The physicality of letterpress was amazing to be a part of — Letterpress demands that you are a part of bringing your designs to reality, whereas modern digital printing is essentially always an external process, you outsource your labour to your printer.
We were assigned three projects this term, it doesn’t seem like much, but creating lockups and letterpress designs is a lot of behind-the-scenes labour and time.
For the first project, I was asked to create an illustration (an ornament) by carving an image into a block of wood coated with soft PVC. I carved an image of my car and then set the type underneath the block.
For the second project, I was tasked with creating a poem related to an ornament I was assigned, the typewriter. I created a poem within a few minutes and then assembled my lockup and printed it that day.
As for the third, a classmate and I were tasked with creating an inspirational poster using wood type.