Facilities: Letterpress

Using movable type and hand-operated printing presses, students design and print projects. Students learn printing vocabulary and how to operate machinery, as well as the fundamentals of typesetting and the essential principles of typography in the tradition of relief printing. Students also learn the basic elements of design and typography, and how to integrate other printing processes into letterpress work. They will find that letterpress offers a tangible quality and nostalgic feeling that can’t be achieved with any other technique. At the end of the course, each student walks away with a class portfolio. 

Student Objectives:

Students will demonstrate the principles, aesthetics, and techniques of professional typesetting, as well as their ability to produce usable, original typographic design projects that communicate a specific design message. 

Students will have an understanding of the following:

• How to hand-set movable type
• How to operate printing equipment appropriately
• Alternative letterpress printing processes
• Typographic terms and the specification of type