Letterpress and risograph, since 2016
Two colours, one sheet at a time
We print our own editions on two presses and a risograph, in runs small enough to number by hand. Everything on this site was printed in the room it was designed in.
The workshop
What fits in one room
- 3
- machinesTwo presses and one risograph, all of them older than the workshop.
- 2
- colours per sheetA third colour means a third pass and a fourth kind of mistake.
- 40
- sheets in a typical editionNumbered in pencil, signed, and never printed again.
- 2
- courses a yearSpring and autumn, six people each, because there are six composing stands.
In press now
The current edition
Cobalt and warm grey on Fold Mill Rag 300, printed from polymer plates over four days.
Nine Bridges
An edition of 40, of which 31 are still unsold. Each sheet took two passes and a day of drying between them.
Tidal Tables
A folded sheet printed in fluorescent orange, federal blue and black, trimmed and creased by hand.
Twelve Rules for a Kitchen
Set in metal type and printed on the platen. Sold out and not coming back.
Working with us
Two ways, and a waiting list for both
Most of the year the presses are printing our own editions. What is left over goes to commissions and to the courses.
A commission
Six or seven a year: invitations, covers, labels, a poster for somebody who understands that the paper decides half of it. We quote after seeing the artwork, and we say no when the design needs something the press cannot give it.
From 00
A course
Two a year, six people, four evenings each. You set type by hand, you make the plate, you print the edition and you take home every sheet, including the ones that went wrong. Nobody watches from the back of the room.
00
Editions go out on a Friday
New sheets are posted here and nowhere else. When an edition is gone it is gone; we do not reprint.