New York Letterpress Printing

What exactly is letterpress printing?

Four centuries ago, Johannes Gutenberg invented letterpress printing with movable type, cast from metal, and his printing method became the ubiquitous publishing process for centuries to come. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, however, handset metal and wood type was surpassed by photo typesetting and the letterpress printing process itself was surpassed by offset printing, which is much faster, oftentimes more accurate –and more economical–, but lacks the inherent tactile, deeply impressed experience of letterpress printing we practice today.

Letterpress printing has seen quite a resurgence over the past few years, especially for high end stationery on soft, cottony paper stock – broadsides, business cards, invitations, even packaging and labels.
Letterpress is also extremely versatile, as it not only imprints ink on paper, it also allows for die cutting, perforating, scoring and numbering.

Today, hardly anyone with a creative bone in their body can resist the beauty of deeply impressed letterpressed typography and illustration work. Thanks to a growing number of suitable paper stocks, printing color and debossing at the same time provides an aesthetic that is quite fresh, although it is a manual process with the aid of decades-old machines.

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