231 Market Classic Printing is a design and letterpress shop in Smithfield, North Carolina. Jean-Pierre has been printing for close to 50 years and specializes in offset and letterpress printing using original Heidelberg Presses. 231 Market Classic Printing prints everything and anything from business cards and letterheads to wedding invitations and announcements. 

The interviews are also accompanied by various related contributions.

The entire run consists of four issues. A book which will collect them is in the works.

• #1 interviewees:  Erik Spiekermann, Jessica Hische, Ian Coyle, Jason Santa Maria, Jos Buivenga, Jon Tan, Bruce Willen, Nolen Strals.
• #2 interviewees: Martin Majoor, Ale Paul, Stephen Coles, Tim Brown, Nick Sherman, Rich Rutter, Veronika Burian & José Scaglione
• #3 interviewees: Ellen Lupton, Frank Chimero, Steve Matteson, Mark Caneso, Vincent Connare, Yves Peters , Jason Smith & Phil Garnham
• #4 interviewees: Elliot Jay Stocks, Jeremy Leslie, Jan Middendorp, Robert Slimbach, Fiona Ross, Steven Heller, Erica Jung & Ricardo Marcin

Established in 2007, A Two Pipe Problem Letterpress is run by Stephen Kenny from The House Of Problems in Leyton, East London. Everything here is designed & printed directly on one of 3 machines using movable wood & metal type. Everything is printed one at a time by hand. The type in the collection come from type foundrys in England, France, Germany & the USA.

The House Of Problems produces a range of stationery, prints & apparel. Projects are as varied as the wood type itself: book covers, record covers, luaggage labels, beer mats, notepads & fabric for Eames chairs in Japan. 

A Two Pipe Problem Letterpress also offers letterpress workshops. 

In 1963, Luis Ocon left his native Mexico in seek of the American Dream. Luis came to Los Angeles to find work as a linotype operator, the skill he had perfected for many years in Mexico City. Linotype is the process of setting lead slugs, or “hard type” used for the vintage printing process known as letterpress. 

In Los Angeles, Luis worked for several typography companies before he found work at Aardvark Typographers. Aardvark, established in 1968, was one of the top typographers in Los Angeles, which also offered letterpress printing, as a small part of its business. Aardvark was located in the old artist's colony near MacArthur Park. In no time, Luis became the lead "lino operator" and in 1978, Luis purchased the business and became the owner of Aardvark Typographers. The typography business was good and Aardvark continued its prominence as a leader in the industry.

As computers made their way into modern business, the age old process of setting “hard type” was being pushed out by cheap, instant computer typesetting. The time proved process of setting hard type in lead was giving way to the computer age. Luis saw the change on the horizon and realized that he would have to shift the focus of his business from typography to letterpress printing. In 1980, Luis purchased a 100 year old Chandler & Price hand operated printing press and Aardvark Letterpress was born.

The shift from typography to letterpress proved to be a wise one. By 1982, Aardvark Letterpress had become one of the best known letterpress printers in Los Angeles. Aardvark continued to build its reputation as letterpress craftsman providing unique and distinct letterpress printing for many of Los Angeles' top designers, production studios, museums and artists.

Unlike many “design studios”, who are simply jobbers that farm out their printing work to others, Aardvark Letterpress is a true and classic printing business. All of the letterpress printing is performed onsite at Aardvark Letterpress by Luis, his sons Brooks and Cary, and their lead pressman, Oscar Gomez. Aardvark still has the old Chandler & Price, but has added two 10 x 15 Heidelberg windmill presses, a Miehle V-50 vertical press, and a Superior handpress.

Aardvark Letterpress is also unique in that, unlike most letterpress printers, Aardvark has full typesetting capabilities. As former typographers, Aardvark Letterpress still has its own fully operational Linotype machine, two Ludlow typesetting machines, and an extensive collection of hand-set type. Aardvark Letterpress has more than 200 typestyles that can be set "in house" and used in the letterpress job.

Aardvark Letterpress provides high-quality craftsmanship from a bygone era. Every job is unique and, to a large extent, handmade. As a printer to such high-profile clients as Brooke Shields, Debra Messing, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and G Q Magazine, Aardvark Letterpress maintains extremely high standards and works meticulously to ensure that every letterpress piece created is a true work of art.

