquerer Iridescent Silver Mist 250gsm

– Curious Metal Galvanised 250gsm

For the more fun, light hearted prints I used coloured paper.

The coloured paper stock was Canson.

– 133 Bonbon 150gsm

– 132 Clementine 150gsm

– 136 Ciel 150gsm

– 139 Prairie 150gsm

The sheets were taken to the printers and they were cut into the appropriate size.

All my composed matter waiting to be printed.

Each of the pages is composed and then thread is tied around it to keep it all in place.

Each piece is then taken and put into the chase so that it can be made read for attaching onto the platen printing press.

Registeration on the paper is extremetly important. The printer first took one test print and then using pins aligned the paper correctly. This whole process is largely a very visual one.

Sometimes the pressure on certain letters was not enough, so pieces of paper were stuck behined to give added pressure.

Printing out approximately over 700 pages in letterpress was a time consuming task and took over 10hours.

Final Screen Prints for the Book

Final screen prints of some of the pages in the letterpress book.

Cover Up... FINALLY!

My first idea for the cover was to work with completely graphic patters, that were not associated to letterpress, something that helped me break from the grid. However I realised that this was too disconnected from the book itself. 

After my review, I went back to the content I had generated for the book and tried to figure out what I could use.

Similar to my earlier idea, I wanted to have 30 different covers since that is really easy to create in a digital medium and equally simple to print.

So using the second colour way that consited of turquoise and grey different covers have different logos highlighted (using the turquoise).Since there were details in the logo that would get lost if screen printed I decided to print on cloth. On my second visit to Welpak I decided to print on canvas instead as it was sturdy and made a more solid cover. The canvas I used had a glossy finish. 

The letterpress printed blocks:

Final Covers:

The final book wrapped in the glossy canvas cover, with a purple ribbon used to tie. The label is attached to the ribbon. (Also with each book is a pair of white gloves, not in picture)

PRESSING MATTERS.. The new Logo...

Since I would be printing digitally I thought I would add a hand done element to the ‘Pressing Matters’ logo. So I started writing out the word ‘matter’ and then decided to digitise it, without loosing the hand done quality.

The new logo I designed needed to look closer to the letterpressed version of ‘Pressing Matters’ (which was written in Unviers regular and italics). THUS, the final logo above (since fonts were no longer an issue on the computer I moved to Scala Sans, as it still tied back to the book).

Cover Up.. Again!

When a person sees the book first, they would see the cover. What sort of impression does that give them? What would draw them to actually taking the time open the cover.


Keeping this in mind and my earlier explorations with leather, I have decided to work with cloth instead. After an initial meeting with the printers Welpac and seeing what possibilities are there, cloth is the choice for creating the cover.


The cover will have colour as all the pages inside are in shades of black and white and text is black. There are few hints of colour, but to tie together with an interesting, colourful and kitsch-ish cover would definitely want someone to pick up the book and look inside.

Moodboard (for colours and illustration/pattern generation):

Ideas for potential covers:

Round 3: Test Prints go Metallic!

Another round of test prints to figure out what stock would work better. The earlier stock I had tried out gave the project an "old world" feel. However the feeling of preciousness was lacking. So I decided to try out some more options ranging form bright white to metallics.

I also thought of dividing the book into sections. Each section would have a different kind of stock.

The 3 sections are as follows:

• General information about letterpress
• Quotes from designers, typographers etc.
• Quotes from letterpress printers - death of letterpress

The stock was bought from Transasia Fine Papers Pvt. Ltd. This is the list of stock that was tested out for the final book:

• Conquerer Diamond White 250gsm
• Shiro Echo Bright White 250gsm
• JC Colorscope Pristine White 270gsm
• Village White 280gsm
• Rives Traditional Ice White 250gsm
• Conquerer Iridescent Silver Mist 250gsm
• Curious Metal Galvanised 250gsm

These are some of the test prints.

Another test print which is more of a design than content that gives you information. The pattern has been made using a "tombstone". (Wikipedia Article: Tombstone [Typography] )

The Rives Traditional Ice White 250gsm being used for one of the sections.

