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The path, work and ideas of our guests shared with us. From different places, from different generations, letterpress uniting them.
10 October 2019
Alan Kitching (RDI AGI Hon FRCA), is one of the world’s foremost practitioners of letterpress typographic design and printmaking. Born 1940 in Darlington, Co. Durham, he was an apprentice compositor (1956– 61) before meeting Anthony Froshaug and co-establishing the experimental printing workshop at Watford College of Technology, School of Art (1964).
He worked with Froshaug until 1967, but continued to collaborate with him on student projects at the Central School of Art & Design. In 1973 Alan began his own design practice in London. In 1977 he partnered with Derek Birdsall at Omnific and started letterpress printing there in 1985. He then went on to establish The Typography Workshop in Clerkenwell (1989), and began teaching through letterpress at the Royal College of Art (1991–2006). From 1994 he worked in partnership with designer/writer Celia Stothard (later his wife). Sadly Celia passed away in December 2010 after a long and brave battle with cancer.
Alan continues to exhibit and lecture across the globe, and is renowned for his expressive use of wood and metal letterforms in commissions and limited-edition prints.
10 October 2019
He completed a letterpress compositor course at a Salesian school, becoming soon thereafter himself a teacher at these schools that were a reference in let terpress teaching for the printing industry. His skilfulness took him to Italy, where he graduated in graphic arts. When he returned to Portugal, he first set tled in Funchal, Madeira, where he coordinated the graphic training and managed the press of the Salesian School. He then joined the National Printing Office in 1970 after a selection process. He was head of the Department of Graphic Production for 25 years, witnessing a great transformation that ranged from letterpress to photocomposition and to digital production.
He was in charge of the last type catalogs of the type foundry and redesigned three series of characters («Europa», «Bicentenário» and «Lusitanas») that were produced in lead. When he left the National Printing Office, he devoted himself to another of his passions, education. He founded the Graphic Arts and Technology Course at the Tomar Polytechnic Institute (IPT), the first course that takes the technical teaching of these fields at the higher education level in Portugal. Among others, he assembled a model letterpress workshop at the IPT, bringing together an important assortment that was largely donated by the Nation al Printing Office but also included donations from a number of well-known graphic companies.
He has been professionally retired for several years but continues to be a very active voice in the world of graphic arts and beyond. He is the person who probably knows more about letterpress among us and continues to consider himself a typographer. He will share with us a bit of his profound knowledge.
11 October 2019
A graphic artist and typographer, he was born in São Paulo. He is a director and founding partner of OTSP – Oficina Tipográfica de São Paulo, one of the contemporary references when it comes to movable type. He is also a type designer and has authored some fonts of the ITC– International Typeface Corporation catalog.
A member of the digital type foundry Now Type, he is the author of several books on typography and co-editor of the Brazilian magazine Tupigrafia, dedicated to typography and calligraphy. He lived (and occasionally still lives …) in Italy, where he is a regular contributor to the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione (another Meca of movable type) and was co-editor of its magazine Tipoitalia.
He regularly leads letterpress workshops and is invited to deliver lectures at prominent sites. These include the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in the U.S., the St. Bride Library in London and conferences such as the ATy pI, the TypoBerlin or the North American TypeCon.
10 October 2019
Homem do Saco is an international collusion against the ugliness of the world in the form of a cultural association, letterpress workshop and artisanal (or not so much) editions. Composed of Juan Yusta, Miguel Pereira, Luís Henriques, Luís França, Joana Pombo, Manuel Diogo, Mar iana Pinto dos Santos, Ricardo Castro and Rui Miguel Ribeiro, it prints posters and editions that run a few dozen copies using movable type, silk-screen printing, engraving and other techniques (it also uses digital printing, Risograph or offset in larger print runs).
Saco includes several imprints: Landscapes d’Antanho, Pianola, Momo, Diário de um Ladrão, 100 cabeças, Troppo inchiostro, O Homem do Saco. Ink might also run as a result of a special order, to print small runs of self-published books, editions or covers of other publishers, cards, menus or letterpress workshops.