As part of the Visual Arts Program the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague offers a master’s degree in Type Design and Typography. 

Founded in 1885, the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague has evolved from being the first of its kind in the Czech lands to a modern, dynamic, and outward-looking institution, which now has over twenty studios in which to study. Ranging from Typography to Intermedia Art to Fashion Design to Glass, the AAAD studios are led by eminent authorities in their respective fields, whose passion for teaching matches their dedication to their respective fields. Competition for acceptance into the school is fierce, with the result that the students who are lucky enough to make up its student body are highly-skilled and highly-motivated individuals, who proudly continue the storied legacy of the institution. Though the VA program is a recent addition to that legacy, the contribution made by VA students so far has already made a big impact both on the school, the city, and country in which it is located.

The Studio of Typography has belonged to the traditional schools at the Department of Graphic Arts from its very origins up until the current times, had it been called The Studio of Book Culture or The Book and Lettering. In the period after WWII the Studio was headed by František Muzika, Milan Hegar, Jan Solpera and František Štorm. Karel Haloun, Tomáš Brousil and Radek Sidun are its current instructors. Proportianally, merely a small group of students focuses on the creation of lettering per se, the field of study being the whole spectrum of graphic design. 

The Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) in Leipzig (Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig) is one of the oldest art schools in Germany, dating back to 1764. The school has four colleges specialising in fine arts, graphic design, photography and new media art with around 500 students.

The class for type-design at the Acdemy of Visual Arts Leipzig is run by Fred Smeijers and Stephan Müller and currently the only class with its main focus on typefaces taught at a German art academy. The academy upholds its tradition for teaching typefaces established in 1904, with the positioning of the typeface designer in today’s world as its primary concern. Work in the class for type-design will deal with “production possibilities” of typefaces, as well as research and consider current typeface usage, thereby covering typefaces used in publications and on the screen. Here the history of typography is also important. Research and analysis of historical models, the study of typeface history, typeface designers and typography illustrate the link between typeface usage and society, highlighting production possibilities and helping to determine the positioning of typefaces in today’s world. 

Study is divided into weekly general lessons spread over two days, in which smaller exercises, accompanying tasks and a key semester project are the main focus. Appointments for individual and group consultations can be made. In addition to the general lessons, each student chooses his/her own project on which he/she working and researching throughout the whole semester. Subject-specific excursions and workshops will also take place outside of the academy. 

(Image: Leander Seige, 2006, GNU FDL)

The Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger decisively influenced the international creation of typefaces after 1950. His Univers typeface and the machine-readable font OCR-B are milestones, as is his type for the Paris airports, which evolved into the Frutiger typeface. All set new standards for signage types. In all, he created some fifty types, including Ondine, Méridien, Avenir, and Vectora.

Based on conversations with Frutiger himself and on extensive research, this publication provides a highly detailed and accurate account of the type designer's artistic development. All of his types - from the design phase to the marketing stage - are illustrated and analyzed with reference to the technology and related types.

Hitherto unpublished types that were never realized and more than one hundred logos complete the picture.

This publication provides a highly detailed and accurate account of the type designer's artistic development.

Albertine Press is a Boston-area design and letterpress print shop run by Shelley Barandes, a sometime-architect who just loved paper more. What began as a custom design and print studio has grown to include a full collection of greeting cards, note sets, coasters and journals available at stationery stores and gift boutiques across the country. In addition, Albertine Press continues to work closely with individuals on custom printing projects, from wedding invitations to business collateral, broadsides to artists’ books.

For at least a dozen years, Luca Lattuga has been collecting and cataloguing metal and wooden movable type produced in Italy between the 1920s and 1940s. During his research, he rediscovered a recurring and consistent style, hitherto little considered, that characterized that period. Although widespread at the time, this style, which originated in the printing workshops, remained in the shadows for decades.

These lesser-known typefaces coexisted alongside the famous types from historic foundries, such as Nebiolo and Reggiani, surviving thanks to their versatility and affordability and enjoying spontaneous and widespread popularity even in the most isolated provinces. They remained in use until the 1960s or 1970s, effectively lasting until the end of the era of movable type printing. They were widely used in advertising, flyers, posters, book covers, and magazine headlines. They followed European trends toward more modern forms and represented a fascinating vernacular expression, entirely Italian, of the international taste of the time.

