Hasta La Ideas

Reverting To Type opens next week at London’s Standpoint Gallery and will feature new work by a host of letterpress practitioners from around the world, including Black Stone Press (Canada), IMPO$T (Australia), Prensa La Libertad (Argentina), Yee Haw! Industries (USA), and London-based Mr Smith (the star of our latest CRTV studio-visit film). Here’s a sneaky peak at some of the work…

Phil Baines’ print is a streetmap listing shop types. Size 445 x 570mm in an edition of 35. £60 each

The exhibition has been curated by Graham Bignell of New North Press and graphic designer Richard Ardagh. Besides featuring prints and publications by letterpress print practitioners from around the world, New North Press has also approached a number of artists, designers and writers – including Catherine Dixon, David Pearson, Phil Baines (his piece is shown above, detail shown top) and Vikram Seth – to collaborate with them to create new work.

“Reverting to Type aims to highlight the pioneers at the helm of the current resurgence of interest in letterpress,” says Ardagh of the show, “from computer-based designers with a desire to ply a craft with a tactile immediacy that has been lost with modern technology, to traditional presses finding new ways to revitalise their design output.”

The full list of contributors reads thus: Black Stone Press (Canada), Brad Vetter (USA), Carl Middleton (UK), Dafi Kühne (Switzerland), Flowers&Fleurons (UK), Hand & Eye (UK), Hatch Show Print (USA), Hi-Artz Press (UK), IMPO$T (Australia), Jens Jørgen Hansen (Denmark), Markus Müller (Switzerland), Mark Pavey (UK), Mr Smith (UK), Occasional Print Club (UK), Prensa La Libertad (Argentina), Rosa De Carlo (UK), Team Nerd (USA), Typoretum (UK), Yee Haw! Industries (USA)

And the full list of collaborators New North Press invited to produce work with them on prints looks like this: Catherine Dixon, David Pearson, Fraser Muggeridge Studio, OPX design, Peter Aston Jones (artist), Phil Baines, Stevey Scullion (sculptor), Vikram Seth (author of A Suitable Boy)

This is the Hatch Show Print piece created for the show – with a nice detail shot below. it’s printed at 650 x 1020mm and is priced at £130

Catherine Dixon’s collaboration with New North Press yielded the above print (detail below). Like Baines’ print, it’s 445 x 570mm and printed in an edition of 35. £60 each

OPX created the above poster (detail below) with New North Press for the show. 445 x 570 mm, edition of 35, £60

This is David Pearson’s design. It’s been printed in the same edition / same size / same price as the ODX print above

Typoretum’s Rural Fete poster is 500 x 675 mm and priced at £60

The above print by Jens Jørgen Hansen is printed in an edition of 4 at 420 x 600 mm. £75

And this is the exhibition poster (above) which is printed at 535 x 770 mm in an edition of 180. A copy will set you back £30 (available from the show only). It was printed from this setting:

Here’s a film that the curators made to help publicise the exhibition:

Reverting to Type from Lima Charlie on Vimeo.

Reverting To Type runs from December 10 – January 22 2011 at Standpoint Gallery, 45 Coronet Street, London N1 6HD. For opening times etc, visit standpointlondon.co.uk