The
craft of letterpress printing
The idea of ‘printing’ - of making copies of marks by
pressing them into soft clay tablets goes back to the origins of
civilisation. These artifacts were copies of transactions - records
of the everyday events of politics and commerce.
In time, other uses for the technology were discovered, including
the use of wood-blocks for pattern printing on fabrics, but the
‘modern’ concept of printing as a means of distributing
ideas and literature is comparatively recent.
About 1440 an entrepreneur from Mainz, Johann Gutenberg, brought
together several existing technologies and created letterpress printing
- from moveable pieces of metal ‘type’. His invention
was intended to compete with the quality of hand-produced manuscript
books, which until then were the only form of book available. He
was breaking into a luxury market and his craftsmanship had to match
that of the scribes in order to succeed.
His invention was so successful that it remained the main method
of producing printed work for the next five centuries.
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Letterpress
printing in 1791
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In addition to the superb print quality, this process also offers
the lowest environmental impact, because the metal type is intended
to be re-used many, many times, and enables work to be corrected
and amended as required without creating any scrap.
When used appropriately, traditional letterpress printing still
has a useful place today. We are one of a small band of printers
who have retained the 550-year-old process and in so-doing have
saved many items of historic equipment.
The process creates almost no waste paper, and consumes only tiny
amounts of ink and solvent (we use one made from orange peel). Having
low set-up costs mean that small quantities can be printed economically,
with no sacrifice of quality, with the advantage that we are able
to offer the whole range of recycled paper and card we have available,
printed in the widest choice of ink colours.
For more details about our printed personal stationery, please
click here.
