Operating Heavy Machinery
During the flurry of the London Design Festival I was lucky enough to take part in a letterpress workshop at SORT's (the Society of Revisionist Typographers) pop-up shop off Carnaby Street.
Any good pictures were taken by Jamie Trounce for Cockpit Arts, any suspect ones were taken by me.
Who's hiding behind the red door...
Theo Wang (left) and Tom Boulton aka SORT. Though not really hiding, more like charming and enthusing.
The shop was decked out with various reconditioned presses as well as their wares, from posters like these, cards, stationery to more esoteric miscellany like ‘Bawdy basket patches’.
Aaah, the obligatory apron, but this time in a luxurious mustard yellow suede.
To the type we go. I found myself getting rather romantic around these little pieces of metal. Performing a practice closer to Gutenberg’s 15th-century invention than I’ve ever been before made me philosophical. The importance of these pieces of movable type is overwhelming, they truly are a cornerstone of our knowledge economy and present that most modern of preoccupations – repeatability.
So I’m trying not to get carried away, but look at this W. It’s so small and apologetic but what could it be the beginning of? A marriage certificate, divorce papers, the first letter of a Shakespearean sonnet, the last letter of a Mills & Boon novel, or a local newspaper that wrapped up someone’s chips…
...I wrote my name. We all have to start somewhere.
The Master’s, also known as Theo, hands at work, fixing my type into its frame.
This was our hundred-year old press, beautiful and controlled by a foot-pedal. Looking at these images I realise now that you could be forgiven for questioning my involvement in this workshop, but you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Here are the fruits of my labour (it really was labour, my right leg got some uncommon exercise on that pedal). I admit that I’m quite taken by them, all that romanticism and nostalgia, I tried for a Raymond Chandler-style.
So, many thanks must go to SORT, and to find out more about them click here.
