Hasta La Ideas

A mi-chemin entre vintage et technologie moderne, Stampomatica propose d’utiliser l’impression 3D pour créer des tampons, pouvant par la suite être utilisé avec la machine à impression manuelle. A découvrir en images ainsi qu’avec une vidéo explicative disponible dans la suite de l’article.

Drawings of daily chaos on Canal Street in Jason Polan’s latest solo show

Specializing in the unconventional and often overlooked, NYC’s Boo-Hooray Gallery and 6 Decades Books present “A Slow Walk,” a solo exhibit of illustrator Jason Polan. Opening today, 5 October, the show centers on a new, previously unseen letterpress renditions of 10 sketches of Canal Street done over a 10-day…

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Alternative approaches to the letterpress arts

Based out Detroit’s “Ponyride” studios, Brian Christopher Baker and his company, Stukenborg Press, are at the forefront of the ongoing letterpress resurgence. His prints embrace non-traditional materials—specifically, geometrical arrangements of dice that he uses to create intricate patterns. As a contract for The New York Times Magazine, Baker blanketed the publication’s iconic gothic “T” with a layer of red 5s and 2s. We recently toured Baker’s studio courtesy of the Re:View Gallery and Buick to learn about Stukenborg and the world of letterpress design.

Baker’s penchant for unexpected type materials doesn’t stop at dice. He admits that students of his “Alternatives to Type” class have pressed everything from bunion cushions to foodstuffs. “If you can get it stuck down and type high, you can make a small edition of anything,” explains Baker. This open-ended approach gives his creations new level of complexity that goes beyond typical letterpress prints.

The result of years collecting type from various resources, the designer’s collection of type wraps around his studio in trays upon trays of metal and woodblock sets. His main machine was salvaged from the basement of Manhattan’s National Academy of Art. “The janitor said it had been down there for 25 years,” explains Baker. “It’s a champ machine. It took me about three months to get it up and running because it was caked with all kinds of weird stuff.”

For unavailable materials, Baker also sources type from a nearby foundry, and he admits that CNC machining and laser etching have created entirely new opportunities for letterpress designers. The fusion of materials and know-how becomes apparent when Baker pulls a print—the thunderous roll and cracking of colliding pieces demonstrating the nostalgic appeal of the letterpress process.

Contemplating on the state of contemporary letterpress, Baker says, “It’s definitely a defunct form of production, but there are a lot of folks doing it—although it’s small enough that everyone knows each other.” While most letterpress production in recent years has stuck to simple stationery, Baker’s multi-layered poster prints show the true potential of the genre.

Prints by Stukenborg Press can be found at their Etsy shop. See more images of the studio in our slideshow
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Images by James Thorne

Young designers turn back the clock on design

As food, clothing and home goods have skewed toward an old-timey vibe with a focus on handmade, locally crafted wares, so too has graphic design turned back the clock to the pre-digital age. Gestalten‘s latest release, Echoes of the Future, profiles emerging designers that mix current technology with letterpress printing, vintage imagery, dated photographic processes and hand-lettered type—or at the least the illusion of it. There are nods to modernism, abstract expressionism, futurism, retro color palettes and the birth of the gridded layout.

As you page through one muted, mid-century color palette to the next, the influence of past designers can start to feel a little heavy-handed, begging the question, how much style can you assimilate without sacrificing your own voice? But they don’t borrow as much as you might think. Tenfold Collective‘s illustration for a “Winter Wyoming Getaway” comes off as kitsch until it is compared to a true example from a 1950s travel brochure. The side-by-side comparisons showcase just how original these new designers are.

The book also makes the interesting assertion that the draw towards time-honored design work indicates an “aspiration to visual longevity”. The introduction continues, “In these times of visual uncertainty more and more brands, products and businesses are using designs that promote the impression of stability.” Take the new Hertz campaign, illustrated by Chris Gray for DDB. The bold, three-color palette, the shading technique and heavy typeface are clearly inspired by the European and Russian futurist movement—and it’s great. We can’t help wondering if this is a way to make a statement or to play it safe, something only time will tell.

Echoes of the Future is now for sale from Gestalten and on Amazon.

Letterpress cards sure to steal the ♥ of any computer nerd

While class=”none” might be the favorite snippet of HTML at the Cool Hunting office, user experience designer Matt Raw takes the humor behind web development languages to new heights with his cheeky set of letterpress Code Cards. Raw created three different cards—Egg Nog Arrays, CSS Happy New Year and ♥—that recall the beauty of Linotype matrices with today’s digital process.

Egg Nog Arrays—a recipe Raw says is necessary for any web developer—comes in Python, Ruby, PHP, and Javascript. For CSS Happy New Year, Raw aptly chose Futura as the typeface, which he humorously claims will “default to a basic sans-serif font if your recipient doesn’t have Futura installed.” Hearts keeps it simple, with the HTML code on the front and a blank space inside.

Each set is printed in Brooklyn on acid-free cotton stock, and includes four cards and envelopes. Pick them up online for $14.