Letter Pressset, ink & pull

Pick a sort from the case, drop it into the composing stick, justify with quads and spaces, lock the form into the chase, and pull the lever. Every impression carries the bite of the type, the unevenness of the ink, the fibre of the paper.

i. type casecalifornia layout

ii. composing stick40 sorts · 3 lines

The chase is open.Set a line in the stick and pull the lever.

iii. typefacefive faces

iv. inkoil-based

v. paperstock

vi. body & bleedpt

body48pt

leading1.05

ink bleed0.45

vii. specimensjobbing

Method

The compositor lifts each sort — a single piece of metal type — from its compartment in the case and places it, mirror-image, in the composing stick. The set form is locked into a chase, inked with a brayer, and pressed onto paper by the platen. Variable ink density and the slight bite of the type are part of the record, not a defect.

On the impression

Each character on the broadside has its own micro-displacement, rotation and opacity, computed from the pull number. Pull again and the page is reset; the run is unique. The ink-bleed slider widens or tightens the gaussian halo carried by oily ink into paper fibre.

Colophon

Faces: IM Fell English (after the punches cut for John Fell, Oxford 1672), Old Standard, Cormorant Garamond, UnifrakturMaguntia, Playfair. Output as scalable vector — set in the Fezcodex foundry, anno MMXXVI.

— f.