March 30, 2004
Old School Moveable Type
Photos from our Pyramid Atlantic letterpress course this past weekend. Click any of the images for a more detailed look (we plan to use these in our teaching).
Type in a California Job Case and a galley tray.
Drawers of type with two small platten presses.
Language in the palm of my hand (12-point type).
Using a composing stick.
A bit further along.
Standing type (note the blanks for white space).
Locking up (the type is transferred from the composing stick to the bed of the press and wedged in place by the small pieces of wood, called “furniture”).
The pressure on the furniture is reinforced by tightening the quoin key.
Ink.
At last we’re ready to pull the press!
Another pull.
Where the furniture, quoins, and quoin keys are kept.
Two tiny little platten presses.
The fruit of our labor (excerpt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as translated by John Dryden—a passage from the Procne and Philomela myth).
Outside Pyramid Atlantic on Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland.
Wonderful! Is it true that, like typists, compositors are not supposed to look at the composing stick as they work but instead to focus on the copy of the text they are composing?
Posted by: George at March 31, 2004 10:02 AM | Link to CommentDunno, but we certainly looked! (Actually, the "nick," which Francois was asking about, is a little groove cut into one side of the type so the compositor can tell which way it's facing by touch alone--which lends credence to the idea. Touch-typesetting as it were.)
Posted by: MGK at March 31, 2004 12:16 PM | Link to CommentHi Matt,
Thanks for the wonderful photographs! I hope that you had a great time in the class. Helen sends her regards and says to tell you that you are "The Best".
Posted by: Tina Harris at March 31, 2004 02:44 PM | Link to CommentMatt:
Is this the way you plan to set type for your book?
bk/kk
Posted by: bk & kk at March 31, 2004 09:46 PM | Link to CommentHi Matt
You automatically felt for the nick as you picked each piece of type out of the case and you rolled it around between your fingers until the nick faced away from you as you put it into the stick, following your copy at all times. Its also a bit like riding a bike you never forget, as I recently found out setting out of a case for the first time in almost thirty years. Hope you enjoyed the experience.
Okay, to revisit my question above: I was taking a break in the British Library today, looking at the "Words, Sound, & Images" workshop located in the basement. According to the exhibit, and in accordance with what Stan writes above, the compositor does not look at the type as it is placed in the stick, but feels where the nick is in order to correctly orient the type while staying focused on the copy. *And* ... the type is composed upside down and backwards, which you probably already knew.
http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/workshop.html
It's a small but very cool exhibit.
I'm giddy this week because I also had the opportunity to visit Musee de L'Imprimerie in Lyon, France:
http://www.bm-lyon.fr/musee/imprimerie.htm
I highly recommend it!
When are you and Kari going to start attending SHARP?
Posted by: George at July 24, 2004 06:50 PM | Link to Comment