Death becomes... (Content Generation)

"Letterpress in India is.. DEAD".
Sure, sounds like a bold statement. But it is pretty much the truth and rather sad one.
Today letterpress (whatever I've seen on blogs etc.) being done abroad is largely done with polymer plates. I am personally not a big fan of these polymer plates, they have moved away from the whole hands on approach. Creating art works on the computer and then printing them using a letterpress is just bastardizing the medium.
Very few people still chose to actually tediously compose type, set it and print.
And that is why once i again..i do repet myself.. Letterpress is dead. But is there hope for revival? Probably. 
In India however the future is bleak..dim...call it what you may. One of the main reasons is that the people who still do letterpress printing in India no longer find it commercially viable and for them it is a means to an end. So, if it means that they cannot make money from letterpress printing they will shift to offset printing.


With these things mine the content i have generated for my Artist Book is based on some of the things that people have said about letter press, some haikus about death.
Here are a few: 
Norb Brylski, Retired Pantograph Operator (movie: Typeface): "I am good at what I do because I am the last one. There's no one really that I can compare myself to." 
Anil Joshi, letterpress Printer Mumbai: "There were 50 printers on my street now I am the only one left." 

I have also had the opportunity to speak to Pierre Tzenkoff, Art Director who has worked for 7years on a book for luxury brand Goyard.

His insights have been amazing and a huge part of giving a small positive angel to my book. I'd like to quote a line from one of his emails. The way he writes is just as interesting as what he is talking about. 

"Letterpress is beautiful, the text is different, it has a real emotion, the blacks are very dark and the way it goes inside the paper is amazing. letterpress is an art.

I'm spending hours working on the colour of the black, how deep it goes inside the paper...and each page is different."

Bus Tickets

Some initial sketches of re-contextualizing bus tickets. 
In this case I have tried to draw parallels with letterpress printing and its form. I want the "bus ticket" to retain its original columns and margins,so that at first glance it does look like a real bus ticket. Of course, on closer inspection it is, otherwise.

Content Generation - The Start

After what seemed like an eternity of moving circles and mind map after mind map, decisions have been made.

I still like the idea of working towards an artist book. This book will now deal with the "Death of Letterpress" (Yes, A rather bold statement. But, from my research that seems the case.) Some of the reasons why I think it is so would be part of this artist book. The book is to also contain quotes from interviews, design quotes, haiku's about 'the end'. The next 2 days I hope to get all of this in place.

To go with this I want to work with some of the "products" that are produced by Letterpress printers in India. Some rather "clerical" objects like bus tickets, bill books, business cards, doctor's prescriptions and numbering lottery tickets. I hope to make some "modifications" in the object/ reprint it and re-contextualize it.

There is a certain aesthetic that letterpress printing has and it seems lost esp. with the current use for letterpress. I hope these modifications will help highlight this difference and make a comment about our ever evolving times and aesthetic. Maybe people will take a closer a look and realize that the object is not what it seems to be!

Layers

After a few days of aimless wandering, I felt great sense of purpose on Sunday and started mind mapping. This technique saves my life time and again. I got down to breaking all the threads I could use for figuring out what my end product would be.


One of my inspirations is the artist book by Paolo Carraro called The Impermanent in the Permanent.


There are three versions of this book:

• The book form in bound as the traditional Japanese style in which the four quarters of a square which runs through the book are rotated by means of cut-outs, folds and colour, capitalising on a powerful left-hand, right-hand interaction.
• The book size is 21.5 by 20 cm with 16 images.
• Edition of 9 copies only, all signed by the artist.
• The slip case form is made of 4 little volumes boxed in a slip case in which each of the four rotations is contained in its own base were all the pages are unbound so that the cut-outs and folds can be re-arranged in a virtually endless discovery.

• Each booklet is made up of 4 pages of 20 by 20 cm.

After taking a look at this artist book, I started think of what could be done for my project that would help highlight Letterpress printing and make it India specific.

Some of my initial rambling:

I am now thinking.. spatial (just in terms of the product), tactile, discovering.. like finding a piece of history and taking the time to understand it.

Another mind map and then will re-listen to all my interviews to get some content or starting points out of them.