Letterpress Bookbinding prints

March 04, 2026

Letterpress Bookbinding prints

INK PAPER LEAD / PRESS COVER THREAD

This phrase is coined from the title of an exhibition put on in 2002 over in Canada by The Loving Society of Letterpress Printers and The Binders of Infinite Love (incredible name), which was titled 'Ink Paper Lead, Press Leather Thread'. In the book of the exhibition, which I found in one of London’s second hand book shops, Anne Sutherland writes;
“The phrase is reminiscent of an old London street vendor’s cry, or perhaps a child’s skipping rhyme. It lists the basic components of the letterpress printed book followed by the materials used in a classic bookbinding; a mantra, as it were, for devotees of the finely printed book.”
I found this to be a beautiful concept and phrase, and had an idea for a print that uses letterpress to print the text, framed by a book press. Each word could be interpreted to be a page or a book, creating a visual of the combination of letterpress and bookbinding; 'the finely printed book'.

Design

The design was fairly straight forward, so I took to carving the book press into lino, using a frame guidance on placement and size. I cut out the middle so that the text block can fit in the space. This allows for both elements to print at the same time. Once carved, I checked out it prints and made an amendments.

The next step was to choose a typeface from the selection of type we have at LAU print room. I also had to consider pt. size so that the text fits nicely into the design. In the end I chose to try three typefaces as I struggled with making a decision and decided it would be good typesetting experience to reproduce the same text block with different typefaces, noticing how they differ in placement and fitting. So in the end I chose Albertus Caps 24pt, Profil 20pt, and Old English 24pt.

I then typeset the text block. I started by selecting the pieces of type for the text in a composing stick, doing 3 lines at a time in a stick.

Selecting the pieces of type for the text in composing sticks, using line pieces to fill around the words.

Setting up the chase's using furniture and coins to secure it all.

Checking the lino and text block fit together.

All 3 text blocks set and ready:

Once set it block, I checked how they were printed, finding that there were some amendments to make, then adjusting the block so that it all printed according to design. The amendments included mistakes of placement and were solved by turning some components the correct way or swapping a letter.

Printing

Once the linocut and text block were ready to go, I tried printing them separately to check how they worked together. For this I used the Albion press for the lino, and an upright Adana for the type. Things seemed to be how I imagined, so I continued to the next step.

For the prints I used the Western press. Me and print technician Mike tried printing both the lino and type at the same time as planned, but it was too tricky to have the lino sit level with the text block, so I decided for this run to do them as separate elements.

The chase in the press:

Prints!

The Profit type were particularly hard to print with as they were well-worn from many years of use. This made them uneven, causing patchy printing, and less defined, which meant it was easy to flood with ink and cause bleeding. So it took longer to get a cleaner print of this typeface than the others, Albertus and Old English, which printed cleanly straight off the bat!

To print the linocut, I used the Albion Press. I made a template guide to line up the text and lino design efficiently and effectively.

The outcome is just as imagined and I am very happy with the way the different printing methods work together. I think The Albertus Caps typeface is most successful, however they are all effective. I enjoy the bright fun nature of the checkerboard coloured riso paper stock, but also the classic nature of the white.