Dressed In Value is a print & web design studio in Louisville, Ky.

August 09, 2008

The guys at typographer.com wrote a thoughtful piece about letterpress in response to P22’s recent release of the Stern typeface:

I’ve heard people say that letterpress gives warmth, but I prefer to think of it as giving humanity. That the type’s interaction on a page is so dependent on the punch cutter, the caster, the compositor, the printer, the humidity, the papermaker and inkmaker gives it a humanity, not a warmth.

And:

You would be remiss as a designer to not consider all reasonable options, but the sign of a good designer is the ability to assess that word reasonable, and remember it does not always just mean easy. And as for cost, how much do you charge per hour? And how much did that laminate cost? Or the hexachrome printing? Come to think of it, how may of those cards from the last run went to waste?

Go forth, consider pressing ink into paper. Consider it not from dogma, but from what might just be worth the candle.

Go forth. Read the whole.