The onslaught of the digital world has irrevocably changed older technologies and it’s easy to spell that as a doom and gloom story. Meanwhile, old technologies do not completely disappear. They adapt and change.
Yes, the old often has to change its sphere of influence. But as we all wrangle—willingly or otherwise—with the role digital media plays in our lives, do we have to make it either/or?
People still crave handmade, still keep alive craft, still use analog tools.
Print book sales are increasing, independent books stores are undergoing a revival, and just recently, International Stationery Store Day was launched to help prosper the independent companies and presses that supply them.
“New technology, rather than eliminate older technology, increases choices.”
And then there is letterpress.
I was mesmerized by the beauty of the press in action—and the community that still keeps alive the rich tradition—through the two resources below:
Pressing On: The Letterpress Film. The trailer and an extra clip below are beautiful in their own right but do, do watch the full-length documentary if you can. It is pure visual poetry.
And the short film beneath that was made by Field Notes to accompany their limited edition notebooks, The United States of Letterpress.
Pressing On: The Letterpress Film
www.letterpressfilm.com A Film by Bayonet Media www.BayonetMedia.com
Pressing On: The Letterpress Film, a feature length documentary about the survival of letterpress printing.
The modern world was born on a printing press. Once essential to communication, the 500-year-old process is now in danger of being lost as its caretakers age. From self-proclaimed basement hoarders to the famed Hatch Show Print, Pressing On: The Letterpress Film explores the question: why has letterpress survived in a digital age?
Worlds of each character emerge as unusual narratives—joyful, mournful, reflective and visionary—are punctuated with on-screen visual poetry, every shot meticulously composed.
Captivating personalities blend with wood, metal and type as young printers strive to save this historic process in a film created for the designer, type nerd, historian and collector in us all.
“As a human, we all crave things that are made by hand ...”
Available:
Field Notes: The United States of Letterpress
From Field Notes:
Our 48th Quarterly Limited Edition is the “United States of Letterpress,” which features the work of nine independent letterpress shops from across America.
This series demonstrates a wide array of craftsmanship, ingenuity, and love for the age-old and tactile process of letterpress printing.
The rhythmic press, the ingenuity of design, the made-by-hand feel. All for a little more than $10 for three Field Notes notebooks.
There are three different sets of three notebooks each, from nine presses commissioned for this special project. The flyleaf of each design includes a reproduction of a border from the Bay Psalms Book, thought to be the first book printed in the American colonies, in 1640.
“Field Notes:
I’m not writing it down to remember it later,
I’m writing it down to remember it now.”
Available:
At the time of writing, sets of Field Notes’ United States of Letterpress are still available from these sources, in three sets of three notebooks each: Series A, Series B, and Series C.
Directly from Field Notes themselves. (You’ll also find links to the Presses, featured in the video, who made and printed these beautiful designs.)
Or
Jet Pens in California
The Pen Boutique in Maryland
The Urban General Store in Chicago
The great and ever wonderful Goulet Pens
“New technology … increases choices.”
As Mark Kurlansky states in the Prologue to Paper: Paging Through History,
“One fallacy is that new technology eliminates old. … Printing did not end penmanship, television did not kill radio, movies did not kill theater, and home videos did not kill movie theaters, though all these were falsely predicted. …
New technology, rather than eliminate older technology, increases choices.”
Enjoy this celebration of the craft of Letterpress, support your local letterpress company or stationery store, and consider, what analog throwback can you enjoy in the midst of the digital insanity?
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Field Notes uses only the Futura typeface family in its materials. You might also like this post about the extraordinary Futura:
Also at this linked paperblogging post: