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Lead Graffiti

120 A Sandy Drive, Sandy Brae Industrial Park
Newark DE 19711
Phone Number
a letterpress lab of sorts

Your Custom Text Here

Lead Graffiti

  • about
    • intro
    • bios
    • 12 DNA projects
    • callouts
    • our lab
    • contact
  • calendar
  • store
    • subscriptions
    • workshops
    • fine press books
    • broadsides & posters
    • cards
    • Cinderella stamps
    • Blank books by Lead Graffiti
    • Blank books by Anne Hessel
    • Tour de Lead Graffiti 2011-15
    • letterpress things for sale
    • New Products
  • workshops
    • STUDIO SUBSCRIPTIONS
    • TECHNICAL LETTERPRESS
    • . . basic type composition
    • . . vandercook
    • . . iron hand press
    • . . floor-model platens
    • . . week-long letterpress
    • CREATIVE LETTERPRESS explained
    • . . meander book online
    • . . werkman druksels
    • . . quotable broadside
    • . . holiday card
    • press rental
    • BOOKMAKING explained
    • . . bookmaking basics
    • . . 6-pocket accordion
    • . . one day one book
    • . . coptic stitch
    • . . clamshell
    • . . paste paper
    • . . bookmaking bonanza
  • blog
  • search

What would a good student do? Right here. Right now.

February 22, 2019 Ray Nichols
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WHEN I WAS TEACHING CREATIVE THINKING and trying to give my students some incentive, I would often raise the question “What would a good student do? Right here. Right now.” to try to multiply a simple opportunity into a small miracle.

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Tags students, teachers, projects

DCAD's post-Werkman workshop

April 25, 2018 Ray Nichols
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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.


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Tags projects, workshops

William Ibbett? Jack the Ripper?

April 5, 2018 Ray Nichols
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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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Tags projects

John Bolton : The WH / Lead Graffiti connection

March 23, 2018 Ray Nichols
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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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Tags students, projects

Everything the same, but different

March 20, 2018 Ray Nichols
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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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Tags students, teachers, projects

Dreaming Stephen Hawking

March 14, 2018 Ray Nichols
How Ink Writes Poetry. Click the image to get the whole story first and then come back to this blog entry.

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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Tags projects, students

Women's March / Philadelphia

January 21, 2018 Ray Nichols

Jill 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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How ink explains whatever

December 29, 2017 Ray Nichols

Maybe we can't get Stephen Hawking, but we should be able to get someone who at least has won the Nobel Prize.

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Tags projects

Fewer dingbats holiday card / 2017

December 27, 2017 Ray Nichols

Our good friend, Christine, came to the studio to do her holiday card. We loved it so much we asked if we could use it as the basis for our Lead Graffiti card.

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Tags projects, workshops

Holiday card workshop

December 4, 2017 Ray Nichols

It is always interesting to see what someone does when they come in without any notion of what it is that they want. Typically, we will decide among the participants as to colors. For this workshop, the colors were silver and teal.

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Tags projects, workshops
Older Posts →

Our Lead Graffiti blog is a mass of varied information that is hard to understand. The search option in the top navigation works quite well if you can hit the right keyword (s). In this sidebar, we’ve highlighted some personally meaningful entries that might help if you want to try a couple of entries. To DEEP DIVE, click somewhere in the right column and then scroll down the left column. Also, if you know us, you can try searching for an appropriate word & the word “blog.”

2025

Resist
Liar, Liar.
Just do it!
Bernie Herman

2024

"Ink Pulls:" the hows and whys
Family holiday card workshop
“Liar, Liar.”+3 broadsides @ NAA exhibit
Waldorf diplomas / 2024
More on X-ing the Paragrab
”Concertina spine” book workshop
Lead Graffiti labyrinth
Jill, Ray, & Brodovitch @ the Barnes

2023

Forward for “X-ing a Paragrab”
UCBA member IMHO Meander Mook project
Black History is White History broadside
AIGA / Philadelphia Feedback broadside
Dunya Mikhail “Pronouns” broadside
etaoin shrdlu
Seven Fun Facts about the Linotype

2022

DCAD First-year talks
Cy Twombley. It’s just my opinion anyway.
”No more war. No more Putin.” broadside
Buying our Albion : that story
January 6th assault broadside

2021

Waldorf School of Philadelphia diplomas
Teleport broadside
ONLINE MEANDER BOOK letterpress workshop

2020

A design example of subtle racism
Looking back : Histories of Newark : 1758-2008
Retrospective exhibition at DCAD
Broadside : Black Lives Matter. A lot.

2019

A wonderful film about Ben Joosten
People Were Close (2004 book project)
WHYY-TV / Waldorf School of Philadelphia
What would a good student do?

2018
Alone in Berlin : postcard power
Doves’ type : metal & digital
“Blue Wave” broadside
John Bolton / Lead Graffiti connection
Alan Kitching’s VCUK workshops
U.S. Senators postcard mailing (coming)

2017
Four things you might want to know about Ray
Introducing Stephen Frykholm at AIGA

2016

Saul Bass. A no-show.
Burning Man & Lead Graffiti’s journal
Chris Fritton, The Itinerant Printer
Porter Garnets’s 10 commandments

2015
Best Intertype project #2 : round calendar
The Nash Equilibrium

2014
WHYY-TV’s Best of 2014
London Bombing’s 7th Anniversary

2013
Tour de Lead Graffiti. Sports Illustrated.
Grant Hart. Letterpress printer?
July 4th revolution coasters

2012
Thank You, Craig Cutler

2011
APHA National annual meeting program

2008
Designing Lead Graffiti’s logo
Art Directors Club of NY Grandmasters Award

2004
VCUK’s Alan Kitching letterpress workshops
VC family album pages

2003
Alan Fletcher : Raven Press logo origin
Bukva:raz! - Our first serious piece

2001
Visiting Eric Gill’s Gravesite