Making of a poster: Letterpress

After our series about vintage typography, we're starting a little journey across printing methods, poster design, working process and all which is related with making of a poster. First - letterpress. Below - the story (and process) of this beautiful printing technique. As you'll hear during watching this short movie, it was invented about 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg. Contemporary letterpress is based on traditional printing process and printers often use old renovated press.

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

As elements and compositions are carefully hand pieced, this method is labor-intensive but it gives really nice and unique effect. Each piece has its own character so letterpress is often treated as good opposite to the digital printing. It's also great for vintage projects.

Another special thing is that letterpress gives an opportunity to obtain convex elements, using very tick paper. In this case noble cotton paper + old printing machines is a really great connection. That's why letterpress, even though it requires more patience and takes more time, is still valued by many printing lovers. 

More about letterpress:

For Print Only (A Division of Underconsideration) - place with a lot of inspiring printed projects (not only letterpress - you can search for your inspiration by print method or project type)

Vintage Letterpress - Facebook Page and Dawanda Shop with beautiful letterpress printing plates

More about printing process on Oh So Beautiful Paper

Letterpress* - Facebook page in Polish but with a lot of inspiring photos, which you can check here

Posted: Jun 23, 2015 | Tagged: letterpress, making of a poster, printing, vintage, work in progress