With the 600 Characters project Grafisch Atelier Hilversum joined in on the 600th birthday of the city of Hilversum. We made a series of 40 posters, each poster using a grid of 5 by 3 squares. 5 times 3 is 15, and 40 times 40 is 600, you see.
All those characters were made with people from Hilversum. Visitors, school kids, students and passersby.
I designed one of these posters as well. I cut up photocopies of the letters A, B and C. These were proof prints made from the wood type collection of the printmaking studio. Some real beauties in there! Through cutting, moving things around and pasting them (a.k.a. ‘collage’) all kinds of figures showed up. Characters!
See, like so:
The Proloog organisation, coordinator of cultural education in Hilversum was excited about the project, about this and other posters. After some significant additional development that all turned into these lesson boxes (warning: Dutch! Linkedin!)
Another month, another edition of Print & Play in the printmaking studio.
During the first evening we work on abstract monoprint experiments. Shape and negative shape, on a black and on a white background, working from high to low contrast.
Then, composing with wood type. Initially on new sheets of paper to see the direct results.
After some adjustments, maybe use it as a second layer on one of last weeks’ prints as well.
And then there’s multiple colors as additional design aspect to consider!
Such a talented group, again. Looking forward to what will be created during the third session.
Explore the basics of monoprint and letterpress printing in three evening sessions with the Print & Play workshop. It’s an accessible introduction to printmaking techniques. We work in a small group of max 6 participants. The ideal (re)start for your own creative practice!
Raise your hand at a meeting and voila, a project: 650 ‘Copper monday’ prints please, thank you.
Well, lets get to work then.
Topic for the design had to be the foundations fiftieth birthday of course. Stichting Drukwerk in de Marge translates as Foundation Printing in the Margin. For the design I took both ’the margin’ and ‘in’ literally, visually. Which gave me that vertical line, in the same red-ish pink that you still find in your exercise book. That line then provided the base for positioning the other bits of text, where ‘in the margin’ had to end up exactly in that margin. Of course it wouldn’t be a print made at our studio without a bit of LEGO Letterpress using the Hilversum Method. The number 50 uses customised versions of the numerals in the QUNZ type family designed by Martijn van der Blom.
All of that made this a technical exercise in exact positioning. So that line exactly vertical. So that the blue text would print exactly right over the red line (which I managed to achieve in one go). So that the smallest text would really be inside the margin (which required adjustments when the forme was alreay in the press), etcetera.
The first print run was for just that red line. Width 1 cicero, exactly 25 cicero from the left side of the paper. Even after more than six hundred prints that line was still in that same position. The combination of a thousand kilos worth of printing press and the razor-sharp precision you can achieve with it is truly fascinating.
The second print run added the blue text. I was chuffed when it immediately showed up in the right place because I had correctly calculated my points and ciceros. The third and final print run in black used the most complex forme. Combining small, subtle type with the relatively large solid areas of the LEGO numerals and getting both to print nicely was challenging.
And we changed presses for this third run, moving from the manually operated Vandercook to the electrically driven Grafix. A smaller and faster press which perhaps was a bit more suited for this challenging forme. Not only getting everything to print evenly was challenging. Calculations made during composition turned out to be miscalculations this time. A few points of line height had to be shuffled around to get things aligned nicely. Eventually we sorted that out as well. My thanks to Thomas and Martijn for their help with this part, and producing all those copies.
The paper used is 90 gsm A3 biotop. Maybe this light weight can help save on postage :)
Getting 700 sheets out of the drying rack and stacking them is work, too. Nothing is ‘quickly’ with these numbers.
You need quite a bit of drying rack anyway…
Speed of manual printing was around three sheets per minute, around 180 per hour. On the semi-automatic press that was around 250 sheets per hour.
You get the sheet including ‘gripper white’ and all. That too is (in the) margin.
Congratulations to the board members of Stichting Drukwerk in de Marge, to all contributors and printers in the low countries. Here’s to the next fifty years!
The original Dutch version of this article first appeared in the Drukwerk in de Marge Newsletter nr. 191
In 2024 I made a conscious effort to learn more about and get better at traditional letterpress printing. Although the principles are the same (because principles, duh), the distinction between small type and large type is useful to me.
Small type
To improve my skills in working with lead type I joined the Poetry on the Press programma at Atelier t. in Belgium, last May. A full week of setting and printing small type. 12 Point Palatino to be exact. More on this very rewarding experience here (in Dutch).
Inspired by what I learned there I designed and produced the ‘to be, continue’ print in our own letterpress workshop. Hey while we’re at it, why not try and use 8 point type? The first version of this design was printed on A5 sized sheets, as part of a collection made for the 2025 edition of Letterpress Workers in Milan. In the second edition I used a much taller format that allowed for more space and more jellyfish!
Since I’m mostly still learning all this I’ve collected these prints under the Practium project here.
