poster

Best Day Job Ever


:: Common Press poster by me::

I'm a lucky girl. My day job these days is working at Common Press, the University of Pennsylvania's letterpress studio as their letterpress tech/coordinator. I spent my first few months there organizing, cleaning, and getting the presses tuned up. Still working on that, I'm looking at you SP-15... Now though, we're turning our focus to printing new work at the press as well as archiving and documenting old work.

This poster is one of the new pieces I printed. It was printed using only wood and metal type from the studio on recycled French Paper.

Like Tears in Rain...

I printed a letterpress broadside with the famous tears in rain quote from the movie Blade Runner. I am now queen of the nerds.


:: like tears in rain ::

The type is handset 8 pt Univers Italic, set in a straight line across the lower half of the print. Every time I pulled a print, I wiped the ink off of the last part of the text, "time to die" so that it would print lighter than the rest.


:: all wood and metal type and forms ::

The rest of the print was composed entirely from wood and metal type and forms (big blocks of wood) that were available where I work, at Common Press of The University of Pennsylvania.


:: type and wood block ::

Each print is cranked through the press one color at a time and one piece of paper at a time, so that's ten layers of color and text on every print. It makes some interesting and unexpected textures and colors when those layers meet.


:: type and wood block ::

The prints will be available soon from an edition of 15.