Reverting to type

Exhibition Reverting to Type will explore the modern execution of letterpress through the work of twenty practitioners.

Time and again hand-crafted type continues to assert itself over other printing, graphic and digital techniques, which supposedly outmodes letterpress by several centuries.

Increasingly post-digital techniques use artisan letterpress to offer in some way what the exhibition organisers call ‘a tactile immediacy’ which they see as lost in modern technology. 

The computer-based and hand-crafted relationship will be explored, but for the most part the exhibition looks at the pure essence of letterpress which survives so because of a demand for the aesthetic and its painstaking accuracy.

Curated by Graham Bignell of New North Press in conjunction with graphic designer Richard Ardagh, examples form around the globe have been brought together for commissioned collaborative prints featuring artists, graphic designers and wordsmiths.

Contributors and collaborators include from the UK Fraser Muggeridge, from the US Yee-Haw Industries and from Switzerland Dafi Kuhne.

Most exhibits will be for sale at the Standpoint Gallery is to host a working Adana press so visitors can hand print personalised Christmas cards.

Reverting to Type will run from 10-24 December and 4-22 January and can be found at the Standpoint Gallery on 45 Coronet Street, London N1.