Fangirling about Letterpress

Oh, hey there, sorry I totally sucked at blogging in February. Grad school is doing a number on me. But one awesome thing that I got to experience recently, because of school, is seeing a real letterpress right hurr in Pittsburgh. Like every other girl in Internet world, I have become obsessed with letterpress since the boom of Pinterest. So when my Typography class took a little field trip to the Cyberpunk Apocalypse on the North Side, I was geeking out.

Art Noose at work making note cards for our class. (Pictures by Richelle Szypulski.)

The Cyberpunk Apocalypse, in a nut shell, is a large old house where a few different artists live for periods of time to work on whatever writing or art pieces they want to. So the creator of the cyberpunk house, Art Noose, yes that is her name, is an implant from San Fransisco and let our little class come over to the house to check out her letterpress and show us how it really works.

A few different kinds of type.

Art Noose said that it takes a certain personality to actually want to do letterpress because of how unglamorous it really is. This isn't Pinterest people, some stuff gets messy. And I know bloggers have some weird unwritten rule about how we're supposed to just show pretty stuff, but the actual letterpress isn't cute. The outcome is beautiful and unique, but the process isn't. The letterpress that Art Noose has is from 1904. WHAT!? That's real vintage. 

If you are in to the letterpress craze of 2013 like me, then you should check out Art Noose's Etsy page, where you can get custom prints done, buy greeting cards she's made, and check out her zine Ker-bloom. I hope you all enjoy this little peek at the real deal of letterpress and really hope that it makes you appreciate this art process. I really love it and am fascinated by how people used to make the things we can easily take for granted today because of all the technology we're blessed with. But since I know a real letterpress will never be in my future, whoever buys me THIS SWEET LITTLE ONE for my birthday (July 3rd) gets to be my best friend.

Some of the designs Art Noose made for business cards.