The book contains over one hundred specimens, divided and grouped into categories and subcategories. It is accompanied by a testimony from the book’s editors, Veronica Bassini and Luca Lattuga, a historical analysis by Carlo Vinti, and a technical study by Luciano Perondi. The work is completed by in-depth profiles of some of the key figures of that era: Guido Modiano, Ruggero Zuliani, Francesco and Antonio Tocchio, and a gem by Enrico Tallone.

• Texts: Veronica Bassini, Luca Lattuga, Luciano Perondi, Carlo Vinti

• Foreword: Riccardo Olocco

• Book Design: Luca Lattuga

• Hardcover, 23,5 x 28,5 cm

• 336 pages

• English/Italian

https://lazydog.eu/en/product/alfabeti-modernisti-italiani-2/

Alfabeti Modernisti Type Specimens illustrates twenty-five digital revivals based on wooden and lead typefaces produced in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s, documenting a research and enhancement project that intertwines memory and design and gives new voice to a little-explored chapter of Italian graphic design.

Very popular at the time but now forgotten, the typefaces have been recovered by Luca Lattuga over a period of more than ten years. Reissued by the CAST type foundry, available for purchase at c-a-s-t.com and also available on Adobe Fonts, these geometric, sometimes vernacular, floral, highly expressive, often rationalist-inspired typefaces recount a crucial period in 20th-century Italian typography.

Their digital revival—the result of a selection from Lattuga’s complete collection published in the volume Alfabeti Modernisti Italiani to coincide with the release of this sample book—gives graphic designers and type designers full access to a unique and precious typographic heritage.

• Typefaces and book design: CAST

• Softcover with flaps, 23,5 × 28,5 cm

• 64 pages

• English

https://lazydog.eu/en/product/alfabeti-modernisti-type-specimens-2/

All Sorts Press is owned and operated by Sara Froese in Hamilton, Ontario and specializes in producing handcrafted high-quality printed matter using a human-powered Chandler & Price platen printing press from 1910. 

All the Fonts of the Fair, Joby Carter’s second book, takes a deep dive into fancy lettering styles found at traditional British fairgrounds up until the 1960s. Many of these vibrant, whimsical designs are missing from graphic design manuals and typography archives. This book helps continue their legacy and give them a new lease of life.

This full colour book includes 26 hand drawn fairground inspired alphabets. Each alphabet has a reference guide with tips on how to accurately recreate the lettering alongside details about the origin of the style and photographs of variations of the lettering in use. The alphabets represent an enormous amount of hours in the workshop with each letter drawn, painted and decorated by hand, ensuring it worked alongside the other alphabet letters and could stand up to scrutiny and be accurately copied and scaled.

https://jobycarter.com/product/all-the-fonts-of-the-fair/

The American Printing History Association (APHA) is a membership organization that encourages the study of the history of printing and related arts and crafts, including calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing. The organization does this through a wide variety of programs and services: the annual three-day conference and Lieberman Lecture series; the oral history project; the fellowship program; the scholarly journal Printing History and other special publications; annual individual and institutional awards that honor distinguished achievement in the field of printing history. 

APHA is international, with members all over the world. The parent organization is supported by regional chapters that sponsor active programs of lectures, field trips, and other opportunities to meet fellow APHA members on an informal basis. APHA was founded in 1974; the founding board included J. Ben Lieberman, Cathy Brody, Joseph Dunlap, Stuart Dobson, Paul Noble, Robert Leslie, Herbert Johnson, Elizabeth Harris, Philip Grushkin, Martin Speckter, Terry Belanger, Jean Peters, Stephen O. Saxe, and Susan Thompson.

The Amsterdam University holds several special collections (“bijzondere collecties”) including one for graphic design and typography. 

This collection domain relates primarily to the industrial era, i.e. the period from circa 1830 onwards. It covers writing (calligraphy and type design) and the production and design of books, posters and other printing. The collection is internationally oriented collection and also includes secondary literature.

