You might have heard the term letterpress being banded about on the internet. But what exactly is it?

Letterpress is a form of relief printing using a printing press and moveable type, the kind of printer invented by Gutenberg in the 15th century. Modern industrial letterpress techniques are different from the traditional version which uses a photopolymer plate to reproduce digital art.

Typically a print would consist of raised blocks carved into letters or pictures, ink is then rolled onto the surface of these blocks. Paper is placed on top and pressure from above marks the ink with paper and also leaves a textured indentation of the block.

In the UK printing presses were largely abandoned in the 1950′s. Today letterpress printing is largely used for specialist ornate books, personal stationary and invitations.

In the UK and US letterpress has been undergoing a revival partly fuelled by Marther Stewart in the 1990′s and the craftivism movement. Stewart featured invitations in her weddings magazine and it took off from there.

Part of the appeal of letterpress is the tactile nature of the print itself. You can’t do a print run on cheap paper due to the embossing process so the heavyweight paper gives a feeling of quality.

Another graphically distinctive feature of letterpress is its inability to reproduce photographic images, that might sound like a disadvantage but it restricts the designer to strong typography, line and pattern.

When designing for letterpress your restricted to spot colours, it requires a bleed on both the actual document and the areas where coloured ink is to be printed and fonts must be no smaller than 5 point.

Theres a lot of debate between traditionalist letterpress printers and the modern technique. The modern letterpress uses digital art and plastic film negatives. The plastic film is mounted onto aluminium for the printing process and ink is applied by hand.

There are of course some advantages to using the digital method since theoretically you’re not limited by the artwork which can be created and the printer doesn’t have to invest in letter blocks. Of course there are the detractors who say it isn’t real letterpressing and the quality of print isn’t the same, but I think either way there are some truly stunning designs out there.

There are some great letterpress designs on etsy and if your feeling really DIY you could even make your own letterpress machine!

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