Thanks to my recent jump into the Twitter-verse (mostly for Eastman), I heard there was a letterpress workshop at the Genesee Center for the Arts and decided that I should take it. I mean, what good is feverishly reading all about typography (including a pretty nerdy piece on typography in the movies) if I don’t start with the beginning basics?

The workshop was supposed to be from 10AM-1PM, but we definitely went overtime. The instructor, Mitch, was very knowledgeable, patient, supportive, and perceptive. I definitely want to take more classes at the center – looking at pointed pen calligraphy next. Birthday present, anybody?

For this workshop, we were making a card, so I decided that it would be smart to make one for Adrian’s mom (since it’s her 50th and I can’t go to Costa Rica this week for her birthday party). I plotted a few ideas in my head before class and knew that I was thinking of centered justified text for the front, which turned out to be much harder when you only have pre-defined typefaces and sizes! No .5pt sizes like I have in Illustrator. Luckily, I found a really great Gothic font with just enough all-caps letters and a couple of 36pt ornaments to make the top line match the bottom two in width, so I set that for the front and a line in Helvetica for the back (just to let her know that, you know, I made it myself). We printed on a Vandercook No. 4 proof press with Pantone violet. The paper wasn’t super soft so it isn’t super debossed, but I’m happy with my final product!

And of course, pics or it didn’t happen: