Embossing on a title page or a debossed panel on a cover can distinguish something quite extraordinary from a common design. This demonstration, using small platen presses, will illustrate using readily available materials to facilitate these processes which are quite within the capabilities of all letterpress printers, but not often used in the book world.

Join Tim in the new UI Center for the Book Student Papermaking Facility and see how we form and dry 3 by 7 foot Japanese-style sheets using inexpensive equipment.

This demonstration will survey both low- and high-tech polymer platemaking for the letterpress. Highlights will include film generation approaches for image and text, washing of plates out by hand, and the bitmapped (stochastic or random dot pattern) generated in Photoshop that is capable of printing up to 300 dpi images on the Vandercook. This technique reminisces 19th century copperplate photogravures without a mechanical half-tone dot pattern.

Different printing plates will be discussed, how to read a 21-step Stouffer Scale for correct exposures, a sample intaglio gravure-style plate that was editioned on a galley proof press, and examples of personal ceramic bookworks printed by polymer relief and handset type. Collaborative projects will be shown with samples of corresponding tightly registered plates (collaborations with Andrei Codrescu, Dimitrije Buzarovski, Mary McCann, and Buzz Spector, among others).

There is something magical about a decorative tooled book, the feel of the recessed patterns and the shimmer of the fine gold lines. This demonstration will be a practical introduction to both traditional and non-traditional techniques that are used for tooling on leather, paper and cloth.

This demonstration will explore text and image relationships through the process of reductive woodblock and letterpress relief printing. Print multiple colors in a woodblock image with perfect registration through reductive printing. Create a limited edition and learn production tips for creating books with only one piece of paper for the entire book. Students work will be shown. Learn about the tools, materials, carving sequence and printing methods associated with reductive and relief processes.

Come by to watch two Center for the Book calligraphers demonstrate hands including Textura, Gothic Cursive, Italic, and Engraver's Script. If you'd like to try your own hand, we'll also help you figure out how to hold and use calligraphy pens. As you watch how the tool moves, you'll see how the broad-edged nib is responsible for the way that so much of our typography looks today.

An introduction to 19th- and 20th-century job printing: a demonstration and exhibit of hand type setting and use of the flat bed hand press and jobbing press.