letterpress video

original short: LunaLux from mn original on Vimeo.

One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is, “What is letterpress?” Simply put, it’s a printing process in which ink is applied to a plate with raised characters and then pressed against paper. What makes letterpress extra special is that the process is done by hand on a very large, very old machine ONE COLOR AT A TIME!

This video by LunaLux does a great job of demonstrating how letterpress works. If you have any additional questions about the process, please leave a question in the comment section below!

Posted on 05.24.10 to Trends. Tags: .
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One Response to “letterpress video”

  1. jordanbf Says:

    May 25th, 2010 at 5:59 pm

    So they create the plates for each color individually and spread the ink on a roller? Very cool that these antique machines did all the paper feeding themselves; the technician uses it almost like a manual, simple copy machine! Even the device used for trimming the excess edges is old.