Letterpress Essentials: The Broadside

Learn how to create a letterpress broadside - a sheet of paper printed on one side used historically in Europe.

About this Class

Using poetry or prose of your choosing, you will learn to set and space lead type, ornaments, and/or cuts to reproduce and illuminate your chosen words. With type set, we'll go over how to use the Challenge cylinder press, which is ideal for high-precision printing, as well as refinements to the type form. Once we've finished, you will trade prints so everyone goes home with an assortment of the class's work!

This course covers all material necessary for letterpress certification on typesetting and using the Challenge Press. With a little practice in open studio after this course, you should be ready to take the certification test and demonstrate your capabilities to safely and effectively run a press unsupervised.

Details

• Bring a poem or piece of prose between 65 and 85 words.
• Registration closes May 25.
• Bring a lunch. BARN has a refrigerator and microwave on the lower level.
• The $10 materials fee, included in the cost of the class, covers all materials you'll need (except for the poem or prose you need to bring).
  
• This class does not cover use of the C&P Letterpress machines, or provisional presses. For information regarding those presses, or questions about certification, contact [email protected]

Class Policies

• Ages 14 and up are welcome.
• View BARN’s current COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
• BARN is committed to accessibility. Tuition assistance is available. Fill out the application before registering.
• For those who might need physical assistance, learn more about our Companion Program.

Instructor

Eli Backer is an artist, composer, and engineer who works in a wide range of media and is constantly making. A Bainbridge native, she holds a master's degree in glass from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a bachelor's in computer engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Her work can be found in the Cynthia Sears Artist’s Books Collection at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, at the Center for Book Arts in NYC, and at the Fleet Library in Providence, R.I. She finds setting type and working with the presses quite meditative.