Personal Exploits: Letterpress

PILLOWFACE PRESS is a small printmaking studio I set up to experiment with handset typography. Until recently, ours was one of the most traditional and conservative trades. For five hundred yeas, the tools and techniques of assembling type have not changed. Fonts were discreet, tangible things, you experienced on a phisical level. In every letter, every space and ruler, there was a trace of the creators hand. Computers changed everything. Typesetting became easy and responsive, type choices became infinite, and the layout possibilities became limitless, bound only by the the imagination of a designer. But some people still cling to the old ways. They long for the harmony of a line justified by hand, and the slight bite that the metal blocks leave on the paper. They rejoice in the tiny variations between prints, and the smell of fresh ink. I've gotten into design because I fell in love with computers. I've gotten into letterpress, because I fell in love with design.¶

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Model: Kelsey Excelsior
Chase: 5 x 8"
Weight: 62 lbs
Year: 1985

Visit Briarpress.org for
more information
about this press.































My Kelsey setup for
a printing job.






















Assembled type
waiting to be locked
in a chase.