Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century until the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. Letterpress printing remained the primary way to print and distribute information until the 20th century, when offset printing was developed, which largely supplanted its role in printing books and newspapers, but letterpress has survived thanks to small presses and artisan printers.
A significant barrier to the continuation of letterpress printing is the increasing scarcity of new type and the breaking up of sets of old type.
When it was an industrial process, ‘typefounding’ referred specifically to the actual casting of the type; in the present day, it tends to encompass a number of different related disciplines (eg engraving matrices). In a letterpress context, ‘typefounding’ still means the casting of metal type, with the manufacturing of wood type being a separate practice.
Metal printing type can be made in a number of ways:
Monotype machines are still being used in some private presses and foundries in the UK. Other typesetting machines, such as Linotype, Intertype and Ludlow machines, cast slugs (single lines of type, rather than single letters), These are used for ‘typesetting’, not ‘typefounding’, as they can’t cast individual pieces of type that other printers can use in their cases.
Associated skills include:
Hand processes – These include the hand processes of making type from punch cutting to type casting. They are practised by very few people in the UK (as a small part of their typefounding work), but are still practised in France by only a couple of people.
Machine processes – This includes type produced by machine using Monotype equipment. There are a large number of Monotype machines in the UK but many not in use – they are heavy, take up a lot of space and require a long period of training to be used correctly. As with all industrial machinery, they are potentially hazardous when poorly maintained or used incorrectly.
Wood type (larger sized display type) – at present this is:
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Individual craftspeople:
Using Monotype
Hand casting
No longer practised commercially but there are some people who are practising for educational or research purposes. These include:
Stan Nelson is a US-based practitioner.
Punchcutting
It is no longer being practised commercially in the UK but is taught by practitioners such as Nelly Gable at the Imprimerie Nationale in France.
Richard Ardagh at New North Press and Nick Gill at Effra Press & Typefoundry have done some punchcutting using the Monotype system of patterns on a Pierpont pantograph.
Woodtype making
International woodtype makers include Ryan Molloy, Dafi Knhune, Guillaume Bétemps, Marko Drpić, Virgin Wood Type and Wood Type Customs.
The Type Archive (London) used to hold all the necessary machinery to create type using Monotype casters. It is now being moved to the Science Museum Group’s facility in Wroughton, and no new matrices or typefaces will be made. Russell Maret recently created Hungry Dutch (a new face inspired by the Fell types) with the Archive’s assistance.
There are accessible overseas resources (note, US type height is the same as the UK). There are active foundries (two or three) there along with individuals. In Europe, Patrick Goosens in Antwerp preserves typefounding. He has acquired the remnants of type foundries from the US and India and is actively restoring them to working states. He is keen to preserve the arts of punchcutting, both hand and with engraving machines.
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