Continuing Education

133/141 West 21st Street

Letterpress is a medium of endless possibilities. This course starts with the basics: ink, rollers, a large collection of metal and wood type, and printing presses. Students will design a business card with hand-setting metal type as the first of several group projects, learning the fundamentals of letterspacing to form word shapes. We will also explore how to make photo-polymer plates from digital output, printing wood-type T-shirts and bags, printing from found objects (collagraphs), and press cutting and folding. How to lock up a form on the press will be covered, using spacing, leads, and "furniture" (larger blocks to fill out the press) and students will print editions of their work. Past projects have included stationery, wedding invitations, poetry, children's books, artist books and calendars.
NOTE: This course is held on campus at SVA.