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"Projets,” like the one shown here, were student projects we composed of metal type at the Laboratory Press at Carnegie Tech University. The fine press printing program was the first of its kind in the U.S., started in 1922.
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Ray conducts a page-through of "matching" copies of Electric Fire from the Clouds, a concept book about Benjamin Franklin's historic electrical experiment with a kite. He explains how the text is arranged to be sympathetic to the unique "ink pull" image appearing on each page.
The Fellowship for American Bibliographic Societies (FABS} is having their annual conference at the University this weekend and today brought a lively group to Lead Graffiti to talk books and to breathe some creative and rarified bookmaking air.
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At Lead Graffiti we are extremely fortunate to have invested in the purchase of an Intertype C4 linecaster. It adds significantly to the historical value of our collection as well allowing us to offer a first-hand experience with "hot metal" type for participants in some of our workshops.
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LEAD GRAFFITI HAS CONDUCTED a number of workshops with the Delaware College of Art & Design, most often working with professor John Breakey, whose design class has recently taken our H.N. Werkman Creative Letterpress workshop.
A good friend, Casey Smith, was invited to deliver his ideas to the 2018 edition of RipperCon, a biennial conference of all things Jack the Ripper, held in Baltimore, April 7 - 8 and wanted a keepsake to accompany his talk.
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DO YOU TEACH TYPOGRAPHY? Here is a project you should give twice. The first time during the first week of the semester. The second time during the last week.
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Over the past couple of years we've put together a lot of circumstantial evidence that our Albion iron hand press was originally purchased to print The Frick Collection Catalog. We've finally gotten our answer.
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We hit the wall right at Pennsylvania Avenue and 7th Street when the March turned into a singularity, and the space between people disappeared. We were in an excellent position near speakers, a straight on view of a giant screen, and the Capital.
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Ralph Begleiter was the director of a University of Delaware speaker series entitled "Global Agenda" that invited speakers to talk about a political theme. In 2005 it was called "Rx for the President." The final speaker that year was John Bolton. We don't remember the reason, but Bolton canceled. We suspect the controversy around his hiring was probably an element.
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We cannot imagine the additional pressure that the rash of school shootings is having on this generation. We want to show our support for sane gun laws.
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We hated working for a client who came armed with a logo and an accompanying design manual dictating specific color options for both the logo and the corresponding background, how close images could occur to the logo, etc.
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How Ink Writes Poetry. Click the image to get the whole story first and then come back to this blog entry.
Ray has long been mesmerized by the idea of there being a Stephen Hawking, much less that there was a real Stephen Hawking. Many other things that just wander out of the darkness of his shelves of experiences and Stephen Hawking is one of them.
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Looking from our corner back up through the 40 tables of fine press books.
THERE WAS A STRANGE ENERGY at the Manhattan Book Fair on Saturday, March 10, and it happened right out of the gate.
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The Newark Post, the local Newark, Delaware, newspaper got wind of our 10th anniversary celebration and sent a writer / photographer to join us.
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RD Burton walked a group of members of the Upper Chesapeake Book Arts Group through the process of producing a non-adhesive accordion-fold book at Lead Graffiti.
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On September 22, 1958 the United States Post Office saluted “the proud profession of journalism by dedicating a commemorative postage stamp to a basic American right—our American free press.” So spoke L. Rohe Walter, the special assistant to the postmaster general, at the stamp release ceremony that was held at the world’s first School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. Walter delivered a rousing lecture highlighting American history’s great guarantors of freedom of the press: Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and also Benjamin Franklin, America’s first postmaster. Joseph Pulitzer was also quoted in the remarks: “Our Republic, and its press will rise or fall together.”
A commemorative binder with a sheet of these 4 cent “Freedom of the Press" stamps, along with a transcript of the dedication speech is held in the RIT Cary Graphic Design Archives as part of the Lester Beall Papers. Beall (1903-1969), was a New York-based modernist graphic designer who won the commission for the stamp design. Mr. Walter commended the design as follows: “Currently the Post Office Department carries close to three billion copies of newspapers a year in the furtherance of its traditional position as handmaiden to the nation’s free press. This new stamp is in the same tradition. Its distinctive design, emphasizing a hand holding an old-fashioned quill pen, a stylization of a hand printing press and horizontal and vertical bars suggesting type bearers, is the work of the noted artists and designers, Lester Beall and Charles Goslin.” (Goslin, [1932-2007], then at the brink of his career, went on to teach design at Pratt Institute.)
One hundred twenty million of these stamps were printed at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1958. Their design is just as fresh and their message just as relevant, almost 60 years since their date of issue.
⬆ We prduced a keepsake to give away at our 10th anniversary celebration. We had our Albion iron hand press set up to print the enlarged stamp image. The piece also included an original stamp, along with a description. Participants were supposed to print the stamp image and then sign the keepsake.
NOTE : We will fill out information about this stamp as we find it. We love this stamp and have purchased about 15 sheets of it off eBay over the past year.
Gerald Cloud wrote a complimentary review of Lead Graffiti's, Moments Carved in Paper no. 4 : Endurance Letterpress.
Read MoreEven if you know us pretty well there are a couple of things about Jill that you might not know.
Read MoreJoin the Lead Graffiti letterpress studio for some fun as we celebrate 10 years of printing slowly & patiently via letterpress. Saturday, February 17, from 2 to 6 pm. 120 A Sandy Drive, Newark, Delaware
Read MoreJill and I joined in the Women's Marchwith several hundred thousand marchers in 2017 in Washington, DC. This year we joined with Indivisible local members in the protests in Philadelphia.
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