The basis for this collection domain was laid in 1958 with the acquisition of the Library of the Book Trade (Bibliotheek van het Boekenvak), an extremely broad collection on the history of the book focusing, among other things, on design and production. A major acquisition, in 1971, was the Typografische Bibliotheek (Typographical Library) of Lettergieterij Amsterdam, voorheen N. Tetterode (Type Foundry Amsterdam, formerly N. Tetterode). The core theme of this collection is the design and production of printed material, but it also contains archive material relating to fonts designed by Tetterode, including drawings by S.H. de Roos and Jan Tschichold. Besides specialist literature, the Typografische Bibliotheek also houses numerous unusual specimens: from woodcut to heliogravure and from Bodoni’s Manuale tipografico to illustrated corporate books.

Since the 1950s, the library has actively sought to acquire the archives of various designers and organisations. The acquisition of the archive of Jan van Krimpen was followed by those of Charles Jongejans, Atie Siegenbeek van Heukelom, Harry N. Sierman, Jan van Toorn and Irma Boom. This material covers a period of over a century.

Important collections:

• Collection Tetterode

• Collection Stichting De Best Verzorgde Boeken

• Collection calligraphy

• Collection Dutch industrial bindings of A.S.A. Struik

• Collection English book art 1750–1850 of Fons van der Linden

• Archive Irma Boom

• Archive Jan van Krimpen

• Archive Otto Treumann

• Archive Jurriaan Schrofer

• Collection Gerrit Noordzij

• Collection Bram de Does

• Collection Rijksoverheidletter (Peter Verheul)

• NAGO archives

Eric Gill’s opinionated manifesto on typography argues that “a good piece of lettering is as beautiful a thing to see as any sculpture or painted picture”. This essay explores the place of typography in culture and is also a moral treatise celebrating the role of craftsmanship in an industrial age. Gill, a sculptor, engraver, printmaker and creator of many classic typefaces that can be seen around us today, fused art, history and polemic in a visionary work which has been hugely influential on modern graphic design.

• “Written with clarity, humility and a touch of humour … timeless and absorbing” Paul Rand, The New York Times
• “His lettering was clear, confident and hugely influential on the development of modern type design. The world has now caught up with Gill” Guardian

With over 20 years experience in stonemasonry, sculpture and architectural restoration, Andrew is qualified with the Guild of Master Craftsmen and trained to work in both classical and contemporary styles. Having worked on prestigious heritage sites including Bath Abbey and Wells Cathedral, he now specialises in hand carved lettering and his work is on display in private homes and public buildings throughout the West Country and Home Counties.

In the same way that stone has been carved for thousands of years, Andrew carves everything by hand using a simple mallet and chisel—ensuring that every letter is cut with a care, attention and clarity that retains the nuances often lost by mechanisation and that allows each stone to resonate with its own unique strength and beauty.

Animatipia is a letterpress printing studio in Spain run by Lola and Antonio, a History graduate and a doctor of Physics. 

Anonima Impressori is a design studio and letterpress workshop in Bologna, Italy. 

Appalachia Press is a letterpress printshop in Roanoke, Virginia. It is run by John Reburn. As an artist with over 25 years of experience, John spent most of his career in Los Angeles working as a graphic artist. Trained at Arizona State University and Otis Art Institute, his background in typography and graphic design led him to explore the beauty and simplicity of old-school printing.

The Character Viewer can be accessed through “Edit > Special Characters” in supported apps, through the shortcut “Control Command Space”, or by adding it globally to the menu bar (see screenshot below). 

Although Arabic is the third-most widely used script in the world, there is a lack of sound typographic literature. This publication is a multi-disciplinary reference work that combines the latest academic research with applied typography. The focus on elements that pertain specifically to Arabic typography prevents overlapping with the comprehensive literature on Latin script typography, making the book relevant and accessible to the widest possible audience. The first part provides an in-depth synthesis on the typographic history and development of the Arabic script, bringing together a cohort of young scholars who are breaking new grounds in pursuing research excellence. In the more extensive second part, these historical foundations are complemented by a concise guide to Arabic typography through the lens of a design practitioner. Inspired by Jost Hochuli’s standard work “Detail in Typography”, the author vividly addresses all relevant micro-typographic parameters.

