Talk:Letterpress printing

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North American Craft Revival[edit]

I'm thinking about making two edits on the page. Creating a new category from the 1.2 subcategory where the "Rise of craft letterpress and revival" is discussed. I think this topic is much bigger, and could use more relevant information. This new category would discuss the contemporary developments, and the modern use of letterpress as art and "craft".

I also think that there is more information about the history of letterpress within a North American context.--Mdblackmore (talk) 11:27, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Postal Use[edit]

This should make reference to at least the much older use where a person's ring, mark or postal hand stamp is used to mark an object. This pre-dates Guttenburg by hundereds of years in Europe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.149.211.131 (talk) 15:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Frisket Merge[edit]

Against. Frisket film is also a material that is used in general 2D art applications. Ugh. Just found frisket (airbrush). --Mrs Scarborough 04:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why this is in Printmaking category?[edit]

Johnbod 04:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From the article:

"the term letterpress can also refer to the direct impression of inked media such as zinc "cuts" (plates) or linoleum blocks onto a receptive surface."

Last I checked, lino cuts (along with resingrave and woodblock, both of which I have printed in combination with movable type on a relief press) are part of printmaking. Littlerubberfeet (talk) 03:16, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

External links[edit]

The external links section is becoming a bit of a directory, with links to sites that are simply examples of letterpress printing or Website fronts to associations. All links really ought to be to encyclopedic information on letterpress printing in general that regular readers will find useful without having to register, join or attend something (see the external links guidelines for details). I've tidied up a few of the ones with the least appropriate content (not that they are bad sites, just that they are least appropriate for a Wikipedia article). I think some of the others are still a little light on general info, so if you think they need trimming further feel free! I suspect there is good reason to link to a good directory for a subject like this, somewhere where any link associated with letterpress printing could be listed. We could always default to dmoz one [1], but does anyone know of a better one? -- SiobhanHansa 19:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Briar Press is a clearing house and discussion board for all things letterpress. They have a Yellow Pages with every significant letterpress link in existence. Littlerubberfeet (talk) 07:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The two best sets of links are ones that are already in the article: Briar Press which is a stunning, and pretty complete, directory of sites on the subject, and the Introduction to Letterpress Printing, which is the top-ranked Google site on the subject, and is the defacto starting place to which most novices get directed. There are probably half a dozen other directories (most out of date), but links to those will be found in the prior two, and I'm not sure they add anything (nice to see you here, Siobhan!) Yorker (talk) 03:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The first two links (regarding fiveroses.org) have been nonfunctional for at least ten months as of May 2017, but in April 2017 the site owner said elsewhere that he's working "to get everything reestablished." Making a note so somebody can check later to see if it goes back up.Alianoraree (talk) 08:30, 14 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rotary Letterpress section needs editing, pruning IMHO[edit]

This section is not well written. The information is useful, particularly as a balance to the predominance of 'craft' letterpress info, but it is lacking in clarity, uses unfamiliar jargon and awkward syntax. No disrespect meant to the contributor(!), but perhaps we could rework this a bit?

Pfraterdeus (talk) 13:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures[edit]

A couple of pictures of actual letterpress might help the visually ignorant like me to understand what te term means. ThanksCampolongo (talk) 08:09, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Printing in Asia[edit]

This article significantly differs from its Japanese version where it is clearly described (with citations to reliable sources) that there excited letterpress printing in China and Korea much earlier than Johannes Gutenberg "invented". I have put similar remark in the article of Johannes Gutenberg, but unfortunately there is no any response. --79.244.30.126 (talk) 16:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this article is much too American-centric, and omits revivals elsewhere. Jamesmcardle^(talk) 23:06, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization question for Wikimedia Commons[edit]

I'm trying to synchronize and improve the categorization structure over at the Wikimedia Commons, and since posting in category talk pages is rather futile, I will post them here: what is the term for the physical press, a letterpress? If so, is the plural letterpresses? Morgan Riley (talk) 22:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit requested on February 11[edit]

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined. Some or all of the changes weren't supported by neutral, independent, reliable sources. Consider re-submitting with content based on media, books and scholarly works.

It seems inconsistent to not mention the Texas A&M University - Commerce in the first paragraph in the the Current Initiatives section while there are images posted from their downtown Dallas location. The school offers a wide variety of text/font related courses in digital and analog form.

Give us a reliable source confirming that Texas A&M offers these courses and we'll consider adding your suggestion. Thanks, Altamel (talk) 18:06, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gutenberg a.k.a Charles Worrall?[edit]

Opening section, third paragraph, first sentence: "Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg a.k.a Charles Worrall in the mid-15th century..." Can anybody show that Johannes Gutenberg is also known as Charles Worrall? There's no in-line citation here, and Gutenberg's page doesn't mention such a pseudonym. (If instead of "a.k.a." the contributor meant to say "or," then who is Charles Worrall?)Alianoraree (talk) 07:39, 14 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Photo etch/photo engraving/photogravure[edit]

Photo etch is referenced in the first paragraph. Is this much the same thing as photo engraving and photogravure? What interests me is that I believe all three would be intaglio processes. If so, then these printers were able to print in both intaglio and relief (letterpress) simultaneously? Hard to picture how that works. I've done traditional artistic etching (intaglio). You push ink down into the grooves and then spend a long time wiping excess ink off of the top surface of the plate before printing. How that process could be automated and not result in ink smears everywhere is hard to picture. But since greyscale images appeared in newspapers, they must have been made with intaglio plates, since to my knowledge you can't produce greyscale images in relief printing (if anyone knows different I'd be interested). Of course you can also produce greyscale with offset lithography, but that would not be combined with letterpress, to my knowledge. Kawfmin (talk) 14:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

But if I'm right that a "photo etch" plate would be intaglio, then the second paragraph needs to be revised to make this clear. As of now, the article describes photo etch as a relief process. Kawfmin (talk) 14:42, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I think a photo-etch or photo-engraving plate can be either relief or intaglio. And you can get a grayscale effect from a relief photo-etch/engraving plate. Which must be how it worked when newspapers were printed in letterset with grayscale pics. Kawfmin (talk) 14:58, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Imposition" section[edit]

The second paragraph of the "Imposition" section is in very poor shape; the sentences are illogical to the point of being meaningless. There seems to have been either some very destructive editing or an incompetent original author. I can't fix it because I can't even figure out what it was supposed to mean. TooManyFingers (talk) 22:42, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@TooManyFingers: Any better now? Imposition has its own article so I saw no reason to keep any of the flagged stuff. The rest looks reasonably ok to me. -- asilvering (talk) 23:45, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]