The Printmaker Still Setting Type by Hand in Brooklyn
In a Red Hook warehouse where the air smells of mineral spirits and machine oil, printer Ben Blount operates Blackbird Letterpress with cases of metal type cast decades ago. Each letter is a physical object, a small rectangle of lead alloy with a raised character on its face, selected individually from a wooden case and placed in a composing stick one character at a time.
Hand-set letterpress printing predates every modern form of mass communication. Gutenberg's movable type, developed around 1440, remained the dominant printing technology for five centuries. The basic process has not changed: type is assembled, locked into a chase, inked with a roller, and pressed against paper with enough force to create the slight impression that defines letterpress.
The tactile quality of letterpress is its defining characteristic. The type bites into the paper, creating a debossment visible on the reverse side. This three-dimensional quality gives printed matter a haptic richness that offset lithography and digital printing cannot replicate, driving a letterpress revival among wedding stationers and book artists.
Blount maintains a collection of typefaces spanning over a century of American type founding. Among his treasures are fonts from American Type Founders, including Cheltenham, Goudy Old Style, and the muscular slab serifs of the nineteenth-century wood type era. Each face carries the design sensibility of its period.
Printing a single colour broadside requires mixing ink to exact specifications, adjusting press impression to suit paper weight, and registering each sheet by hand against guide pins. A run of one hundred sheets might take an entire morning, a pace that produces results of incomparable quality and character.
To commission letterpress printing, visit a working shop and discuss your project in person. Bring paper samples, describe the impression depth you prefer, and be prepared for a collaborative process. The best letterpress work emerges from dialogue between printer and client. Contact at https://www.blackbirdletterpress.com
