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Incline Press
Oldham-based brilliant makers of letterpress books…and much more.
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Curwen Press
The exceptional letterpress printing works that set the standard for jobbing printing.
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DeLittle
The York-based king of UK woodletter
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Day Glo Ink
The principle behind Day Glo ink is both simple and mind-blowing. When we see a colour on a page, this is the natural light being transformed and reflected back off the colour to our eyes. Day Glo pigments not only reflect this light back, but the also pigments convert some of the unseen light —
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John Bull Set
For many printers, this was the first time they got printed ink on the page, leading to a life-long passion for letterpress.
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Gas Lighting
There’s evidence that gas has been used for lighting including in China in 500BC, with gas transported through bamboo pipes; but here we’re talking about the industrial age. Our hero in this article gets only a footnote mention in the Wikipedia article, hidden under the name of his employer, Sir James Lowther. Mr Carlisle Spedding
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Univers
The serif-less face that took us from the age of metal to the age of light.
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Mechanical Quoin
Faced with simple frame in which to set type, printers have always needed a device to fill space and hold the whole forme in one piece for printing.
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London Centre for Book Arts
London’s flourishing, open, and welcoming centre for the Book Arts
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John Dunlap and the Declaration of Independence
The Ulster printer that played a pivotal role in the United States Declaration of Independence.
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Printers’ Royal Arms
Royal Arms have always conferred an air of authority on printed items and printers have sought to use this in their work.
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Fleet Street Strikes
The mid-1980s newspaper dispute that changed the face of UK newspapers.
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British Printing Society
A great connector of small printers in the UK and beyond since 1944.
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Penrose Annual
The compendium that traced the finest printing and state of the art since 1895
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Bell
An especially English face that rested in obscurity for 144 years.
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Composing Stick
One of the smallest but most important tools in a letterpress printing works
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Wayzgoose or Waygoose
Which other craft has it’s own word for a gathering? Come along and find out about the ‘wayzgoose’
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Photopolymer
The clever invention, just too late to make a difference to letterpress’ demise, but that keeps some printers happy today
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Stationers’ Company
The one-time all-powerful Guild protecting the ‘mystery’ of printing in London
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Bembo
Monotype’s sixteenth century-inspired old-style face that was massively popular.
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Rule Bender and Artistic Printing
The little machine that allowed jobbing printers inject variety and excitement in to the expanding world of Victorian commerce.
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Multigraph
A relief printing process, impressing inked letters on paper but not quite letterpress!
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The Oxford Gazette
Britain’s ‘Journal of Record’ first published in Oxford, while Charles II fled the plague in London.
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Britannia Press
Leeds’ all-iron hand press, popular in the North of England.
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Dexion
Dexion is an example of Slotted Angle, described by the BFMP as “a post-war development on the principle of the Meccano unit construction but in sizes appropriate to industrial application. It is of inestimable value to industry in general and has wide actual and potential application in the printing industry.”
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Thompson Platen
The Manchester-built competitor to the Heidelberg Platen.
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Wipers Times
The creation of a news sheet by Derbyshire soldiers finding a bombed-out print shop in Ypres.
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Times Mobile Printing Unit
How The Times planned to keep printing newspapers, even if their London base was destroyed in nuclear war.
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Farley Proofing Press
The workhorse of many commercial firms’ proofing departments.
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Miller and Richard
Miller and Richard were a significant foundry, based in Edinburgh between 1809 and 1952.
British Letterpress in 100 Objects
British, and wider, letterpress icons brought to life
British Letterpress in 100 Objects 