• Language: English
• Pages: 304
• Size: 17,5 × 25 cm, Hardcover
• ISBN: 978-3-7212-1017-0

ARB Letterpress is a full production commercial letterpress shop in Kansas City that specializes in letterpress, foil stamping, embossing, die cutting and bindery finishing work. ARB Letterpress was founded by shop owner Jan White.

Jan worked in a print shop bindery her first year of college with an older gentlemen that ran a Heidelberg Windmill. After working there a while they began to train her on the Windmill and that was her first introduction to the letterpress industry. She learned how to handset type for envelopes, letterhead and business cards and she fell in love with craft. Letterpress allows us to be creative with something tangible - letterpress let’s us get our hands dirty and create beautiful pieces. 

After several years of traveling and career changes Jan ended up back in the print industry where she eventually learned how to run more equipment like Kluges and Heidelberg Cylinders. Once the last place she worked closed it’s doors, the timing seemed right to start a business of her own with her husband Brad where they became experts in foil stamping, die cutting and embossing. After several years perfecting those trades, Jan started to miss the art of creating and putting ink on paper with handset wood and metal type. 

An opportunity presented itself to buy a small letterpress printing shop and that was the start of a renewed love of the printing process. She acquired a Gordon printing press and a lot of type and old cuts. The love of setting type and creating art on paper had grown. The result is incredible of course, but in her opinion the process is equally as great.

Arcade Game Typography presents readers with a fascinating new world of typography: the pixel typeface. Video game designers of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s faced color and resolution limitations that stimulated incredible creativity. With each letter having to exist in a small pixel grid, artists began to use clever techniques to create elegant character sets within a tiny canvas. This book presents typefaces on a dynamic and decorative grid, taking reference from high-end type specimens while adding a suitably playful twist. Arcade Game Typography recreates that visual aesthetic, fizzing with life and color.

Featuring pixel typefaces carefully selected from the first decades of arcade video games, Arcade Game Typographypresents a completist survey of a previously undocumented outsider typography movement, accompanied by insightful commentary from author Toshi Omagari, a Monotype typeface designer himself. Gathering an eclectic range of typography, from hit games such as Super Sprint, Marble Madness, and Space Harrier to countless lesser-known gems, Arcade Game Typography is a vivid nostalgia trip for gamers, designers, and illustrators alike.

Archivio Tipografico is an active and collaborative space for the preservation, the study and the practice of typographic arts. The aims are to preserve, to keep alive and to reinvent in a contemporary way the craftsmanship knowledge for movable types composition and high quality letterpress printing.

Archivio Tipografico was born in 2003 as a private collection of materials from several closing northern Italy print-shops. Today it counts 2.000 fonts of lead, wood and plastic movable types, a variety of functioning printing presses including platens and flatbeds, and several typographic tools of every kind. It’s a collaborative working space, where new and old generation of printers, typographers and designers meet to develop artistic and commercial printing projects.

Archivio Tipografico offers integrated and personalized graphic design, letterpress and movable types printing, hot-foil printing, edge coloring, scoring and die-cutting over different kind of printing goods: books, greetings card, business cards, posters, wedding and stationary sets, art editions.

Founded by Andrew Hoyem in 1974, the Arion Press publishes deluxe, limited-edition books, many of them printed by letterpress, illustrated by prominent artists, and some accompanied by separate editions of original prints. Arion Press is a cultural tenant at the Presidio, the new National Park in San Francisco, where it shares a handsome industrial building with its second division, M & H Type—the oldest and largest type foundry in the United States, serving the needs of designers and letterpress printers around the world—as well as its nonprofit adjunct, the Grabhorn Institute.

ART HOUSE Letterpress is a design and letterpress studio in Kazan, the largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. 

Art Text 3 is graphic design software for creating lettering, typography, text mockups and various text effects on Mac.

• Quickly and easily create works of art out of regular fonts.
• Create sophisticated title art for Keynote and Powerpoint presentations, logos and icons, web and social media channel graphics.
• Ready-made templates for 2D and 3D text graphics.
• Fill tools - gradient presets, textures and shading materials.
• Masks for adjustable shadow and glow effects.
• Included Graphic Content - vector icons, symbols and shapes; flash, flare, sparkle and light trace objects; and backgrounds and textures.
• 3D Text Materials - textures, bump map surfaces, and environment map textures.
• Twist, curve and bend 2D and 3D texts with preset forms.

