My lifelong relationship with type began on my 7th birthday with the gift of a tiny hand cranked printing press. It used adhesive backed rubber type stuck to a revolving drum and inked by hand with a roller, known in the trade as a “brayer.”

Fast forward 10 years to my high-school Graphic Arts class where I learned the mysteries of lead type. Hand kerning headlines, “locking up” a job with “furniture” and “quoins” and my immense pride at being able to correctly identify the contents of each compartment in a California job case¹ – those wonderful wooden drawers with a separate compartment for each and every character and punctuation mark in a font – blindfolded.
Continue reading →