About the Letterpress Studio
Let us help you select the press and type best suited for your project! The letterpress studio features a number of different kinds of vintage presses for printing metal and wood type.
You’ll find a wide variety of wood and metal type available, including alphabets for Cyrillic, Cherokee, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and accented type for French, Spanish and German — we even have math type! In addition to a wide variety of engraved images, we also have a photopolymer platemaker for creating relief plates from computer files.
Some of our cases of type are more full than others, so it's a good idea to come in and have a look before you get too far along in your design! You can also download PDFs of our type specimen books to get a preview of some of the type we have:
- Wood type specimen book (PDF 10MB)
- Metal type specimen book (PDF 15.6MB)
What Happens in Letterpress
There are a lot of ways to explore letterpress printing — to give you an idea, check out these photos of activities, classes and projects!
Examples of letterpress printed pieces and a tiny press
Our wall of letterpress printed pieces, a book printed in New Zealand, Ojibwe cards and a tiny press
These are some of the things that people have made and worked with in our letterpress studio. Right when you walk into the Book Arts Workshop you are greeted with this wall of artwork. Maybe your piece will be up there some day!
On the table are some pieces in the Ojibwe language printed by folks in the Anishnaabemowin Circle, where students, staff and faculty help each other learn their Indigenous language. Also on the table is an unfurled accordion book letterpress printed by Sarah Smith in collaboration with New Zealand poet Rhian Gallagher and artist Lynn Taylor. This was a project Sarah completed while she was Printer in Residence at University of Otago as part of a Matariki Network exchange. And finally you see the tiny orange press, which Callen Votzke '13 made rollers for when he was a technical instructor for Thayer Machine Shop.
A result from a Pressure Printing workshop
A happy participant and fabulous poster from a Pressure Printing workshop
Pressure printing works with low relief images created by gluing slightly dimensional objects such as leaves or cut paper to card stock and printing it on the press. Well, it's slightly more involved than that, but it's a terrific quick way to create printed imagery. We'll walk you through the process!
Poetry printing project for Russian First Year Seminar
Student project from Russian First Year Seminar: Doing Things with Words
Students in Ainsley Morse's course RUSS: Doing Things with Words hand printed their favorite poems in an experimental way, using a roller and different colored inks to get the cool background. But first they explored avant garde typographic design and small press publishing with visiting artist, poet and publisher, Matvei Yanklevich, from Ugly Duckling Presse.
"Readie Pome", work from The Letterpress Intensive, by Gayeong Song '22
Learn about typography and fine book printing with the Letterpress Intensive
The Letterpress Intensive is a term-long, non credit class where participants learn about historic typefaces and how to hand set and print a piece of text using movable metal type. They receive intensive hands-on instruction in the nuances of traditional fine book typography and printing. These classes have focused on subjects such as poetry chapbooks, linoleum carved letterforms, poster design, and bilingual poetry. Look into the informational session at the beginning of each term.
The piece pictured here is "Readie Pome", by William Carlos William, designed and Printed by Gayeong Song '22. Her piece won the 2019 Letterpress Prize in our Book Arts Prize.
Custom coasters created at the Book Arts Workshop
Poster printing outside Novack Café for Winter Carnival 2021!
Vandercook Sp20 Cylinder Proof Press
Used for printing on flexible paper (not board) with precise registration for complex printing like multiple colors or passes through the press, finely detailed relief images. Allows for clean single color printing or painterly hand-inking
- Letterpress printing with wood/metal type, and relief printing from wood/linoleum blocks and polymer plates
- Make/age/where made: Vandercook Sp20—made in Illinois in the 1960s
- Size: Prints sheets of paper up to 18 x 24 inches (not great for smaller than 5x7 inches
- Learn more about the Vandercook Press.
Vandercook Sp15 Cylinder Proof Press
Used for printing on flexible paper (not board) with precise registration for complex printing like multiple colors or passes through the press, finely detailed relief images. Allows for clean single color printing or painterly hand-inking
- Letterpress printing with wood/metal type, and relief printing from wood/linoleum blocks and polymer plates
- Make/age/where made: Vandercook Sp15, made in Illinois in the 1960s
- Size: Prints sheets of paper up to 14 x 18 inches (not great for smaller than 5x7 inches
- Learn more about the Vandercook Press
Improved Pearl #11 Platen Press
Used for printing many copies quickly (once set up) on small paper or stiff board like coasters.
- Letterpress printing with wood/metal type, and relief printing from wood/linoleum blocks and polymer plates
- Die Cutting
- Make/age/where made: Golding, made in Boston 1880s
- Size: platen is 7 x 11 inches; prints slightly smaller than 7 x 11 inch paper
- Learn more about Golding Press by Perennial Designs.
Table Top Platen Presses
We have six different examples of these platen presses which are used for printing on small paper or stiff board like coasters.
- Letterpress printing with wood/metal type, and relief printing from wood/linoleum blocks and polymer plates
- Learn more about table top platens with Letterpress Commons.
- Golding Official No. 12 Map Press, made in Boston 1880s
Size: 8.25 x 12.5 inches
Also used to print legends or other material on a large sheet of paper - Craftsman Superior (called the Pilot press in the studio), made in Canada 1960s
Size: 6.5 x 10 inches - Craftsman Monarch, made in Canada 1960s
Size: 9 x 12 inches - Kelsey Excelsior Model C, made in Merriden, CT 1960s
Size: 6 x 10 inches - Kelsey Excelsior Model A, made in Merriden, CT 1960s
Size: 3 x 5 inches - Unknown Tiny Orange Press
Size: 2 x 4 inches
Washington Iron Hand Press
Used for printing on paper or sometimes smooth cloth or plastic. Allows for straight single color printing or painterly hand-inking
- Letterpress printing with wood/metal type, and relief printing from wood/linoleum blocks and polymer plates
- Make/age/where made: Washington, Made in NYC in the second half of the 19th century
- Size: Prints paper up to 20 x 26
- Learn more about the Iron Hand Presses with the Print Museum and Letterpress Commons
Albion Iron Hand Press
Used for proofing type and blocks before printing the final edition, letterpress printing with wood/metal type, and relief printing from wood/linoleum blocks and polymer plates on paper or stiff cardboard (not too thick). Sometimes used with smooth cloth or plastic.
- Make/age/where made: H.W. Caslon, Made in London in the early 20th century
- Size: Prints paper up to 20 x 26
- Learn more about Iron Hand Presses with the Print Museum
Photopolymer Platemaker
Used for making relief polymer plates from images scanned or created digitally that are to be printed with letterpress
- Make/age/where made: WSL/Boxcar Press in 2015
- Size: makes 10 x 13 inch plates