The aim of the Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM) is to bring together organisations and individuals interested in printing heritage in order to share knowledge, experience, approaches, and resources in all fields of the graphic arts as they have been practised from the time of Gutenberg until the present day.

Membership is open to print-related museums, heritage workshops and collectors actively involved in preserving the heritage of the printing industry.

All over Europe there are a large number of printing and paper museums, print workshops, private collections, and graphic arts sections within technical museums which conserve the machines, techniques and skills of the past: from typesetting, wood and copperplate engraving, photomechanical processes, through the various processes of putting ink onto paper, to finishing and bookbinding.

Similarly, the actors involved in preserving and transmitting the machines, techniques and skills of the past are equally varied: practising and former printers, collectors, museum professionals, archivists, historians, typographers and graphic designers, artists and printmakers… and the list is far from exhaustive.

Though museums, workshops and collectors each have their own approach to this effort, they all share a common goal: the preservation, transmission and interpretation of the many ways in which printing and the graphic arts have contributed to the dissemination of information and knowledge and the progress of society.

Origins of the AEPM

The Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM) was founded in Grevenmacher (Luxembourg) in February 2003 with the aim of encouraging co-operation among European printing museums and promoting printing heritage as an important part of European cultural heritage.

It was originally an informal group formed around a project entitled “Preservation of historical printing skills”, whose purpose was to bring together museum specialists with a view to preserving traditional printing skills and techniques. Although many European printing museums and workshops already had the necessary knowledge and skills to do this, it was felt that there was a clear demand for specially trained museum staff which would increase considerably in the future as what were once widespread industrial processes receded into the past.

It rapidly became apparent however that printing and related museums do not operate in a vacuum. They naturally cooperate, on an almost daily basis, with the many collectors and heritage workshops who play an essential rôle in preserving both the machines and the skills of printing as it has been practised over the centuries, whether in a craft, industrial, or post-industrial environment.

In September 2012, the AEPM decided to open its membership to workshops and collectors active in the field of printing heritage.

In February 2014, the AEPM was formally constituted as a not for profit association registered in Brussels under Belgian law.

Aims of the AEPM

As a broad network of museums, heritage workshops and collectors, the activities of the AEPM are focused on:

• the exchange of information, experience, and knowledge of the machines and skills which were once common in the printing trade but which have been superceded by modern industrial processes,
• the training of specialists in traditional printing methods with a view to actively preserving them and transmitting them to future generations,
• the development of new techniques of presentation and mediation of printing heritage with a view to creating a better understanding the links between communication technologies of the past and present.

Atelier-Musée Imprimerie (AMI) is a large printing museum in Malesherbes, 70 kilometers South of Paris. Created by Jean-Paul and Chantal Maury it offers 5,000 square meters of exhibition space including workshops where visitors can make paper or learn the arts and crafts of paper marbling, type composition, printing and bookbinding. The 700 objects on display include 150 machines. 

Atelierwerkstatt Wien is a studio in Vienna run by Alfred Pfeiffer and Alexander Mandic. The studio offers graphic design work, letterpress printing and letterpress workshops. 

Scalable outline fonts as we use them today became widely available with the introduction of PostScript and PostScript-enabled printers in the middle of the 1980s. But the high-quality output was only created on the printer itself. Screens and printers without PostScript support continued to use bitmap fonts. Mac OS didn’t gain native support for scalable fonts until the introduction of TrueType in Mac OS 7 in 1991. In order to render PostScript fonts from the actual outline on screen or to print them on printers without PostScript support, Adobe released the Adobe Type Manager product. 

The ATypI or Association Typographique Internationale (the International Typography Association) is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to typography and type design. A primary activity of the association is an annual conference, held in a different city each year. It is organised with the help of local members and institutions, often universities or colleges.

In addition, ATypI want to:

• promote contemporary digital fonts
• encourage outstanding typography and typographic design
• campaign for the protection of typeface designs
• influence legislators around the world

An online-version is available here: http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelmap.html

Base Camp Printing Company strives to keep its process identical to a print shop back in the day, when a cast-iron printing press was state-of-the-art technology. They specialize in posters, invitations, stationery, and business cards, designed, set and printed the old fashioned way — by hand. 

