Page 40 - Homes & Antiques (February 2020)
P. 40
Meet the Maker THE LETTERPRESS COLLECTIVE
CLOCKWISE FROM
TOP LEFT One of the
printing presses at The
Letterpress Collective;
type is carefully set on
a printer’s stone, ‘We
mostly work in wood
and lead type’; Nick
maps out the design
for a poster.
people, and what I like about
le!erpress is that everyone
seems to have a di"erent Albion press because it’s got print and set type by running
take on it, each producing lion’s feet. The type we use gets workshops. The other thing we
unique work. passed on and you just hope it do is print our own work and
gets looked a$er. Those le!ers try to sell it – this is probably
Tell us about your presses come with a legacy and you’re the least successful of the
When we #rst started, we just a part of their story. I have projects we do, but it’s great
had to dig around and #nd a huge amount of respect for fun to be able to design
equipment. There have been the tools we use – you could organically. We also work on
one or two printer friends of handle a wood le!er that’s 100 commissions, where people
ours who have o"ered us bits years old; you don’t know the ask us to print a poetry book, a
and bobs, and as we’ve gone on, words it has made or how o$en cover or a business card etc.
we’ve been able to save money it’s been used. You can see the I’m passionate about
and buy one or two things. The scars on it, but that’s exactly collaboration. What
oldest printing press we have is what gives it character. happens with print
from 1832 and it’s an Albion and the work we
press. It came from a printers Explain what you do at produce is that we
two streets away, so it’s The Le!erpress Collective become a voice on
travelled 200 yards in that We do three main things. behalf of other voices
time! You can always tell an One is we teach people how to – I love this part of it. I
40 Homes & Antiques February 2020
