Letterpress Roundtable III

I participated in Boxcar Press's The Letterpress Roundtable, Part III: Shop Tool Star. I like this little thing they have going.

For more tips on tools and ad hoc solutions, go to our Tips and Tricks page.

The Vandercook 100

Heather Mitchell's anthology of Vandercook Printers, The Vandercook 100, is recently released by JustVandy. It is available from Amazon. Extraordinarily fine production. I'm one of those lucky 100.

Richard Bigus fonts

Back in March of 2010, The Bieler Press produced a broadside showing a specimen of the metal foundry typeface Claudius Fraktur. It also introduced (as the colophon) the first showing and letterpress printing of a digital font, BigSpur, designed by Richard Bigus, the highly respected fine press printer/publisher (Labyrinth Editions). It has the best built-in kerning I have ever had the pleasure of setting with. Recent news is that his second typeface, BigSans, has been accepted by Monotype Imaging for distribution later this year on their Fonts.com site.

Richard is currently working on a new typeface, OldStyle Roman, a Jensen, and we will be printing some letterpress specimens of this in the near future. It is possible that these and other material could evolve into the publication of a small pamphlet showing the proof states and revisions of the font. Stay tuned.