Large type
Designing posters is how I discover the possibilities of our wood type collection. Primary use case: GAH exhibition posters, and a smaller version of one I made earlier.
This Zines poster might have happened at the tail end of 2023 but I’m including it anyway. A small catalogue of typographic options in itself.
Most of the promotion material for my 50 birds exhibition was produced digitally, printed elsewhere. There was a list of all birds on those and I wanted to see if I could produce that full list in letterpress as well. It turned into this dyptich. I’d love to say I had calculated that things would all fit as nicely as they did beforehand, but no. Sheer dumb luck. We have two complete founts of this letter, which made it possible to set this much text in one go. (A fount is the full set of letters and symbols for a given font at a specific size. Many e’s, fewer w’s. An English fount has more y’s than a Dutch fount, etc.)
The When in doubt poster was an extensive exercise in getting all those characters in different stages of run-down-ness to an even printing height. Much proofing and putting small bits of paper under things for this one. Available to buy, even. Here.
workshops
March saw an international group of printers work with our collection and produce work inspired by the Kwadraatbladen. The report, in Dutch is here.
Posters à la Brattinga was the theme for another work week, producing posters using the 3 x 5 squares grid by Dutch designer Pieter Brattinga. Still needs its own writeup, that.
The poster printing workshop was fun. As they say, to really learn something, teach it. Looking forward to do this a couple more times and streamline the process. As for the small type, I want to combine traditional lead type designs with LEGO letterpress and/or monoprinting techniques and see what that brings us.
Figuring out the list of projects for the first part of the year:
zines: my own and helping somebody else to produce their first one, which I’m really looking forward too. There’s an experiment in a follow-up product in there.
bird prints, which ones, in which order that matches with upcoming events.
And need to wrap up some loose ends as well.
Think in projects, one at the time whenever possible. Know its context (time, place, people, events, hashtags…), then share it as effectively as possible.
I’ve added a simple calendar page that lists upcoming exhibitions, fairs and the like. I’m no good at planning things far in advance, but apparently it’s a grown-up thing to do! See you there.
Zine making become an important part of my creative practice over the last couple of years. Last February/March we organised the sixth edition of VOLUME. The subtitle onderzoek in oplage translates as research in circulation/edition. It still inspires to apply the many sides (hah!) of printmaking as image generator, incitement and theme -in-itself.
Still, not much zine work done this year. My entries for the VOLUME #6 exhibition were:
I’m especially looking forward to create a new edition in the Bildung zine series, using a similar approach as in the first edition. A collection of my own writings, sketchbook pages, project documumentation and inspirations from the last few years. This worked really well in Bildung 1, both as a retrospective of and a compass for my own work.
2024 was the second year of making so-called Koppermaandag-prints. Two even. One for the printmaking studio, one under my own name.
These ‘Copper Monday prints’ originate from the time of the (Dutch?) guilds. At the start of the new year, printers and engravers made a print to show off their capabilities and promote their wares. A happy new year wishing card and business gift in one.
The one for Grafisch Atelier Hilversum. The text is a reordering of ‘out with the old, in with the new.’ Meaning: don’t be distracted with the trend of the day, but make the new yourself, within the rich tradition of printmaking.
Loosely translated as ‘keep (it) going’. Printmakers saw ink-rollers of a printing press. Keep printing. That should definetely happen, but the image is based on another idea. It’s through intensive treatment that my father’s cancer is kept under control. But for how long? That question keeps playing up at every check on go/no go for the next treatment. ‘Keep going’ has become our standard greeting. The circles visualize a heartbeat. Twelve times for each month of the year. The hope, wish and encouragement to at least keep it going for this year. (Mission accomplished).
A thought, made tangible
Main starting point for these prints is that I’ll use my own text.
What is the message? What’s my wish for the receiver? How to express that? Concisely? Which design supports best that? Technically, both were early experiments in using more or less transparent inks. All in all a complete exercise in writing and design, setting and printing. A thought, made tangible.
Koppermaandag 2025
I’ll be making two for the upcoming year as well. The second one is for Stichting Drukwerk in de Marge, the dutch foundation for letterpress and other printmakers, celebrating its 50th birthday next year. Process notes on that one are here, here and here. All to be revealed on January 13th.
Some reminders don’t fit on a sticky note. You need to see the bigger picture. On a poster for example. In your own design, printed by you.
On Friday December 27th I would love to work with you to set and print that text using the wood type of Grafisch Atelier Hilversum.
Preferably no wisecracks, but a meaningful text. A motto, slogan, an extra large note to self.
Grafisch Atelier Hilversum maintains a special collection of wood type that we can use on this day. Which style fits your message? How and where on the sheet? Plenty of detail to geek out on. Simple is not that easy sometimes!
Would you like to join? Still two spots open. Can do half a day or a full day. More info (in Dutch) here.
