Renowned San Francisco-based designer Earl Gee’s has released Edition 13 The Beauty of Letterpress: The Art of Making An Impression which adds a modern twist to the time-honored process of letterpress. Prints are available for sale at The Beauty of Letterpress site with all proceeds go to help support The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum.
Gee, Partner and Creative Director of Gee + Chung Design, and AIGA SF Fellow, says his Silicon Valley technology client base doesn’t often afford him the opportunity to design for letterpress. “We’d definitely like to encourage more of our clients to make an impression with letterpress. What I appreciate most about the technique is the attention to craft that it signifies to its audience. Designing for letterpress creates a distinctly personal, tactile, and visceral communication that gets people to take notice through the dimension of touch,” says Gee.
Edition 13 is inspired by the process of this old-world technique itself. Gee transformed iconic letterpress tools — platen press wheel, ink blob, composing stick, line gauge, wood blocks — into typographic forms cleverly arranged to spell out the Edition’s title, and engage the viewer. Says Gee: “These amazing tools and techniques have survived for centuries. They connect art and craft, designer and printer, and paper and impression. My design approach was to combine these elements in an unexpected, surprising and distinctly modern way.” The red and black color scheme was inspired by a Russian Constructivist aesthetic. Gee says, “The movement’s dedication to machines and technology, functionalism and modern mediums, and artists and engineers seemed like a natural fit for letterpress’ synthesis of art and machine.”
The Beauty of Letterpress by Neenah Paper is dedicated to supporting the art of letterpress printing — it showcases innovative letterpress works and supports the Hamilton Museum through the sales of the limited edition prints. Edition 13, The Beauty of Letterpress: The Art of Making an Impression is printed on Crane’s Lettra® Ecru White 90 Cover. The prints are $5 and available for purchase at www.thebeautyofletterpress.com.
