Letterpress at Target

(cross-posted from my posts on the Design Museum Boston blog)

Letterpress is moving deeper into the mainstream. The makers of the documentary film Typeface, about a former wood type factory and museum struggling to stay afloat, have teamed up with Target to create a line of clothing with letterpress-inspired designs. In a video, Target’s design team and the Hamilton Wood Type Museum’s directors discuss the unique shapes and textures the museum has to offer graphic designers.

For those who aren’t schooled in archaic printing techniques, letterpress is a printing method that uses individual wooden letters and characters that are arranged by hand into pages of text, and then stamped onto paper. The time-consuming technique fell by the wayside as innovations like offset printing allowed for more automation and efficient mass production. The old wooden forms, previously indispensable to presses around the country, started finding their ways into antique fairs or were treated as garbage as dozens of wood-type printing presses went out of business. Nowadays, letterpress machines are mostly used for fancy wedding invitations or for home decor.

For those who are interested in learning the technique or buying letterpress goods, there’s no shortage of letterpress resources in Boston.