Base Camp Printing is run by Emily Sokolosky. Born and raised in Charleston, WV, Emily is the owner, designer and printer at Base Camp Printing Company. Emily was introduced to letterpress during her studies at WVU. There, she found a perfect marriage of her two loves: typography and relief printing. After learning the process of letterpress with WVU’s expansive collection of wood engravings, Emily interned at the legendary Hatch Show Print in Nashville, typesetting and printing gig posters. 

With the help of Dan Davis and Hillary Harrison of Kin Ship Goods, Emily opened Base Camp Printing in May of 2016. 

“The Renaissance Typography Database brings together information relating to the history of printing materials (typefaces, engraved blocks) used in Europe from the 15th to the 17th century. It is based on over twenty years’ work by the team of the Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes, in close partnership with the Computer Science Laboratory at the University of Tours. […] The database enables the description and indexing of materials appearing in numerous digital libraries.”

Bespoke Strokes is a calligraphy studio by Chantelle Hoffmann. She took courses with Masters Penmen Michael Sull, Harvest Crittendon, and Jake Weidmann.  She is also an active member of the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting (IAMPETH).

Big Wheel Press is a traditional letterpress studio located in Easthampton, Massachusetts. It was founded by Bill Muller in 2006. He had first been introduced to the world of hand printing by his father in 1964.  After seeing The Ideal Toy Company's home printing press, called The Big Press, in Popular mechanics, he bought one as a gift for Bill.  

Art, design and handmade crafts have been apart of Bill's life ever since. For 30 + years he has owned Guild Art Supply, a fine art supply store in Northampton, Ma. If it weren't for this endeavor,  he may not have ever found himself in his own print studio!  It was during a visit to his friend (and old employee), artist Ali Osborn's, studio that Bill become driven and determined to start up his very own letterpress studio. Ali, a printmaker, had been hand printing an edition of prints while Bill stood, watching in amazement, as one print was inked, aligned, spoon rubbed and set out in a line to dry.   A conversation on letterpress printing started and from there equipment was researched and shortly after, acquired.

The first press was a Pearl #14. The Pearl has a large cast iron flywheel.  This distinctive characteristic of the press was, in part, where the press name Big Wheel came from (the other being a throwback to his very first Big Press from 1964). 

Familiar subjects of BIS Publishers include graphic design, fashion, architecture, product design and advertising. BIS has earned a national and international reputation for prizewinning books for creative professionals and their clients. Well known is the prestigious series of Dutch Design books, which BIS has published every two years since 1990 in collaboration with the Association of Dutch Designers BNO.

Carly James and Kevin Nelson, co-owners of Bison Bookbinding and Letterpress, have been in the craft since 2004 and are passionate about preserving the printing technique. 

• Opens: BitFonter 3 Document (.bfb), Photofont (.phf), OpenType SBIT (.ttf), BDF, Windows (.fon, .fnt), X11 (.pcf), PalmOS (.pdb), IBM AFP, HP PCL (.sfp), EPS, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, GIF, etc. Mac version also opens: Mac font suitcase, Mac TrueType, PDF, Photoshop (.psd). 
• Imports: AFM metrics, rasterized bitmaps in a outline font installed on the system or from a supported outline font editor. 
• Saves: BitFonter 3 Document (.bfb), Photofont (.phf), OpenType SBIT (.ttf), BDF, Windows (.fon, .fnt), PalmOS (.pdb), IBM AFP, HP PCL (.sfp), etc. Mac version also saves: Mac font suitcase, Mac TrueType. 
• Exports: PNG, TIFF, AFM metrics, FontLab VFB, outline font or pixelfont to a supported outline font editor.

Black River Letterpress and Paper company is a design and letterpress studio. They specialize in wedding invitations and corporate event branding. As well as offering greeting cards and stationery products for retail outlets. The studio combines computer added design blended with the centuries old craft of letterpress printing. They have several vintage and antique printing presses including a Golding Jobber No.6 from 1887.

The studio also offers training and letterpress workshops for those who are interested.